Deep Dive: Kauai on Points

Part 1 of Hawaii on Points

Author: Matthew July 24, 2024

Hawaii is one of those places that you have to splurge a little bit to fully enjoy; if it's not on the accommodations, then it's on the delicious food; if it's not the flight there, then it's on the rental car to bring you around the island. If you cheap out on every single thing, would you even have a fun vacation? Fortunately, with credit card points we were able to save tens of thousands of dollars on hotels, flights, rental cars, and meals allowing us to splurge more on the ono grinds (best food) and activities.

We were in Hawaii for two weeks, each week split by a different island; Kauai and Oahu, so we'll split our blog posts and vlog likewise. Watch our Kauai vlog here or below!

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Top-Level Takeaways

My hope is that this post inspires you to use your points for some aspirational trips in the future. To summarize some key takeaways/learnings

More credit card points means you don't have to find the best deals: Unlike our Maldives trip where we found saver award space on Emirates and Qatar, our business class flight on United from IAD to LIH wasn't actually even that cheap on points. Even though it was worth it for our comfort and compared to the cash price, we easily booked it since we also had built up a huge bank of points. So even if you don't think you need more credit cards now, if you can responsibly manage more, they'll help build up your points stash.
- Two United Polaris Business Class Seats IAD -> DEN -> LIH cost 270,000 points and $11.20. The cash price during time of booking was $5,584.18, economy was ~$2,000
Chase points transferred to Hyatt hotels provide immense value: We stayed at two hotels on the island, each giving us immense value for our points.
- Grand Hyatt Kauai (3 nights) cost 105,000 points. The base price was $2,628.14 at the time of booking, estimated value is closer to $3,000 because of resort fee waiver ($55/day), unlimited spa access, upgrade to partial ocean view, free meals at the club lounge, etc.
- The Lodge at Kukui'ula (4 nights) cost 180,000 points. The base price was $6,397.37 a the time of booking, providing a 3.55 cpp valuation.
Book early if you can: We booked The Lodge 11 months out, just as the days opened up. One month later, there were no more points booking avaialble. AND The Lodge is no longer under the Hyatt umbrella as of February 2024. For the flight, we could have taken advantage of the United Excursionist Perk to get a free island-hopped (instead of paying $218 and $15 for a checked bag) if we didn't keep waiting for a good deal to show up.

United Polaris Business Class - IAD to DEN to LIH

Booking

More details in the next blog post, but I actually booked our return flight (HNL - IAD) first since it was the only direct flight back home and I wanted to ensure we got business class seats. For the trip to Hawaii, I decided to be more patient and attempted to track and find real award availability throughout 2023 to get the best deal.

August 2023: I booked an economy IAD - SFO - LIH flight on points as back up. That cost 90,000 points for the two of us and I wanted to fly through SFO to use my Priority Pass at some of their nice restaurants. Spoiler alert, later in 2024 the Chase Sapphire Reserve got rid of this benefit the day before we flew!
Fall/Winter 2023: I set up and alerts and searched high and low for partner availability. However, I was beginning to see that United didn't really release award seats on this route and therefore none of its partners would have availability. If there was award availability, Turkish Airlines would have had the same flight for 10,000 points on economy, and ~25,000 on business per person. That's much cheaper than what I booked...
May 2024: With no availability and the trip coming in sight, I decided to bite the bullet and just use a chunk of our Chase points and existing United miles to book the 135,000 points per person business class flight. Although the cpp valuation was still a solid 2.06, in my head, 270,000 points total (instead of $5,584.14 cash) was more valuable for our Emirates first class flight.

We were able to do this because we banked more than a million Chase Ultimate Reward points in 2023 and had continue to earn in 2024. With such a large bank of points that we weren't sure when we'd next use them, we felt comfortable splurging 270,000 points for this 12+ hour journey. Now, there are some who would say we still spent $2,700 on the flight there since we could have redeemed those points for cash. That's something we considered as well, since points still have their base 1 point - 1 cent value. However, seeing that even in cash for economy, the flights would have been ~$1,600 for the two of us, we were only spending an extra $1,100 or $550 per person to get a way better flight experience that we'll share about below.

