11 Nights in Australia & Auckland On Points
This trip made me want to go to Australia again and again. I never thought we could go here OVER CHRISTMAS for a couple thousand dollars.
I manifested this trip for an entire year. I wanted to spend our holiday break season in Australia and I made it happen, almost entirely on points, and a lot of it was pure luck. The middle to end of December is some of the most expensive time to travel, so it’s really hard finding great deals, but I am very proud of this redemption.
We flew from LAX to Auckland nonstop on American Airlines. It was a 13.5 hour flight in economy, a bit brutal, but it cost us 35,000 points and $45.80 per person for taxes and fees. We also got a duo seat, so it was only us in the row. That flight alone, arriving on Christmas Day, was $1,500 USD per person.
Once in Auckland, we spent two nights at the Park Hyatt Auckland, which is an absolutely incredible, beautiful, modern hotel. It goes for 29,000 points a night. One night, we used our Amex Platinum benefit where you used to get $200 toward a hotel on their Fine Hotels and Resorts list (the benefit is even better now, where you get a total of $600 per calendar year). The hotel cost $350 USD a night.
When booking through this Amex benefit, we also got $150 USD to spend at the hotel. We also earned Hyatt points on this stay.
So one night we used 29,000 Hyatt points, and the other night we spent $150 out of pocket (after the Amex credit), but got that back with the resort credit, which we used for a meal and parking since we did have a car. Parking is only free to Globalists when you book on points, not a cash rate. The night we used points, we did get parking included. I count this stay as $0 out of pocket since everything netted out in the end.
We had never been in New Zealand, so our first day, we got our car and just explored driving around Auckland. We found ourselves stopping at different beaches like Takapuna Beach and St. Heliers Beach. We also went to a lookout spot, Achilles Point, which is very pretty. I had no idea the water was going to be that clear and blue in Auckland.
One of the best viewpoints though in Auckland is around Mount Eden. It’s a little over a mile loop, and you can basically see all of Auckland and surrounding areas. It’s really worth it.
Our favorite place we ate at in Auckland was called Harbour Eats. It’s a food court of a wide variety of foods and one of the best food halls we’ve been to. We got bulgogi, Taiwanese chicken, dumplings, and a few other things to share.
The next day, we woke up and had a delicious breakfast at our hotel, and this is also where I first found Whittaker’s chocolate milk. It’s seriously the best chocolate milk and chocolate I have ever had in my entire life. I love Whittaker’s chocolate so much.
We decided to explore a couple places outside of Auckland like Piha Beach. It was absolutely beautiful.
We ended our day doing a little shopping in downtown Auckland and wandering the CBD, which is very walkable from the Park Hyatt. It’s really such a pretty skyline and I can’t wait to come back and explore more of this beautiful country.
Just like that, we were flying over to Australia. Our first stop was Melbourne. We flew Auckland to Melbourne on Qantas. We opted to not use points because the flight was $241 per person, and we thought that was a better deal than using points for once. This flight was a four hour flight, and we randomly got a meal which I honestly loved, and I hate airplane food so I was shocked. It was some kind of beef and mashed potatoes. I was pleasantly surprised.
We stayed in Melbourne for three nights at the Park Hyatt Melbourne. I had very high expectations after leaving my first Park Hyatt experience in Auckland, however Melbourne’s was very dated. It reminded us of 1980’s fancy casinos with wood everywhere. It was very dated and probably not worth the price, but the location, service, and breakfast was great, so we didn’t have anything to complain about because we were in Australia. We also got upgraded to this standard suite which gave us more space.
The hotel was 23,000 points a night or approximately $330 USD per night. I would opt to try some other Hyatt next time we are there. It wasn’t that anything was wrong, it just wasn’t my style. The breakfast though was incredible and the staff were very accommodating for our early flight. It just wasn’t a very modern hotel, which I prefer.
The first day in Melbourne we hit up all the main sites in the city. We saw the Graffiti Alley and walked through a lot of other random alleys, which I think they must be known for, small alleyway narrow side streets with restaurants, bars, and shops. One of my favorite places, which I would recommend to anybody, is to go to the ACMI museum. It’s Australia’s museum that is all about pop culture, media, movies, video games, etc. Any museum like this is my favorite, but this one especially is so well done and fascinating. I spent a couple of hours walking through and reading everything. We simply just walked the city and took in the sights.
While we were in Australia, admittedly we ate Nandos peri peri chicken almost every day. It’s one of our favorite places, and it’s cheap and delicious. However, another place we found ourselves eating a lot was Betty’s Burgers, which reminded us a lot of Shake Shack. This is where I learned that I loved onion rings. I loved everything here except for their shakes.
