Travel Hack Recap: Hawaii, Part 4 – Oahu & Final Thoughts

We left off having finished our tropical escapades on the island of Maui, ready for the adventures that would await on Hawaii’s most popular island, Oahu. This was the homestretch of our trip, having spent 9 days on Maui with just 3 left to explore the city of Honolulu. Check out my Travel Hack Recap of Hawaii – Oahu & Final Thoughts below!

To read Hawaii, Part 1 – The Backstory, click here.

To read Hawaii, Part 2 – West Maui, click here.

To read Hawaii, Part 3 – Sightseeing & Wailea, click here.

Where We Went

After making our way back to Kahului airport, we took a short Southwest flight from there to Honolulu on the island of Oahu. This would turn out to be a pretty significant change in pace, as Honolulu is the largest city in Hawaii, the state capital, and by far the most touristy.

Day 10, continued – Kahului, Maui to Honolulu, Oahu

Our flight arrived around 12:30 in the afternoon, circling toward the tarmac with a great view of downtown Honolulu and the world-famous Waikiki Beach. From there, we tested our public transit capabilities again – fortunately, there’s a single bus line that goes from HNL airport to the downtown-Waikiki area. It takes a little longer than a cab/Uber/Lyft, but for just $2.75/person we made it to our hotel on the far southeast end of the Waikiki area in about an hour. Totally worth it, in my opinion.

After checking into our hotel (the Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach), we set out to find some sustenance. A quick lunch at Musubi Cafe – and by “quick” I mean the food was quick to eat, the line to order was not – and then we set out to explore Honolulu by foot. We were determined to try the local delicacies, and with Honolulu’s huge Asian influence, musubi made the list.

From there, we spent the rest of the night getting our lay of the land and, of course, catching the sunset at Waikiki Beach:

Day 11 – Pearl Harbor

As a history buff, particularly in all things World War II, this was the #1 attraction on my list for our entire trip. Leading up to our trip, tickets for the tour (including boat ride out to the USS Arizona Memorial) would be released at a particular time of day one week in advance. So I dutifully set a calendar reminder for a week ahead of time.

The calendar reminder went off (Day 4 of our trip) and I went to the website to book our tickets – only to find out they had recently changed to opening up tickets much farther in advance, and tickets for our desired day were completely sold out. Devastating. I was resigned to the fact that we would just have to make a return trip to Honolulu some day to be able to tour Pearl Harbor.

Chase Ultimate Rewards points to the rescue! When you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, you have access to the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal full of travel experiences that can be booked by redeeming your points instead of paying in cash. We also used this method to pay for the luau and rental car while on Maui. (Yes, that’s a referral link. Chase has increased the referral bonus to 20,000 points for a limited time, normally 15,000, on top of the 100,000 point bonus when you spend $4,000 in the first 3 months).

For the cost of 3,920 Chase UR points each, we booked a Pearl Harbor tour by coach bus, which included a ticket for the boat ride to the USS Arizona and a Honolulu city tour – not a bad consolation prize. The Pearl Harbor exhibits and USS Arizona Memorial exceeded even my lofty expectations – a beautifully tranquil, yet somber location to remember the events of December 7, 1941 and the United States’ entry into World War II. You gaze over the sparkling bay, trying to picture all the massive war ships under siege that day. Truly a chilling experience, but one I highly recommend.

Day 12 – Diamond Head

Occasionally, we find ourselves in a situation while traveling where the mapped distance between two points doesn’t quite match up with the overall exertion level needed to cover that distance. This was one of those situations.

From our hotel, the entrance to Diamond Head State Park was just 1.8 miles. Totally reasonable to walk, given that we had been walking 10-15 miles a day for most of our trip. Get up early enough to do the crater hike before the afternoon sun becomes unbearable…piece of cake. What we failed to realize was that the 1.8 miles to the park entrance was a long, slow incline. Then, it was another long, slow incline to walk up into the park, through the tunnel in the side of the mountain, and then back down the other side to the center of the crater and start of the actual hike.

Needless to say, we got a good workout in before even starting the crater hike itself. After several more somewhat grueling miles of incline up the interior rim of Diamond Head, we finally made it to the summit. The payoff was spectacular:

The real travesty was having to walk all the way back…mostly downhill, but still a challenge after the long walk and hike up the crater wall. Sure, we could have caught a ride, but we decided to save that money to rewards ourselves with fruity cocktails instead.

Day 13 – Honolulu to Oakland to Denver

Always the toughest day of the trip – at long last, we were heading home. After checking out of our hotel, the bus carried us back to HNL for our 9:30am flight to Oakland, and then on to Denver where we would spend the night.

