Portugal, July 2026
Porto, Lisbon and the Algarve, with four hotels, economy flights and a rental car for 13 days.
Portugal
Key figures
$526 paid, $9,864 documented comparison value. The 95% difference came from 205,000 points and miles.
At a glance
- Booking classes
- Economy (2)
- Flight numbers
- Outbound flight Airport → Porto
- Return flight Lisbon → Airport
- Airports
- Porto (OPO), Lisbon (LIS)
- Hotels
- Renaissance Porto Lapa, Porto (1 night)
- Hyatt Regency Lisbon, Lisbon (2 nights)
- Hyatt Regency Algarve, Vilamoura (6 nights)
- Epic Sana Algarve, Vilamoura (5 nights)
A realistic use case instead of a luxury exception
The Portugal trip shows how points work on an ordinary road trip: several places, different hotel programmes, flights (the domestic flight from Porto to Lisbon was paid in cash and is not in the numbers) and a rental car for 13 days paid separately ($416.30, not valued). 15 days, from 27 July to 10 August 2026.
The most value came where points replaced the most expensive hotel nights
Almost the entire documented hotel difference came from 165,000 points in the Algarve and Lisbon. The rental car was shown in full as a real expense and not given an artificial value.
Day by day
- Paid
- $243
- Value
- $521
- points
- 15,000
- per point
- 1.9¢
- Paid
- $143
- Value
- $379
- points
- cash
- per point
- ·
- Paid
- $0
- Value
- $739
- points
- 12,000
- per point
- 6.2¢
- Paid
- $0
- Value
- $4,558
- points
- 90,000
- per point
- 5.1¢
- Paid
- $38
- Value
- $3,117
- points
- 63,000
- per point
- 4.9¢
- Paid
- $102
- Value
- $550
- points
- 25,000
- per point
- 1.8¢
The whole trip
| Category | Paid | Comparison value | Difference | Points and miles |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flights (2) | $345 | $1,071 | $726 68% | 40,000 |
| Hotels (4 stays, 14 nights) | $181 | $8,793 | $8,612 98% | 165,000 |
| Total (6 bookings) | $526 | $9,864 | $9,338 95% | 205,000 |
Proof
Excerpts from the booking confirmations, personal data and booking codes made unreadable.
7 records · swipe or use the arrows, click to enlarge7 records · swipe, tap to enlarge
Terms in this trip
- Award ticket: An award ticket is a flight paid for with miles or points instead of cash; taxes, fees and surcharges almost always still have to be paid in money.
- Award availability: Award availability is the number of seats an airline releases on a given flight for redemption with miles, which is usually far smaller than the number of seats still on sale.
- Cents per point: Cents per point is the measure of a redemption's value: the cash price avoided, minus any co-payment, divided by the number of points spent.
- Hotel award category: A hotel award category is the price tier a loyalty programme assigns to a property, from which the points price per night follows.
- Fifth night free: Fifth night free is an elite benefit under which an award stay of five or more consecutive nights is charged for four nights of points.
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