Using Points for Hotels Instead of Flights: My Egypt and Jordan Strategy
There’s a version of travel where points and miles completely shape your itinerary.
And there’s another where they simply enhance it.
I sit somewhere in between.
I’m not someone who manufactures trips just to maximize redemptions, and I’m also not purely cash-based. Instead, I try to balance cost, comfort, and flexibility depending on the trip itself.
When I travel solo, I tend to be more flexible and experimental. When I travel with family, comfort and simplicity matter more. And when I travel with friends, costs are often split in ways that make nicer hotels feel more accessible.
That changes everything.
One thing I’ve realized is that a lot of points and miles content online doesn’t fully reflect real constraints. Influencers often have flexible schedules, destination flexibility, or the ability to shift entire trips around a redemption opportunity.
Real life doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes you already have fixed dates. Sometimes you already know exactly where you want to go. And sometimes the “perfect redemption” simply doesn’t align with the actual trip you’re trying to take.
That was exactly the case with our Egypt and Jordan trip.
Why I Didn’t Use Points for Long-Haul Flights
When I first started planning this trip, I naturally looked into using points for flights to Cairo for four people.
Very quickly, reality set in.
Even economy flights would have required a substantial amount of points once I priced everything out for multiple travelers. Business class would have pushed the redemption well beyond what I personally felt comfortable spending for one trip.
And honestly, I realized I didn’t want to use the majority of my points balance just getting to the destination.
So instead of trying to make points fully fund the trip, I shifted my strategy toward improving the experience once we actually arrived.
That mindset ended up working far better for this particular itinerary.
Why Hotels Became the Better Strategy
Hotels quickly became the area where points could create the biggest difference in the actual experience of the trip.
Egypt and Jordan have several aspirational properties that immediately stand out when you start researching the region:
- the Marriott Mena House near the pyramids
- the Hilton Luxor Resort & Spa
- the Hilton Dead Sea Resort & Spa
These were the kinds of stays that felt memorable and difficult to consistently justify paying cash for.
Instead of focusing on maximizing flights, I focused on using points to unlock hotels that would elevate the trip itself.
And honestly, that felt much more rewarding.
The Credit Card Strategy Behind the Trip
Up until this trip, I had mostly focused on flexible travel points rather than hotel-specific cards.
The primary hotel card I already held was the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card, which I originally opened while planning an earlier Southeast Asia trip.
At the time, I was booking flights and hotels for multiple people, so reaching the welcome bonus organically through normal trip expenses was relatively easy.
For Egypt and Jordan specifically, I realized two of the hotels I wanted most were Hilton properties, so opening the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card made the most sense for this trip.
Since I was already paying cash for our long-haul flights, that spending helped me quickly earn the bonus points needed for the Hilton stays.
Both cards also came with meaningful status benefits, Marriott Platinum Elite and Hilton Diamond status, which mainly translated into complimentary breakfast throughout the trip.
And honestly, international hotel breakfast buffets are one of my favorite underrated travel luxuries.
Where I Still Used Points for Flights
Even though long-haul flights didn’t make sense for us on points, shorter regional flights absolutely did.
We used points for flights between Cairo, Luxor, and Amman — routes that were surprisingly expensive for relatively short distances.
The Cairo to Luxor flights were still manageable in cash, but the Cairo to Amman flights were significantly more expensive than I initially expected.
That’s where transferring flexible credit card points to Air Canada’s Aeroplan program became useful.
Instead of spending hundreds of additional dollars out of pocket for relatively short regional flights, points helped offset one of the more unexpectedly expensive parts of the itinerary.
That ended up feeling like a much better use of points than exhausting our balances on the long-haul flights alone.
When the Strategy Worked Best
Some of the hotel decisions genuinely improved the trip dramatically.
Our stay at the Le Méridien Cairo Airport was probably the single best logistical hotel decision of the itinerary.
Normally airport hotels are not the glamorous part of a trip. But because we had multiple late-night arrivals and a 4:45 AM international departure, staying directly connected to the airport removed an enormous amount of stress.