The next day, we went to Queen Victoria Market, which is definitely worth a visit. One side is pretty much all stuff, and then the other side has a variety of food trucks and vendors along with fresh fruits, veggies, and other things you find at a market. My husband’s favorite was probably the American Donuts truck right out front. There’s a short wait, but it is worth it for their plum filled donuts.
We found our way to the Skydeck in Melbourne. I am always one to get a great view and go up high. The Shibuya Sky in Tokyo is one of my favorite places. But this was not it. It’s all inside and the view is nice, but it’s not worth it in my opinion. I like places that are outside, with a view, where you can sit and enjoy, and this one was loud, dark, and just not the best.
We were curious about St. Kilda because it’s the closest beach town, but it started pouring rain on us instead, and we sought shelter for a couple of hours at a bar.
However, once the sky cleared up, we were able to get some great drone shots of the Melbourne skyline. They also have this boardwalk along the ocean that is pretty fun to walk.
Our next and last day was the greatest so far. We drove some of the Great Ocean Road. We had some car issues though that I won’t get into, but it did make us have to rush through the day. However, the scenery and the places we stopped and soaked in were some of the prettiest places I have ever seen and will live rent free in my mind forever. The photos do not do it justice and I cannot recommend making this drive more. We plan to come back and do it right next time, but still, if you are in Melbourne it is worth the trek. The car rental for the day was around $60 USD.
Some of our stops included:
The Bay of Islands
Bay of Martyrs
Petersborough Beach
London Bridge
The Bakers Oven
Port Campbell National Park (Loch Ard Gorge and The Razorback)
Twelve Apostles (the busiest)
Our next morning, we caught a flight on Virgin Australia from Melbourne to Brisbane. It was about a 30 minute Uber ride from the Park Hyatt to the airport and then about a 2.5 hour flight. We paid out of pocket $498 USD for two people.
While staying in Brisbane, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Brisbane right in the CBD. It was such a great and convenient location that was close to everything. The price also couldn’t be beat over New Year’s Eve, it was 9k points a night. We stayed for three nights equaling a total of 27,000 Hyatt points. The going rate was about $200 USD a night. We also did rent a car while in Brisbane, so we got free parking with Globalist, which would have been an additional $40 USD a night. The car though was about $50 USD a day, but so worth it because Brisbane was our base to explore so much.
The first day, we really explored Brisbane, walking the CBD and grabbing lunch at Smokey Moos. It was surprisingly comparable to Texas BBQ. We got the giant beef rib and gosh it was so good. I literally couldn’t believe I was eating that in Australia.
We kept exploring and found one of our favorite districts there, Southbank, where it’s very walkable and tons of shops and eateries everywhere. This is where they also have a huge man-made beach type of pool. We didn’t spend any time at the pool this trip, but it was very busy. We did however enjoy trying a few desserts in that area including Max Brenner Chocolate Bar where we got chocolate covered strawberries. We also tried San Churro, which were some of the best churros I had. I don’t know why the ratings are so low because I truly loved them.
While we were walking around, Brisbane just felt like such a brand new city and we loved it much more than we thought we would. It was very hot and more humid in the air, but we both said we could see ourselves living here, whereas we didn’t get that feeling in Melbourne.
One of the places we drove to was the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in Gold Coast. Gold Coast absolutely blew us away, and if I could choose anywhere we went in Australia to live in, Gold Coast would be my choice. Anyways, we were looking for a wildlife sanctuary that focused on koala interactions, and at the time they let you hold the koala and then walk into their sanctuary and watch them up close for a little bit, which was so amazing. I understand now though that holding koalas could cause them distress and many sanctuaries are moving away from allowing that. They truly became some of my favorite creatures though, just being so close to them. I love their little noses.
The rest of the day mostly, we went to the beach at Burleigh Beach, and I couldn’t believe how not busy it was. I felt like I had so much space around me at the beach, listening to the waves. The water was very cold on the Melbourne side of Australia, but here, the water felt warm and wonderful. Although, this is Australia and the ocean so I wasn’t going too far into the ocean.
We also checked out downtown Gold Coast, which was very lively, and went to a fancy mall called Paradise Centre. They also have a delicious place for chocolate covered strawberries inside and of course my favorite, Betty’s Burgers.
On our last day in the area, we got up and drove to a bucket list destination for both my husband and I, the Australia Zoo, aka Steve Irwin’s zoo. This was truly such a beautiful sanctuary and unlike any place we have ever gone. Definitely different than any American zoo. We spent quite a few hours here just soaking it all in. My favorite part was of course watching the crocodile show at the Crocoseum, which we had the great pleasure of seeing Robert Irwin and his mom Terri. It was so thrilling, I could have sat there all day. And they do such an amazing job honoring Steve throughout.
