How Our Family of 4 Flew Around the World for $11,340 (Every Dollar, Tracked)

This summer our family of four spent 52 days traveling around the world. We flew business class on four long-haul flights, spent a month living in Udaipur, India, road-tripped Australia’s Great Ocean Road, ate dim sum in Guangzhou and finished with a 13-hour STARLUX flight from Taipei to Phoenix.

The whole trip cost us $11,340. That’s flights, hotels, food, transport and shopping for all four of us. It works out to $54 per person, per day.

Below is every number: what we paid, which points we used, what we’d do again and what isn’t in that total. One number you won’t see us lean on is “retail value,” and we’ll explain why further down.

The trip at a glance

• Length: 52 days, June 27 to August 18, 2026
• Travelers: 2 adults, 2 kids
• Total cash spent: $11,340
• Per person, per day: $54.52
• Points used: 1,332,000 airline points, plus 63,000 Hyatt points and two free night certificates

The route, and how we paid for each flight

We didn’t pick the route and then hunt for flights. We looked at where award seats were open and built the trip around them. Here’s how it came together.

Between flights we took trains in India and China, rented cars in Australia, and drove the last leg home from Phoenix to Florida. A flight would have cost about $1,500 cash or a lot of points, so we turned it into a road trip with three free rental days.

How we got four business class seats

Finding four award seats together in business class at a good rate is hard and often impossible. So we split up. My husband took our oldest, and I took our youngest.

On the Sydney to Guangzhou leg, ND and Micah flew through Ho Chi Minh City, and Caleb and I flew through Hanoi. Both routings cost the same in points: 65,000 Delta points per person, or 260,000 for the four of us (the same 260,000 in the flight table above). In cash, those two economy routings were priced differently, $515 and $815.

That’s the part worth knowing: splitting up costs you nothing in points, while the cash market charges you for it. Search for one or two seats instead of four and a lot more availability appears.

The one we got wrong

Melbourne to Sydney: 32,000 Aeroplan points plus $198 in taxes, for a 90-minute flight that cost around $400 in cash. So we spent 32,000 points to save about $200. That’s about 0.6 cents a point, and it’s the worst redemption of the trip by a wide margin.

I don’t really know what I was thinking. Not every redemption is a good one.

Where the $11,340 went

After we got home, we went through both credit card statements line by line, plus our booking history and payment app logs. These were the only two cards we used on the trip.

That works out to $218 a day for the four of us, or about $2,835 per person for the whole trip.

The points we used

For those flights we paid $1,413 in taxes and fees, plus $640 to buy miles we were short on two bookings. Measured against retail fares of $49,775, that works out to about 3.6 cents a point. That’s the number most points blogs would lead with. We don’t think retail is the fair comparison, and the next section explains why.

Some of those points came from transfers. We moved Amex Membership Rewards to Delta for the Vietnam Airlines flights and Capital One miles to Asia Miles for Cathay. If you’re new to transferable points, our free Points Starter Guide explains how they work.

What points actually do

You’ll see points posts say a trip like ours is “worth” $60,000 or more. We don’t use that number. Nobody in our family was ever going to pay $4,503 for a one-way business class seat to Abu Dhabi, so retail measures us against a trip we’d never have taken.

The better question is what business class costs compared to economy on the same route.

Sydney to Guangzhou. In cash, economy was $515 and business was $2,269, about four and a half times the price. In points, economy was 35,000 and business was 65,000. Under two times. And that rate was there on every date we checked.

Atlanta to Abu Dhabi. In cash, $746 economy against $4,503 business. Six times. In points, 45,700 against the 99,000 we paid. Just over two.

Taipei to Phoenix. In cash, $451 economy against $3,102 business. Seven times. In points today, economy is 42,500 and business is 250,000. Still about six times, so booking it with points at the standard rate is barely better than paying cash.

We paid 85,000, because the seats that opened three days out were saver awards. At 85,000, business is double economy, and we’ll take that every time. At 250,000 we’d have been on a different flight, or gone somewhere else.

