February 2019 Budget Recap

After a 14-night Asian cruise in January, we had just a short week to spend in Shanghai and Taipei (during the Chinese New Year) before flying down to Auckland, New Zealand for another cruise!

While our 14-night Asian cruise was under budget, we booked this 16-night New Zealand and Australian cruise knowing that we would be well over budget – by nearly $170 per day! That puts us at $2,379 over budget for the month of February 2019 – a month only surpassed by our time at Disney in October.

However, we treated this cruise as an actual vacation – meaning we had a drink package, Concierge Class stateroom, and gratuities all-included. The reason? We will be Elite Members on Celebrity during our final cruise home from Tokyo to Vancouver!

February Travel Highlights

We disembarked from the Celebrity Constellation on Feb. 2 and spent the next few days in Shanghai – just in time for the lunar new year! While it was great to spend time in China for the Chinese New Year, what wasn’t so great were the flight prices leaving China that week.

To save a little on flights, instead of flying all the way to New Zealand right after the Chinese New Year (and since we couldn’t stay more than 144 hours due to the Chinese Travel Visa), we decided to make a short hop to visit Taipei, Taiwan.

A few days in Taiwan and we were then on to New Zealand. We boarded the Celebrity Solstice cruise ship after a short stay in Auckland for my 32nd birthday (Feb. 12), and the cruise then carried us to various stops in New Zealand and Australia, ending in Perth, Australia at the end of the month.

Key Savings

Despite my 16-night birthday cruise (which was much more of a splurge than we typically would do), we still had some substantial savings for the month. Our biggest savings were:

• Celebrity gift cards purchased from eBay ($264 saved) – instead of trying to get the absolute cheapest cabin on the cruise ship, we booked a Concierge Class (aka Butler service) to get us 5 Celebrity loyalty points a night. To pay for the cruise, we purchased more than eleven (11) Celebrity gift cards from eBay – $1000 in value for $736 total cost, saving us a quick $264! They ranged from 40% off (smaller $25 gift cards) to 20% off for the worst case ($500 gift card).
  • If you don’t like eBay or many physical cards isn’t worth your time, even on Raise.com (you and I both get $5 from Raise if you sign up using that affiliate link), as of 3/16/19, Celebrity gift cards go for up to 11.8% off with electronic delivery, and Raise has offered several 7% off sales site-wide, including today – meaning you can get roughly the same 20% savings, especially using cash-back websites and rewards credit cards
  • If you are booking with a cruise, be sure to check any terms on the gift cards – for example, with Celebrity you can only use up to $500 per person per cruise.
• Flights booked with Chase UR points ($1,168) – instead of spending $1,168 on our flights from Shanghai to Taipei and then Taipei to Auckland, we booked using ~78,000 Chase UR points (redeemed using our Chase Sapphire Reserve at 50% bonus value for travel)
• Hotel points ($382) – we saved the equivalent of $382 in hotel value for booking our two hotels in Auckland and Perth. Auckland was redeemed using Marriott points, and the Perth Hotel had us at the Crowne Plaza for a free night by using 30k points from my Chase IHG credit card rewards.

February 2019 Monthly Stats

Here are our updated stats from our travels. Note: We found a minor error in the January budget (missed our Google Fi cell phone bill) that changed our total over-budget status for Jan 2019 from $32 over to $95 over. The numbers are corrected in the summary below.

For those that prefer a visual display of budget data (positive dollars correspond to under budget):

For the first time since we left in April 2018, we are running significantly over our total budget. Will we be able to get back on track in our final two months of travel? Only time (and my eating habits) will tell.

Travel Rewards Points Usage

As mentioned above, we used $3,000 in travel rewards to book various flights and hotels this month. However, most of those points were booked a few months prior – thus, our overall rewards balance this month was mostly unchanged.

New Rewards Credit Card(s) of Choice

So, what rewards credit card am I most excited about for 2019?

It may come as a surprise to many (since we are usually touting all the benefits of Chase), but Bank of America recently announced that their cash rewards credit cards now have a 3% rewards category that you can actively choose (and change) each month – from online purchases (such as Raise.com, Amazon, eBay via Paypal, many others!), travel, dining, gas, and more.

Why am I so excited about 3% in the category of my choosing when my Chase Sapphire Reserve gets an effective 4.5% on travel and dining, after the 50% bonus?

Because when you pair the BoA credit cards with being a Preferred Rewards Member, that now means you get 5.25% cash back in the category of your choosing each money.

I have both a BankAmericard Visa and a Bank of America Cash Rewards Mastercard, and both of these now have the 3% category option – so I can choose two categories that I’ll get 5.25% back on (cash!) each month!

Even the current Amazon credit cards only offer 5% back, and an extra 5.25% used when purchasing discounted gift cards from Raise.com (affiliate link to get us both $5) is an amazing boost to potential savings!

I’ll be exploring what other things may qualify as the “online purchases” category – but for a list so far, check out all the companies you can get 5.25% back with here.

February 2019 Expenses vs. Budget

While we held out and didn’t purchase any additional art for our collection on this Celebrity Solstice cruise, the overall cost of the cruise was much more than our typical interior stateroom that we would book last-minute.

Most categories were over due to the way that we allocated the cruise expenses among the various housing/food/etc. areas.

Our expenses over time clearly show the days we got on and off the cruise, indicated by the steep portion of the curve:

Lessons Learned and Takeaways

• All-inclusive cruises are generally overpriced
  • While we booked the Concierge Class on our New Zealand and Australia cruise solely to score points to benefit our Celebrity loyalty status in April 2019, we found the added perks (drink package, gratuities included) to be likely overpriced
  • For example, while we had the drink package, we got a total of four (4) free bottles of Champagne and a bottle of red wine while on our Asia cruise, not including all the other free drinks at night and during the day that we got. Thus, you can have plenty of free drinks, and even if you buy an additional 2-3 drinks a day, you probably won’t hit the daily cost of the drink package – most of which have recently been going up substantially in price
• Credit card rewards can be a lucrative way to travel for cheap
  • As mentioned in the above credit card section, it is possible to get 5%+ back in most categories today – if you aren’t, you’re leaving free money on the table!

Assumptions and Notes:

• All monthly expenses are totals for two people

The month of March will be spent exclusively in New Zealand. Will our budget tip more towards the expenses we saw in Hawaii and Disney, or will New Zealand offer cheaper living expenses?

Tune in next month to find out!