Hindsight is 20/20

How we could have done this better

If you don't know about the United Excursionist Perk, it's a cool feature to use when traveling abroad and using United miles. In short, when you miles to book a flight between regions (as defined by United) and a flight returning to the same region, United will give you a free within-region flight of the class of the first region. And fortunately the mainland and Hawaii are separate regions. If I had planned this trip better, I could have booked all my flights on one itinerary instead of 3 separate ones, which would have saved us more money. Why? Because I paid $218 and $15 for checked bag to fly on Hawaiian Airlines from Kauai to Oahu. If I had done a combined booking, that inter-island flight would have been 1) $11.20 instead 2) would not have have to pay for checked bags because we have United perks and 3) we would be in first class instead of economy since we flew first class to Hawaii.

Unfortunately, I thought I could find a better deal booking separately and failed. By the time I booked in May for the first leg, the return flight skyrocketed in points, making it dumb to combine everything and risk paying more points.

Ground Experience (IAD)

Quick report; with Sarah's United Quest card we each were allowed 2 checked bags which was more than enough for us. We had some time to quickly get a bite and coffee at the Dulles Capital One Lounge before heading to our gate.

Flight Experience (IAD - DEN)

There were 3 flight options from Washington D.C. (IAD) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH); layovers in either LAX, SFO, and DEN. They were all about the same general time, but LAX and SFO left around noon and arrived at 7pm. DEN left at 8:30am and thus arrived earlier. There were also a couple other reasons we chose this route:

It was the ONLY one with lie-flat seating in business class. LAX and SFO had the normal domestic "first class" that was just a wider seats. For the DEN route, both legs had lie-flat seating.
LAX would have no accessible lounges during our layover. SFO restaurants would be expired by the time we flew. DEN had the new Capital One Lounge we hadn't tried yet!

For the first leg (IAD-DEN) we sat in reverse on one side with somewhat old lie-flat seats on the Boeing 777. They weren't the typical ones with a lot of privacy, but it had plenty of space, large TVs, and enough padding for a quick 3-hour flight. They served us breakfast, which we technically already had in the Capital One Lounge at Dulles. So Sarah got a crepe and I got a Belgium waffle as kind of a dessert to breakfast. They were good enough, sweet and simple - I think many people complain about United's food because of high expectations from international business class.

A nice perk at the was they opened two doors, allowing us business class passengers our own exit, which made for a faster walk to the Denver Capital One Lounge.

Ground Experience (DEN)

Even though our next flight was the gate opposite to us, we took the train to Terminal 1 to enter the Denver Capital One Lounge. We both have the Venture X so we each are allowed free entry and could bring two guests. When we got to the bottom of the escalators before the lounge, a lady stopped us and put us on the waitlist. She said it was take around 15 minutes, but I got a text alert a few minutes after we sat down that the lounge was ready for us.

I checked-in with Sarah as my guest for ease and we found a spot in the crowded lounge, overlooking the tarmac. Because of time-zone change they were still serving breakfast so we got a couple snacks and drinks. With only an hour layover, we mostly just wanted to check the lounge out.

We walked back to our gate expecting be late to boarding... but it hadn't started yet because of some mechanical issue. Long story short, we ended up going back to the lounge because of the delay and was able to try their lunch menu! Thankfully we got the call to board an hour later and got our steps in walking back - and ended up being the last to board. Without our credit cards giving us free lounge access we'd likely be sitting by the gate and possibly buying food/snacks ourselves.

Flight Experience (DEN - LIH)

For this Boeing 752 we had a 2-2 layout and like usual we picked the bulkhead (front) seats. For this longer leg we got blankets, Hawaiian-themed amenity kits, and dinner. Although not as nice as international Polaris seats, this was good enough to get a restful nap in before landing in Kauai.