That’s the real benefit. Points take a choice that’s four to seven times more expensive in cash and turn it into one that’s about twice as expensive. At six times, most families say no. At two, a lot of them say yes.

But it only works at the saver rate, and saver space often shows up late.

Hotels: mostly cash, a few nights on points

Most of our hotel spending was cash, and that was on purpose. A month in a Udaipur Airbnb cost $915, about $30 a night. Points don’t beat that.

We used points where they went furthest. That was 8 room nights for zero cash, worth about $1,956:

• Andaz Delhi, 2 nights for 25,000 Hyatt points
• Hyatt Regency Taoyuan Airport, 2 rooms for 23,000 Hyatt points
• Hyatt Place Melbourne Essendon, 2 rooms for 15,000 Hyatt points
• Holiday Inn Golden Mile Hong Kong, an IHG anniversary free night
• Melbourne Marriott, a Marriott 35K free night certificate

The best one was Hyatt Place Melbourne. Rooms were $240 a night, and we paid 7,500 points each. That’s 3.2 cents per point.

Two things that saved this trip

1. A schedule change, and a flexible award, got us a better route

We were originally flying from India to Australia through Colombo on SriLankan Airlines, booked with Alaska miles. About a week before, SriLankan changed the schedule and the new times were much worse. We found Thai Airways seats through Bangkok with Aeroplan points, switched, and canceled the Alaska booking. All 150,000 miles went back into our account.

The lesson: Alaska already has a flexible cancellation policy on award tickets, so we could get our miles back either way. Many other airlines charge a fee or have strict rules to cancel an award. But when the airline makes a significant schedule change, like moving your flight by hours or changing your connection, not just 30 minutes, you can usually cancel without a penalty, even if the fare rules look strict. What counts as significant depends on the airline. Don’t assume you’re stuck. Our only loss was one non-refundable hotel night in Colombo, $98.82.

2. We booked our flight home 3 days before it left

Our original flight home was China Airlines premium economy to Vancouver, booked with JetBlue points. We booked it on a fully refundable award on purpose. Then we set an alert on seats.aero for STARLUX and EVA business class out of Taipei, because both often release seats close to departure.

Three days before the flight, standing in a store in Shenzhen, the alert went off. STARLUX had 9 business class seats to Phoenix. We booked four with Alaska miles and canceled the old flight, and our JetBlue points came back.

The lesson: if you’re hoping for last-minute seats, book your backup on a refundable award. Being able to switch is worth more than a slightly better backup.

What isn’t in the $11,340

We want this number to be honest, so here’s exactly what we left out and why.

• India is an estimate. We spent a month in Udaipur with family and friends. We counted our everyday costs there, like food, rickshaws and SIM cards, at $1,500 for 33 days, about $45 a day for the four of us. We rounded that up on purpose.
• Home bills. Things like our utilities and subscriptions kept running while we were gone. They aren’t trip costs, so they’re out.
• Credit card annual fees. We pay them, and we get back more in credits and value than we pay. They aren’t specific to this trip.

One more thing to know: $54 a day was possible partly because we stayed in one place for a month. Slowing down is one of the biggest ways to cut costs. A two-week trip with hotels, drivers and guides every day would cost more per day, even with the same flights.

Could your family do this?

Probably, but it’s worth being clear about what it actually takes.

Time. 52 days isn’t two weeks of PTO. We homeschool, which is why a month in one place was possible. On a shorter trip the per-day number goes up, even with the same flights.

Points, which take years. 1.33 million points isn’t a trick. It’s a household putting ordinary spending through the right cards over a long time, plus sign-up bonuses. Anyone selling you a shortcut is selling you something.

Tolerance for plans changing. One flight fell apart on this trip, and we changed another three days before it left. If that sounds stressful rather than interesting, a packaged trip might genuinely suit you better, and that’s not a criticism.

What you don’t need is special access. We earn points with everyday spending and a few good cards, and we book when the seats show up.

If you’re just starting, grab our free Points Starter Guide. It covers the basics in plain English, including which cards we’d start with.

If you want a plan built around your family, that’s what Points Planning is for. We’ll show you which cards to open, or how to turn the points you already have into your own trip.