My other favorite part was feeding the kangaroos. You can buy a bag of food for $3 AUD, and they don’t really come up to you, in fact many of them stayed laying down and I had to go to them. For the most part, they were really gentle and I had such a great time feeding them.
We headed back to Brisbane to enjoy the evening because in the morning, we were taking another flight, and this time to our last destination in Australia, Sydney, the city I was most excited for.
We flew Virgin Australia again for $254 total for two people. The flight was super quick, about an hour and a half. Once arriving in Sydney, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Sydney. We stayed for three nights at 18,000 Hyatt points a night. The going rate for this time was around $375. For the most part, we did not need a car. However, we wanted to explore some further out places from Sydney, so for two days we rented a car for about $50 USD per day. However, note this is a rare instance where Hyatt does not have its own parking. Instead, they gave a discounted rate for a garage about a block away. We were not aware of this beforehand because we just assumed the parking would be included in our Globalist status.
The Hyatt Regency was a bit dated and small in terms of room size. However, we weren’t inside much, so it was a great location and that really mattered the most. It also had a Regency Club, so we were able to make mini meals out of their offerings almost every night with a glass of wine. This meant though too that we were subject to breakfast in the club which I don’t ever like. I prefer Hyatts that let us eat at the restaurant.
We of course started our first day right off the plane walking Circular Quay. It was so insanely busy everywhere, so it wasn’t our favorite place to hang out, but it is right along the water and you see the famous bridge and the famous Opera House, which is even prettier in person. We didn’t go inside, but just from the outside we spent at least an hour gazing at it from all angles.
Our favorite area in Sydney that we did enjoy the most and tended to be around the most is Barangaroo. It’s right on the water with tons of restaurants all around and amazing architecture everywhere. It also had my favorite gelato place we found called Rivareno.
The next day, we drove to all of Sydney’s hot beach spots and enjoyed taking in the beauty of the greater area, mostly up north. Our first stop was Coogee Beach. We then found a spot to walk along called Mackenzies Bay. We saw so many beautiful oceanfront homes all around this area that were unbelievably gorgeous. The color of the water too was incredible.
Then of course we had to stop at Bondi Beach, but honestly, compared to the rest of the beaches around this area, it was so incredibly packed and busy that it wasn’t even worth spending time at. When I’m at the beach, I want to hear the ocean waves and you truly couldn’t. So we kept driving.
We stopped at Diamond Bay Reserve and it was very beautiful there, where you could see the cliffs going into the ocean, and before we knew it, it was time to head back to Sydney for the evening, where we spent most of the night in Barangaroo.
The third day we drove up further north again to enjoy a beach day. I was fascinated by this concept of a rock pool where it’s actually ocean water, but somehow no sharks or sea creatures get into the rock pools because of the way the waves hit the rocks. My favorite one we found and spent some time at was the South Curl Rockpool. They also had an amazing beach.
We also spent some time at the Manly Beach area and captured Shelly Beach from the drone.
Sydney was an incredible city in itself, but having the most beautiful beaches nearby really made it one of my favorite cities in the world I’ve been to.
We had a late flight on our fourth day, so we decided to take a boat tour around the Sydney Harbor and we saw all the sights again like the bridge and Opera House from a new angle.
We also walked around the Royal Botanical Gardens where you have this great view of the harbor, ocean, and Opera House.
Now this was over Christmas and New Year’s of 2024/2025, so travel was more expensive. We had to get creative, so I found a flight from Sydney to Honolulu for two people for 120,000 Hawaiian Airline miles. At this time, you could transfer Amex to Hawaiian Airlines (this is no longer possible). The taxes and fees were $169 USD for two people. We opted to upgrade our economy seats to the comfort seats for $284 total, but that is completely optional. The flight was ten hours. If we paid out of pocket, the price was approximately $1,400 per person.
We made this choice to break up the flight time and because we have Southwest Companion Pass, so we knew we could fly Honolulu to LA on Southwest. We spent an additional 40,000 Southwest points to fly from Honolulu to LAX the next day, using Companion Pass, so that is the price for both of us, giving us a whole day in Honolulu. This flight was going for around $500 per person, so having that Companion Pass really helped us.
While in Honolulu, we usually stay at the Hyatt Regency Honolulu. It’s 20,000 Hyatt points a night, usually going for around $500 a night. The parking is also around $70 USD a night and resort fees of around $55, which we all get waived for booking on points as Globalists.
We of course had to rent a car, which was around $100 for the day.
We’ve been to Honolulu several times before, so we knew we just wanted to relax on the beach and enjoy some of our favorite spots.