Instead of arranging transportation in the middle of the night or worrying about Cairo traffic before dawn, we could simply walk to the terminal.
That is where I think points and miles shine the most:
not necessarily in creating the flashiest possible itinerary, but in removing friction from difficult travel days.
The Hilton Luxor Resort & Spa was another example of points genuinely elevating the trip.
Luxor was incredibly hot and our sightseeing days were intense. Coming back to a resort that actually felt relaxing, beautiful pools, Nile views, excellent breakfast, quieter atmosphere, added something meaningful to the overall experience.
Even now, it’s probably one of my favorite hotel stays I’ve had anywhere.
When the Strategy Didn’t Work as Well
At the same time, this trip also taught me that aspirational hotels only add value if your itinerary actually allows you to enjoy them.
The clearest example of this was the Marriott Mena House.
This is one of those iconic bucket-list hotels that immediately jumps out when researching Egypt. Breakfast with pyramid views, historic grounds, walking distance to the Giza complex — it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime stay.
And honestly, it was beautiful.
But we arrived late in the evening, had dinner onsite, went to bed early before our guided day, and checked out almost immediately after visiting the pyramids and the Grand Egyptian Museum.
In hindsight, we barely experienced the hotel itself.
The stay became more functional than experiential.
That realization became one of the recurring themes of our Egypt trip overall.
We stayed at incredible properties, but because our itinerary was packed almost every single day, many of those hotels became places we slept rather than places we fully enjoyed.
And ironically, the more comfortable and convenient the hotels became, the more disconnected we sometimes felt from the cities around them.
At the InterContinental Cairo Semiramis, for example, we chose to pay for breakfast access because it simplified our mornings before long guided days.
And it absolutely made the trip easier.
But by the end of our time in Cairo, I realized we had eaten almost every breakfast inside luxury hotels rather than local cafés or neighborhood restaurants.
We had seen nearly every major landmark in Cairo while still feeling like we had barely experienced everyday Cairo itself.
I talk more about that realization in my post: We Saw Everything in Cairo, But Barely Experienced Cairo.
That’s something I think gets overlooked in a lot of travel and points content.
Comfort and immersion are not always the same thing.
Sometimes optimizing for ease quietly distances you from the place you traveled so far to experience.
The Biggest Lesson I Took Away
Another thing this trip made me realize is how tiring constant hotel changes can become.
Because we were optimizing for logistics and location, we moved hotels multiple times throughout Cairo alone.
Individually, every move made sense.
Together, though, it created a feeling of constantly being in transit.
Packing, unpacking, coordinating transfers, checking in, checking out, it all consumes more energy than you realize while planning.
And sometimes I think we underestimate how valuable it is to simply stay still.
That realization honestly changed how I think about points and miles altogether.
I no longer think the goal is maximizing every redemption mathematically.
Instead, I think the best strategy is using points intentionally to amplify parts of the experience.
Maybe that means booking a hotel you normally wouldn’t justify paying cash for.
Maybe it means reducing transportation stress.
Maybe it means offsetting enough cost that you can splurge elsewhere during the trip.
Because ultimately, travel is not about optimizing every variable.
It’s about making the trip feel better, not more complicated.
And the best use of points is the one that helps you actually enjoy the trip you’re already taking.
Final Note
This trip really came together across very different places and pacing decisions, from Cairo’s packed sightseeing days, to slower mornings in Luxor, to the compressed but unforgettable stretch in Jordan.
If you want to see how the full Egypt & Jordan journey unfolded, you can follow the complete series below and see how each destination connected, from planning, to hotels, to what I’d do differently now.
Read the full series:
- Cairo: We Saw Everything in Cairo, But Barely Experienced It
- Luxor: Luxor Needed More Downtime Than We Gave It
- Jordan: Petra Was Worth It—But We Planned It Wrong
Work With Me
If you’re planning a trip and want help making sense of it all, whether that’s building a full itinerary, optimizing hotels with points, or figuring out a lighter-touch travel strategy, I help with everything from full trip planning to points strategy and hotel selection.
You can learn more or work with me here: Work With Me