I often mention ‘do the math’ with regards to points vs cash booking options most websites offer.

Most times they save you a lot of money (and you wont even pay the taxes !).

Below I have an example, kind of two birds with one stone scenario (using one of Intercontinental’s TAHITI properties).

1.) Very rare to find a sought-after overwater villa bookable directly on points (they normally classified as speciality bookings and not many resorts will offer them on points / free night).

2.) If you don’t have enough points or need to manufacture points at half the rate the website sells them at use my cash and points trick to buying them in unlimited quantities. (At any given time you may get 10,000 points at a rate of USD $70 with this method). Enormous amounts of saving as per below.

The cash vs the points booking options.

The confirmed room type the point booking offers.

Lets do the math:

cash 73,212.00 xpf = $838 usd = R9488 per night ($1 =R11.30)

                                       vs

points 50,000 = $350 = R3955 per night

SAVINGS = R5533 PER NIGHT !!!