We love exploring Waikiki, taking in the sights of Diamond Head, and driving to Kailua. We also were lucky enough to spot some whales at one of our stops along the road.
So now here of course is the breakdown of 2 nights in Auckland, 9 nights in Australia, and 1 night in Hawaii for two people.
Flights Breakdown
LAX → Auckland (American Airlines, nonstop)
70,000 American Airlines miles total
$91.60 USD total in taxes and fees
This flight would have cost about $3,000 USD total without using points
Auckland → Melbourne (Qantas)
$482 USD total (paid cash)
Melbourne → Brisbane (Virgin Australia)
$498 USD total (paid cash)
Brisbane → Sydney (Virgin Australia)
$254 USD total (paid cash)
Sydney → Honolulu (Hawaiian Airlines)
120,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles total
$169 USD total in taxes and fees
Optional upgrade to comfort seats: $284 USD total
This flight would have cost about $2,800 USD total without using points
Honolulu → LAX (Southwest, Companion Pass)
40,000 Southwest points total for two people with Companion Pass
This flight was going for about $1,000 USD total without using points
Total Flights
Points and Miles Used
American Airlines: 70,000 miles
Hawaiian Airlines: 120,000 miles
Southwest: 40,000 points
Total Flights Points and Miles: 230,000 miles/points
Actual Cash Paid For Flights (excluding optional $284 upgrade)
Award taxes and fees (LAX → AKL, SYD → HNL): $260.60 USD
Paid cash fares (AKL → MEL, MEL → BNE, BNE → SYD): $1,234 USD
Total Cash Paid on Flights: ~$1,506 USD
What These Flights Would Have Cost Without Using Points (USD)
LAX → Auckland: ~$3,000 USD total
Sydney → Honolulu: ~$2,800 USD total
Honolulu → LAX: ~$1,000 USD total
Total “would have cost” for award flights without using points:
~$6,800 USD
Hotels Breakdown
Auckland
Park Hyatt Auckland – 2 nights
1 night on points: 29,000 Hyatt points
1 night on Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts:
Cash room rate: $350 USD per night
$200 Amex Platinum credit applied
$150 USD resort credit used fully on food and parking
I paid $150 USD out of pocket on the cash night, then the $150 resort credit offset that exactly.
Out of pocket for both nights: $0 USD
What it would have cost without using points if paying USD:
2 × $350 = ~$700 total (room rate only)
Australia
Park Hyatt Melbourne – 3 nights
23,000 Hyatt points per night
69,000 Hyatt points total
What it would have cost without using points if paying USD:
3 × $330 = ~$990 total
Hyatt Regency Brisbane – 3 nights
9,000 Hyatt points per night
27,000 Hyatt points total
Parking would have been about $40 USD per night, but was free with Globalist on award stay
What it would have cost without using points if paying USD:
Room: 3 × $200 = $600
Parking: 3 × $40 = $120
~$720 total
Hyatt Regency Sydney – 3 nights
18,000 Hyatt points per night
54,000 Hyatt points total
What it would have cost without using points if paying USD:
3 × $375 = ~$1,125 total
Hawaii
Hyatt Regency Waikiki – 1 night
20,000 Hyatt points
Parking: about $70 per night
Resort fee: about $55 per night
All waived because I booked on points as Globalist
What it would have cost without using points if paying USD:
$500 + $70 + $55 = ~$625 total for that one night
Total Hotels
Hyatt Points: 199,000 points
What These Hotels Would Have Cost Without Using Points (USD)
$4,160
Rental Cars
Melbourne: around $60 USD for one day
Brisbane: about $50 USD per day
Sydney: about $50 USD per day for 2 days
Honolulu: around $100 USD for the day
Total Rental Car Cost: ~$400 USD
Final Totals
Total Points and Miles Used
American Airlines: 70,000 miles
Hawaiian Airlines: 120,000 miles
Southwest: 40,000 points
Hyatt: 199,000 points
Grand Total Points and Miles: 429,000
Total Cash Actually Paid
Flights (taxes and fees on awards plus paid cash fares): ~$1,506 USD
Rental cars: ~$400 USD
Total Cash Out of Pocket: ~$1,900 USD
(excluding the optional $284 USD Hawaiian comfort seat upgrade)
Grand Total “Would Have Cost” Without Points
Flights: ~$8,034 USD
Hotels: ~$4,160 USD
Rental cars: ~$400 USD
Total trip cost if I paid cash for everything: $12,594 USD
Vs.
Actual Cash Out of Pocket: ~$1,900 USD
I know it sounds too good to be true to be able to spend 12 nights between Auckland, Australia, and Honolulu but this is why I absolutely could not travel without earning travel points. Subscribe for more trips ahead!
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