I made big wedding purchases on a travel credit card and used the points to pay for hotels on my honeymoon

• I got a Chase Sapphire Preferred travel card when I got engaged.
• I used the card for big purchases for my wedding, amassing major points over my 15-month engagement.
• Those points ended up paying for all the lodging on my honeymoon.

When I got engaged in May 2023, I was overwhelmed with excitement. My now-husband and I giddily called our loved ones to share the news, and we toasted to our future with glasses of bubbly. I fell asleep fantasizing about our perfect wedding day.

By the time I woke up the next day, a to-do list had formed in my mind. I needed to insure my ring, hire a wedding planner, and find a venue. The list got longer and longer the more I thought about our nuptials, my mind racing as I tried to figure out where to start.

As we formed a plan, there was one task I was glad I had completed a few days before my husband proposed: applying for a travel credit card.

Picking a travel card

I had been interested in getting a travel rewards credit card for a while when I finally applied for one in May 2023.

I fly often, particularly because my extended family is based in Atlanta while I live in New York. I also knew I would be in Atlanta more in the lead-up to my wedding since my husband and I had decided to get married there to accommodate my aging grandmother.

It seemed like a good idea to make my travel purchases work for me, especially since my husband and I wanted to go to California for our honeymoon but knew we wouldn't have much of a budget for the trip.

There are several travel credit cards out there, but I decided to apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. A friend of mine already had it and got bonus points for referring me, and it had all the travel benefits I was looking for, including five points on travel purchases and three points on dining for a $95 annual fee.

After getting the Chase card, I started using it for my daily life and wedding purchases.

Racking up credit card points

Once I got my Chase card, I made it my go-to credit card, determined to earn the 60,000 bonus points the Sapphire Preferred card offered if I spent $4,000 on it within the first three months. The task was easier than expected, as I made several big purchases for the wedding in the summer of 2023.

I booked whatever I could for the wedding on my credit card and paid it off twice a month throughout our engagement, using the wedding budget and amassing points simultaneously. I also decided not to use any points until the honeymoon, preferring to put them toward one big purchase rather than smaller ones.

As our engagement continued, I made several travel-related purchases through the card, like the Airbnb I rented for my bachelorette weekend and the hotel suite my husband and I stayed in over the wedding weekend.

Plus, I flew to Atlanta monthly for preparation and events like showers in the final six months before the wedding. Each time I booked a flight, I felt grateful the cost earned me points I could use later.

When our wedding rolled around in September 2024, I had close to 250,000 points saved. My husband and I used the points on lodging for our California road trip in February 2025.

Booking our dream honeymoon hotels

On our honeymoon, my husband and I visited Monterey, Sonoma, and Yosemite National Park for two days each, flying in and out of San Francisco.

As we planned the trip, we looked for hotels through Chase Travel℠, only considering lodging that would allow us to use the points for our stays. That didn't feel like a limitation because Chase partners with so many hotels.

After careful research, we selected three hotels that gave us a different experience in each city. In Monterey, we stayed at the Monterey Plaza Hotel & Spa, a high-end hotel on the water with multiple restaurants and a café.

The partial oceanview room we stayed in cost 83,307 points and gave us a view of the ocean and the hotel's courtyard. Sitting on our patio, we could people-watch and look for sea otters, which we loved.

Next, we chose The Lodge at Sonoma for our time in wine country. We stayed in one of the resort's private cottages and took advantage of the hotel's amenities, such as a jacuzzi, a free wine-tasting happy hour, and a spa.

The Lodge staff also helped us book a day of winery tours in Sonoma, a highlight of our time there. The cottage cost us 71,203 points.

Our most unique stay was at AutoCamp Yosemite, a luxury glamping site in Midpines, California, that gave us easy access to Yosemite National Park through the valley. We stayed in one of AutoCamp's Vista Airstreams, which cost 49,844 points when we booked it.

The views on the property were stunning, and we loved being immersed in nature throughout our stay while still enjoying the amenities of a hotel.

One evening during our visit, we grilled out for dinner using a kit we bought from AutoCamp's store.

We spent just over 204,000 Chase points on lodging for our honeymoon, so after booking the hotels, we still had points left.

The travel card made perfect sense for us to use on wedding expenses whenever possible, as it allowed us to save on our honeymoon even as we spent on the wedding.

The memories from our honeymoon were priceless — and the fact that our wedding helped us save money on it was the perfect cherry on top of the trip.

Offers, rates, and fees for the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card are accurate as of 03/12/2025.