'Bleisure' travel: How I used points and miles to turn a business trip into a (nearly) free vacation

4 days ago 10

When I learned I would be taking a business trip to a conference in Las Vegas around my husband's birthday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to celebrate. I could book a flight for my husband and a couple of additional nights at a hotel, and voila — ready-made birthday weekend.

The only problem? Vegas is expensive. Thankfully, points and miles helped us do it without many out-of-pocket costs.

Here's how I used a combination of airline and hotel rewards to extend my business trip and how you can, too.

Booking airfare with points and miles

The conference would reimburse me for my airfare, so all I needed was a round-trip ticket for my husband. Since I had a small stash of Southwest Rapid Rewards points — and there's no point in saving them up for a long-haul business-class redemption due to Southwest Airlines' limited route network and seating options — I decided to redeem them for my husband's flight from Denver to Las Vegas.

If I'd been short on Rapid Rewards points, I could have easily transferred them from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account at a 1:1 ratio.

I booked my own Southwest ticket for around $300 round-trip, then redeemed 19,000 Rapid Rewards points for my husband's ticket. This gave me a value of roughly 1.6 cents per point, above average based on TPG's September 2025 valuations. Paying just $5.60 in taxes and fees, I was off to a good start with my Vegas trip budget.

Booking lodging with points and free night certificates

My conference arranged two nights at Aria Resort & Casino, part of Marriott's Autograph Collection, and we wanted to book two additional nights on our own dime.

We decided to stay at the neighboring Bellagio Las Vegas, also part of Marriott Bonvoy, because there was a PointSavers deal that would give us a better room for fewer points than the Aria. (Plus, we loved the idea of living out our "Ocean's Eleven" fantasy.) The two hotels are connected by a hallway and a tram, so moving halfway through our stay wouldn't be too much of a hassle.

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With the PointSavers rate, our first night at the Bellagio cost 62,400 Bonvoy points, while the second night cost 44,800 points.

My husband had one 50,000-point free night certificate left from the welcome bonus he had earned on his Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card (see rates and fees).

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card: Earn three free nights (each night valued up to 50,000 points) after spending $3,000 on eligible purchases within three months of account opening. Certain hotels have resort fees.

Since Marriott lets you top up award certificates with up to 15,000 Bonvoy points, we used the certificate plus 12,400 points toward the first night, allowing us to maximize the certificate's value.

My husband didn't have enough points left over to book the second night, but thankfully, Marriott makes it easy to transfer points from one member to another. I had almost enough points in my Bonvoy account, so I transferred a few thousand Chase points to top off my account and then transferred my Marriott points to my husband to finish booking our hotel stay.

All told, we spent 107,200 Marriott points on our two-night stay, plus around $125 in taxes and fees. Our premier room, located in the quieter Spa Tower with stunning views of the Bellagio fountains and the Las Vegas Strip, would have set us back around $1,350 in cash, giving us an excellent value of 1.1 cents apiece for our Marriott points.

Maximizing rewards on other expenses

We saved $1,500-plus by booking my husband's flight and two hotel nights with rewards. All we had to pay for were our meals and activities — like a Cirque du Soleil show, The Linq's High Roller Ferris wheel and the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

There are ways to cover nontravel costs with points, but these generally don't provide great value, so we opted to pay for these out of pocket and maximize our rewards. Here are the credit cards we used during our time in Las Vegas:

Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card for food and drinks at one of the many Marriott Bonvoy hotel restaurants: Earn up to 17 points per dollar spent at participating Marriott properties.
American Express® Gold Card for dining beyond the hotel: Earn 4 points per dollar spent on purchases at restaurants worldwide (on up to $50,000 in purchases per calendar year, then earn 1 point for the rest of the year).
Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card for tickets to shows and activities: Earn 2 Capital One miles per dollar spent on all purchases.

How to maximize your business travel

With travel costs seemingly always on the rise, "bleisure" travel (or trips that include both business and leisure travel) is a great way to save money while seeing the world.

For our Vegas trip, my flight and two hotel nights were covered by the conference I was attending, so we only had to pay for half of our airfare and lodging. If work takes you someplace you'd like to visit, it can make sense to leverage those covered costs and extend your stay into a vacation.

However, not all destinations are ideal for a bleisure trip. A previous job once sent me to the middle of nowhere, Alabama, and I wasn't in a hurry to extend my stay.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can often still use hotel rewards and frequent flyer programs to your advantage. Be sure to add your hotel and airline loyalty numbers to your work's booking platform so that your nights stayed and miles flown are logged, help you get closer to elite status and earn you valuable points and miles toward future vacations. The same goes if you rent a car for work.

If you're able to pay for business travel with your personal card and get reimbursed, you can maximize your rewards even more with credit card perks and bonus-earning categories. In my case, the conference booked the hotel stay for me, but I booked my own flight.

I'll get reimbursed for the full price of my round-trip Denver-to-Vegas ticket, and my Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Credit Card (see rates and fees) will put $75 back in my pocket thanks to its annual flight credit (ending after 2025) while earning bonus points on the Southwest purchase. I also took advantage of a Southwest deal (no longer available) offering a promotional Companion Pass in exchange for booking a single flight.

I just received my Companion Pass after returning from Vegas — so if we plan another trip this fall, I can use the pass to book my husband's ticket for just the cost of taxes and fees.

Bottom line

Leveraging points and miles during a business trip allowed me and my husband to spend a long weekend in Sin City without breaking the bank.

If work sends you somewhere interesting, consider extending your stay to get a partially covered trip. You can save even more by redeeming points and miles for the "leisure" part of your bleisure trip — or, if you pay with cash, be sure to use one of the best travel cards to maximize your rewards.

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