Amenity Kit:

toothbrush
eye mask
lotions/sprays

Meal:

I got the Baileys, beer, and enchiladas for my first meal, and then a burger before landing
Sarah got beef short rib, and then a protein salad of sorts

Grand Hyatt Kauai

Booking

Going to Kauai expecting to stay at Hyatts, I read about two highly regarded hotels, so I decided to try them both out during the week. Because of my Globalist status, I was actually able to do an advanced point booking 10 months out, meaning I didn't have have the 105,000 points immediately deducted from my account to reserve the room. I just did it a month before leaving, allowing my points to be flexible used elsewhere. The points were well worth it considering the hotel cost at minimum $800/night and the resort fee is $55/day.

If I had booked even earlier though, I could have snagged a suite upgrade with my award, but alas, I was still figuring out timing with flights.

The Experience

By the first morning of the stay, I already knew we had to come back. The view of the grounds and beach were beautiful 24/7, the amenities were spectacular, and the service was top-notch. In next week's blog post we'll share about the things we did on the island, so here we'll stick to the hotel review.

Hotel Overview

Lots of reviews out there, so will hit our highlights.

The spa was a nice secluded place with a lap pool, dry sauna, eucalyptus steam room, jacuzzi, outdoor lava rock shower, and complimentary amenities.
The adult-only pool section was just ages 14 & up, but it was still nice to read books up top and then travel down the lazy river
We utilized the Club Lounge to the fullest potential; free breakfast with fresh fruit, pastries, miso soup, and American food. Cookies and granola bars during the afternoon. Hors d'oeuvres at 5pm, which was basically dinner; one night was stir-fry while another was chicken skewers. Finally dessert started at 7:30pm with cakes, pudding, and other treats.
Water stations everywhere which helped us stay hydrated and cool during our stay

Globalist Perks

Being a Globalist there enhanced the stay by some measurable and unmeasurable experiences.

Free upgrade to partial ocean view instead of the parking lot view (~$100/night)
A welcome amenity gift of local snacks and a bottle of wine
Free club lounge access with the perks explained above saving us a lot of money on food
Free access to the spa, normally $65/day or a comes with a spa treatment.
4pm late checkout, which allowed us to enjoy the hotel basically another full day before we could check-in The Lodge
We could have also gotten free valet parking, but I was fine with walking an extra few feet past the koi pond to save on tipping

The Lodge at Kukui'ula

Booking

The Lodge was the priority booking since they only allowed a couple bookings on points AND later on they removed themselves from the Hyatt umbrella. Each night was just 35,000 points, which was a steal since each night was about $1,600. It was pretty easy to do on the Hyatt website after I transferred in a bunch of points from Chase. I think I could have applied a suite upgrade award to get a 1 or 2 bedroom bungalow... but the base room was already enough, so I'm glad I didn't waste it.

The Experience

It was only an eight minute drive from GHK to The Lodge, but the change was drastic. Gone were the families and lofty buildings, instead we entered an immensely green and luscious community covered in beautiful trees. While the lodge didn't have a beachfront like the GHK, it did have an amazing view from their lobby.

Check-in was led by a concierge who showed us around our bungalow. We had a combined living room/kitchen, a back porch with grill and view of the golf course, a bedroom, and a massive bathroom with an outdoor shower. It was plenty of space to continue relaxing on the vacation. Since their breakfast was a meager continental one with pastries, we got groceries and were able to cook some meals. A short walk to the main area contained their lagoon and pools (yes multiple!), tennis courts, basketball courts, and arcade room. I feel like we fully utilized most of these amenities while we were not out and about.

The most unique highlight of The Lodge is Da Farm Stand and their farm. At Da Farm Stand you can pick up fresh fruit and vegetables The Lodge has grown in the garden. Sarah also picked out some flowers. Later during our stay we visited the farm and saw a ton more vegetables and fruit they were growing. Unfortunately, their massive chicken coop and bunch of hens were cool, but not laying enough eggs for us to try farm fresh eggs.

Thrifty Car Rental

Booking

To get around the island you really need a car, so we booked through the Capital One travel portal. Why? Because Sarah's Venture X had a $300 travel credit that we fully used plus ~$50. So while it was "free" I consider it prepaid with the annual fee. That effectively makes her Venture X a $95 annual fee, which can get even lower with the 10,000 anniversary points.

The Experience

We got a minivan and it was great.

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