In a development that should surprise no one, our flight was delayed leaving Oakland. Originally scheduled to arrive in Denver around 10pm, we didn’t get in until almost midnight, missing the free hotel shuttle again. One expensive Uber ride later, we checked in at the Hyatt Place Denver Airport, craving the comfort of our own bed.

Day 14 – Home at last

Luckily, the flight out the next morning wasn’t until 11am. We were even fortunate enough to make use of the free hotel shuttle this time, and the trip back to Minneapolis went off without a hitch.

How Much We Spent (and Saved)

Let’s take a look at the Travel Hack Recap spending breakdown for this leg of the trip:

Category	Budget	Actual	Notes
Flights	$33.60	$33.60	$5.60 per flight per person (OGG-HNL, HNL-DEN, DEN-MSP) + 21,307 Southwest Rapid Rewards points
Hotels	$0.00	$0.00	20,000 Hyatt points + 2 Hyatt free night certificates
Food/Drink	$280.00	$348.17	Did well most of the trip so we splurged a bit in Honolulu
Entertainment	$12.00	$84.00	$10 Diamond Head park entry, $10 Pearl Harbor tour tip + 7,840 Chase UR points for tour, and a Priority Pass airport lounge snafu ($32 each)
Transportation	$131.00	$102.32	Just $11 for Honolulu bus fare; Uber in Denver, Lyft from MSP to home
TOTAL	$456.60	$568.09

Pretty good considering the $64 for entry into the HNL Priority Pass lounge (we thought we had some free passes to use but were clearly mistaken). Breaking down the cash savings from travel hacking:

• Total cost of flights (OGG-HNL, HNL-OAK-DEN, DEN-MSP) was $857.80 at the time
• 3 nights at Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach would have been $1,061.84 and included free breakfast
• 1 night at the Hyatt Place Denver Airport would have cost about $135, also included breakfast
• Chase points for the Pearl Harbor & Honolulu city tour (7,840 x 1.25 = $98.00 value)

Even excluding the savings of taking public transit instead of Uber/Lyft/Taxi/Rental car, we saved over $2,100 by travel hacking this leg of our trip to Hawaii.

Let’s tally up the totals for the entire trip:

How Much We Spent (and Saved) for 14 days in Hawaii

Category	Budget	Actual	Notes
Flights	$56.00	$56.00	55,614 Southwest Rapid Rewards points
Hotels	$0.00	$4.00	206,000 Marriott points + 5th night free, 107,000 Hyatt points, 2 Hyatt free night certificates
Food/Drink	$925.00	$883.18
Entertainment	$100.00	$164.70	35,673 Chase UR points (luau, Pearl Harbor tour)
Transportation	$475.00	$323.00	33,476 Chase UR points (rental car)
GRAND TOTAL	$1,556.00	$1,430.88	Just over $100 per day

Not only did we come in $120 under budget, we saved $8,606.24 by travel hacking our 14 day trip to Hawaii.

Conclusion

I know, I know. People don’t take vacations just to see if they can come in under budget. Most people don’t even set a budget. But I’m deranged enough to do just that, and Mrs. FIby35 enables obliges.

The real point of all these Travel Hack Recaps is to show the value of what you can experience by doing a little (or a lot) of work on the planning side of things to score some good deals and being intentional with the money you spend. Certainly, $1,400 is no small amount to drop on a vacation. But when you compare that to the $10,000 price tag it could have commanded while still experiencing all the same things, it makes the entire trip much less stressful.

Some general recommendations on how to save money on your next trip to Hawaii:

• Travel hack your flights and hotels, if possible. The quickest way for these trips to add up is to pay the sticker price for transportation and lodging. We paid just $4 total for our accommodations (for a load of laundry, no less) that would have cost almost $6,000 had we paid cash. Flights were relatively cheap when we booked them, but it still saved us over $1,800 to use Southwest points.
• Don’t be afraid of public transit. It’s not appropriate in all circumstances and may take a little longer to reach your destination. But use that time as a mini-sightseeing tour of the area you’re visiting. Even the more mundane parts of a city may be interesting for an outsider, and you’ll save a bunch of money doing it.
• Research the hell out of happy hour deals. In a place where dining out is extremely expensive relative to where we come from, happy hour pricing was a lifesaver. Sure, we ate a little earlier in the day than we maybe would back home. But we still got the same delicious food and drink at a fraction of the price, allowing us to experience more local places along the way.

We’re already planning our return trip to the incredible islands of Hawaii. Where should we go, and what should we do there? Leave suggestions in the comments below!