How We Saved Over $15,000 on Our Family Asia Trip Using Points

One of the biggest misconceptions about travel rewards is that they’re only for luxury travelers or people flying business class. Sure, I would love to travel business class but it’s pretty difficult to collect points for four people let alone two people in business class. Also, I don’t want my children to get used to business class as well, haha.

Our recent family trip to Asia proved the opposite.

Using a combination of:

• Aeroplan points
• Marriott Bonvoy points
• Avios
• Scene+ points

…we managed to save $15,424.79 CAD on a three week multi-country family trip across Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan.

And the craziest part?

This wasn’t backpacking.
We stayed in luxury hotels, visited theme parks, took bullet trains, went whale watching, snorkeled with turtles, and stayed at properties we never would have paid cash for.

Here’s the full breakdown of how we did it.

The Flights: The Biggest Savings

Flights are usually the most expensive part of a trip across the Pacific Ocean for a family.

Our routing looked like this:

YVR → HKG → TPE
OKA → KIX → YVR

Using:

• 438,000 Aeroplan points
• $748 CAD in taxes and fees

Cash price at booking:
👉 $7000 CAD

That alone saved us over $6,000 CAD.

This is where Aeroplan absolutely shines for Asia travel.

The flexibility of stopovers (you can get a free stop over for up to 4 days I believe) and partner airlines makes it possible to build complicated itineraries that would otherwise cost a fortune.

For a family, these savings are game changing.

Also, for our flight from Taiwan to Okinawa in Japan, we used Avion Points. It wasn’t the best redemption because it was about 1%, but we got these Avion points using a brokerage account promotion.

We saved $1480 CAD on these flights and paid $20 CAD out of pocket.

Disneyland Hong Kong with Scene+ Points

One thing I love about Scene+ points is flexibility.

Instead of only redeeming for flights or hotels, we used Scene+ to erase travel purchases after the fact (you can do so up to 12 months after your travel expense occurs)

We went on a low tier day (it was a Tuesday) so prices were reasonable to start with. For a family of four it was $380 CAD in total for one day tickets. Booking through Klook, we were able to redeem using Scene+ points. We saved $380 CAD.

Disneyland Hong Kong is the smallest Disneyland and the waits were very reasonable. We went on almost all rides in one day and mostly waited about 15 minutes or less. I even got to go on the “It’s a Small World” ride which was closed went we went to Disneyland Anaheim last year.

Hong Kong Disneyland doesn’t have the same ‘magic’ factor as the Unites States Disneyland has, but it’s still pretty cool, and for a fraction of the price, it’s not bad at all.

Taipei Hotel Hopping with Marriott Bonvoy

Taipei was one of the best-value cities for points redemptions on this trip.

Using Marriott Bonvoy certificates (you can get one annually with this credit card for example) we redeemed them for one night stay at an Aloft Hotel in Taipei. We saved $290 for 3 nights here since each credit card is $120 or $150 annual fee. I then used 125,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to book 5 nights (if you book 4 nights you get the 5th night free) so we saved $1100 here. We stayed a total of 8 nights at this hotel and it was a convenient location and the breakfast was delicious. My son pounded back probably 2-3 Taiwanese guava a day for breakfast.

We saved almost $1300 here.

The crazy part is that this wasn’t a “budget” hotel, it is a four star hotel.

Taipei hotel pricing has climbed significantly, especially for family-friendly rooms.

Using Bonvoy points here delivered huge value.

Taiwan High Speed Rail Savings

Taiwan’s HSR system was quite amazing. It was so incredibly on time and I didn’t feel like we were traveling 300km/hr…but we were. It arrives at the station, opens its doors momentarily, and off it goes.

We went from the top of the island of Taiwan to near the bottom of the island in 1.5 hours.

It was fast, clean, efficient, and family-friendly.

We managed to offset using Scene+ points here because you can book the HSR through Klook. They have a promotion of buy one HSR ticket get one free if you book through Klook. We saved about $300 here.

For families traveling around Taiwan, HSR is often cheaper than flying domestically.

