Universal Studios Orlando For Free!
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Family Theme Park Vacation. For Free. During Holiday Break. Yes, we did it! We generally like to travel around Christmas/New Years break because the schools are closed and it’s the perfect time for us to get away. The time leading up to Christmas is the busiest of the year for me at work, and I am so in need of a vacation once Christmas is over! Unfortunately, the rest of the world (at least those with kids or who work in schools) also seems to have the same idea! That leaves us with three chioces 1) plan ahead in order to use our miles & points for our vacation 2) be extremely flexible with where we are going to go or 3) pay top dollar. Number 3 is not an option for us. We really wanted to visit Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida. We have been to Disney World about a million times, but had never been to Universal. Or, as they say on the Marco Island), our Universal hotel for 4 nights, and Universal Studios tickets for the 4 of us. This is what I did. It worked out perfectly for us, YMMV (your miles may vary), literally. This is one of the 3 onsite Universal Orlando hotels. There are major advantages to staying Onsite, especially if you happen to be a Harry Potter fan. The main advantages that were important to us: How did we stay for free? We used our American Airlines AAdvantage miles to book hotels, which you can do here. For our 4 nights (during a holiday, high-season period) we “paid” 21,000 – 23,000 points per night. When I priced it out at the time, it would have been $1800. It was so worth it for us. 2. Universal Studios Theme Park Tickets Another major expense of any theme park vacation is the park tickets, especially when you have a family to pay for! We were able to get our tickets for free using our American Express Membership Rewards points. The price (in points) of the tickets can fluctuate, and sometimes they do run out. When we got ours, we were able to get 2 adults passes and 2 children’s passes for 3 day park tickets. I think it was about 12,000 points for the kids and 15,000 for the adults. At the time, it was a buy 2 days get one free promotion at the parks. There have also been times when you could get these tickets for just 5,000 MR points. 3. Flights from Orlando to Philadelphia We were able to use our Southwest points to get from Orlando to Philadelphia. My husband and I both have Southwest Companion Passes, which I will write about another time. The basic gist of it is, if you get 110,000 Southwest points in a calendar year, you get to bring a companion on any of your flights (paid or points) for free. It’s the best thing since sliced bread (which, apparently, is younger than Betty White, but I digress). We only had to use about 18,000 Southwest points total to get all 4 of us home. So, that is how we went to Universal Studios for free at one of the busiest times of year! And we had an amazing time & may even be considering going over to the Dark Side for good. Universal Studios Orlando For Free!
