Turning Credit Card Points Into A Japan Trip
We love hearing from all of you when your turn credit card points into dream vacations!
A special shoutout to Khoa B. who pulled off a huge trip to Japan earlier this year.
Here’s exactly what he booked, along with some booking wisdom.
For hotels, Khoa opted to stay at 3 different Hyatt properties for 6 nights, including the Hyatt Regency Tokyo:
He redeemed 91,500 Hyatt points for nearly $1,500 worth of value:
$1,446 / 91,500 points = 1.58 CPP
Khoa earned many of these points from Chase in 2025 and used them less than a year later, right before the Hyatt devaluations in early 2026.
Way to earn and burn!
For flights, Khoa transferred Chase UR points and C1 miles to United Airlines and Singapore Airlines to book two positioning flights and two direct flights to Tokyo.
218,000 points in total and only $57 in taxes and fees for those four flights - plus premium economy there and business class back.
The total cost on that would have been $6,068 - so CPP value was pretty good:
($6,068 - $57) / 218,000 points = 2.76 CPP
Khoa didn’t want the trip to end, but a flight home with ANA Business Class booked through United made the trip home a little more bearable.
So how did Khoa make this trip happen?
He started with a sign up bonus on this card and then applied for the original Bilt 1.0 card during late 2024.
Then, he built out his Chase Trifecta over the next year - earning 140,000 points from sign up bonuses and even a 15,000 point referral bonus along the way.
Nicely done!
This is a very similar strategy we recommend for people starting out in their credit card journey.
Begin with flexible points currency cards and then transfer those points to airline and hotel partners for the most value.
Khoa also said:
"Daniel's YouTube channel actually got me down this path, and I can't believe I made my first big solo trip work out so well. This newsletter is complementary to the content on his channel to share the latest credit news, award booking examples, and more."
Thank you for the kind words Khoa! We appreciate you sending us this information about your successful points redemptions.
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