Kaoshiung and Okinawa Hotel Savings

We stayed at this chain called “Kindness Hotel” and I think it’s a hotel chain in Kaoshiung and the southern part of Taiwan. It was great! There was free laundry to use, free breakfast, free ice cream and snacks, and free drinks!

Although using your Avios points for hotels is not the best usage of Avios, it still saved us money. I took advantage of a 30% transfer bonus from Avion to Avios (British Airway Avios) so there is more value there. I booked using 17,100 Avios and saved $160 CAD.

In Naha, Okinawa, we also stayed using Avios points at the Mercure Okinawa Naha hotel. The room was ridiculously small (I think I had to open up our two suitcases in the entrance) and sleeping on two “twin” beds with two kids was a bit difficult, but we managed.

It was dangerously walkable distance to a Don Quijote store.

We used 44,900 Avios and saved $381 CAD. Again, not the best use of Avios but it worked for us.

Whale Watching, Kidzania, Okinawa Aquarium

This was one of the coolest experiences of the trip (well for my husband it was one of his highlights). We went on a whale watching tour in Okinawa. We saw humpback whales in the wild, I swear they were waving at us. According to the tour operator, our group was very lucky as the humpback whales were usually not this active.

Someone asked why we don’t go on a whale watching tour in Vancouver (there are a ton) but I bet they will be over $500 or even $1000 for a family of four! For us it was only $207 CAD and we had it covered through Scene+ points again because it was booked through Klook.

Kidzania Koshien was my daughter’s favourite part of the entire trip and it was around $140 CAD. Yes, she liked it more than Disneyland. Kidzania is a place were you can sign up for ‘jobs’ earn money and spend your money. We spent about 5 hours there, it was exhausting but just amazing. My kids got to ‘participate’ in an abdominal surgery operation and they both got to be pilots for ANA airlines. It was all in Japanese, they did not understand anything but it was still fun. You can even make sausage (they made it and ate it). You can book through Klook and redeem using Scene+ points. They have Kidzania’s world wide, but none in North America that I know of, so far.

We also went to the Okinawa Aquarium. It was something like $50 for the four of us and also very much worth it. We saw whale sharks, manta rays, and the displays were in English. There was even a dolphin show, and you can feed large turtles. Again you can book this through Klook and then redeem your Scene+ points here.

We saved almost $400 here using Klook and Scene+ points.

Luxury Hotel Redemptions: Halekulani Okinawa and Shisui Nara

These were easily the highlight hotels of the trip.

The cash price for Halekulani Okinawa was approximately $1,970 CAD for three nights at this five star hotel, and after redeeming Scene+ points, we paid only $6.92 CAD.

The service was amazing, and breakfast was included. It was also very family friendly. I would probably pay cash for this given the value you get, for $600 a night CAD we had a beautiful view. Staying in Canmore, Alberta in the summer at a 3 star hotel cost s $600 a night these days!

Shisui Luxury Hotel Collection in Nara has a cash price of $1231 CAD. We were upgraded to a room with a private Onsen (hotspring) which was really nice. We used a Marriott Free Night Award and topped up 5000 Bonvoy points. We paid I think $4 CAD for hot springs tax.

Not many people usually stay in Nara, it’s very quiet in the evenings, but we got to pet some deer at night, they seem more docile at night.

A luxury property we likely never would have booked outright became attainable because of points.

There was a champagne “free flow” hour which was nice. The last time I had champagne (champagne, not sparkling wine) was probably at my wedding 10 years ago.

Together, we saved $3200 here.

Total Savings Breakdown

Here’s the final tally.

Category	Savings
Flights	~$6,000+
Hotels	~$6,000+
Attractions & Activities	~$1,000+
Transportation	Hundreds more
Total Saved	$15,424.79 CAD

Was Collecting All These Points Worth It?

Absolutely.

But it only works if:

• You avoid interest
• Pay cards in full
• Stay organized
• Use rewards strategically

Travel rewards are powerful tools — but only when used responsibly.

I also spent a lot of time planning this trip, I emailed or contacted the hotels individually and checked to see if children under 12 stay free using existing bedding, or if breakfast was included for children as well.

Now, on to planning the next adventure!