Note: This post was written by Laura Farrell-Wortman of Travel Hacking 101.

Egypt has been on my travel bucket list for most of my adult life. Growing up, one of my best friends was Egyptian-American, and I had learned so much about the culture from her - and was plied with loads of homemade Egyptian food by her mom! When my friend Malaka moved to Cairo permanently after college, I filed a potential trip to Egypt into a particular space in my brain - Trips I’d Love to Take But Couldn’t Possibly Afford.

Fast forward to 2021 and the tail end of the large scale Covid-19 lockdowns. During the pandemic, I had significantly realigned my ideas of what was important and, crucially, what I was willing to consider impossible in my life. 

A big point of unhappiness for me was my mindset that international travel was too expensive, especially given that I now have a kid. Traveling the world is important to me, and I was tired of letting economics keep me from something that brings me joy. 

So after a lot of research, I found the answer that would allow me to travel more - and that would lead me to Egypt just a few months later. The answer was travel hacking.

What is travel hacking?

Travel hacking is the practice of using points and miles from credit cards and loyalty programs to travel for heavily discounted rates - sometimes for free. This includes things like booking airline tickets using frequent flier miles, or using credit card points to book a rental car. 

Most people are familiar with these mechanisms, but there is a pervasive myth that only business travelers who are flying constantly can earn enough points to make traveling this way possible. 

In truth, the best way to earn lots of points and miles quickly is to take advantage of credit card sign-up bonuses and airline or hotel shopping portals. The formula for travel hacking is pretty simple:

1. Open up a credit card that has a sign-up bonus

   1. For example, as I’m writing this you can get the Citi Premier card with an 80,000 point sign-up bonus and a $95 annual fee; that’s enough points for a round-trip flight to Europe in business class!

2. Meet the minimum spend 

   1. Each bank will set the terms of how much money you need to spend in a specified period of time in order to get the sign-up bonus; usually it’s something like $4,000 in three months

   2. Bear in mind, you’re only putting your everyday spend on the card - you never, ever want to spend more money than you would have otherwise in order to get credit card points. Otherwise you’re just throwing money away!

3. Use the points you get from the card to book travel!

There are more advanced strategies, but fundamentally this is how I pay for travel. My credit score has gone way up, and I haven’t paid a dime in interest or late fees, because I am extremely careful to always pay my full bill every single month. Since interest is not charged on credit card purchases if you pay your entire balance on time, the only expense I incur is the card’s annual fee. 

Keep in mind, if you are not able to pay your credit card bill in full every month, no exceptions, travel hacking with credit cards is probably not right for you. 

Travel hacking flights to Egypt

Once I decided to book our trip to Egypt, I started by looking for flights. United and EgyptAir seemed like my best bets to get to Cairo from my home in the American Southwest.  Since not every type of point will transfer to every airline, I had to take stock of what points I had available. I had a lot of American Express and Capital One points, neither of which transfer to United or Egypt Air. Instead, I booked through Air Canada, which is in an airline alliance with both of those airlines, and which accepts AmEx and Capital One points. 

The cost of the flights were 95,000 points and $86 dollars each. So in total I spent 285,000 points (accrued from three card bonuses) and $258 to fly myself, my husband and our daughter round trip from Arizona to Cairo. Typically these flights would be around $1,200 per person, or $3,600. So travel hacking saved us $3,342 on flights alone!

From the East Coast, it’s easier to get direct flights on EgyptAir, or to take Air France, Lufthansa or KLM through Europe. In general, award fares to Europe and the Middle East are less from the East Coast than from the Midwest or West Coast. To spend fewer points, you could opt to book an award flight from Washington or New York, and fly a low cost carrier like Southwest or Frontier from your home airport (this is known as a “positioning flight”). 

Travel hacking also made the flying experience more pleasant. Because I have the Capital One Venture X and the American Express Platinum cards, we had comprehensive lounge access at Phoenix, Denver, Washington DC, London Heathrow and Cairo airports (we flew through a lot of airports on this trip!). Booking with points sometimes means accepting longer layovers, like our six hours in Denver; lounges offer free food, free alcohol, access to shower facilities, plenty of electrical outlets and comfortable seating, all of which greatly improved our quality of life while waiting.

Travel hacking hotels in Egypt

Hotels were slightly trickier to book than flights, since our family size means that we are usually looking for one room with two beds - easy to find in the United States, harder to find abroad. In Cairo, the hotel that best fit our needs was the Kempinski Nile Hotel in the Garden City neighborhood. Although we weren’t able to use points to book this hotel, the cash price was very reasonable by Western standards, and the cash we saved elsewhere allowed us to pay out of pocket. They even upgraded us to a suite! This was just one way that using points elsewhere allowed for flexibility in our travel options.

In Luxor, we stayed at the Hilton, and paid for two connecting rooms with 20,000 Hilton points each. There were no out of pocket expenses for the hotel like there were with our flights, because typically hotels will not charge things like taxes or resort fees on award stays. 

Our experience at the Hilton was less than stellar, and though the property was beautiful, we felt disconnected from the city of Luxor due to the hotel’s distance from downtown. This was a valuable lesson - we want to use points and miles to reduce the cost of our travel, but not at the expense of truly experiencing the place that we’re visiting! 

Overall, our cost for 13 nights of hotels, including two connecting rooms in Luxor, was $600. At an average of $46 per night for some of the top hotels in the nation, I’d say we got our money’s worth! Without points, we would have paid around $1,720 for these rooms - a savings of $1,120.

If you are using points for a hotel stay in Egypt, you have many options. Hilton and Marriott hotels can be found in all the major cities and resort areas. The Marriott Mena House in Giza is one of the most photographed resorts in Cairo, given the incredible proximity to  - and therefore incredible views of - the Pyramids. Expensive even by Western standards, using points for the Mena House is a great value. IHG hotels, like Holiday Inn and the Intercontinental, are also great options, as these tend to be higher quality overseas than they are in the United States. 

Weigh your options in terms of what you want from a hotel and how much they are charging per night. Most hotels in Egypt will be considered quite affordable by Americans, and although five star hotels can be absolutely gorgeous, make sure that you are not inadvertently separating yourself from the Egyptian experience by staying at them! The next time I visit Egypt, I will likely pay with cash and stay at smaller, less luxurious hotels that allow for a more authentic experience.

Better ways to use your money

One of the best parts of travel hacking is that, by paying less for flights and hotels, you free up money in your budget for “value adds” - things like excursions, culinary experiences and guides. Rather than spending thousands on airfare or fancy hotels, your funds are better spent on increasing the quality of your time in Egypt. 

When traveling in Egypt, value particularly comes from your ability to access and connect with the local culture, Egyptian history and the Egyptian people. In my opinion, hiring knowledgeable and experienced guides is the best way to gain access to these aspects of Egypt that are likely the reason you are going in the first place! 

By using points, we saved $4,462 on our trip to Egypt. We spent barely a fraction of that on hiring Gus to help us plan, and on the fantastic guides in Cairo and Luxor that Gus helped us to arrange. Plus, we were able to afford a layover in London on the way home!

Learn more about travel hacking

To learn more about travel hacking using credit card points and miles, visit my blog, Travel Hacking 101, and follow me on Instagram at @travelhacking101. 

Want personalized help crafting a travel hacking plan for Egypt? I’m offering Egypt Adventures Travel clients 20% off my one-on-one consultations and full-service packages.