Stacking Credit Card Benefits

I recently wrote about mine and Sarah's 2026 goal to eliminate many “coupon book” credit cards from our wallets. The mental bandwidth just isn't worth it when you have several, perhaps dozens, of such cards. But not everything associated with these credit cards is bad. Today, I'll outline how we're stacking credit card benefits to book a massive birthday trip to Scotland. We'll be gone for 15 days and all of it is booked with points or credit card perks. Read about how we did it and let us know in our Facebook group if this helps your trip planning skills.

The Trip

As a background, Sarah and I never buy each other gifts. Neither of us are big fans of “stuff” and we'd both rather spent time together and experience the world. It should come as no surprise then that I asked for a roadtrip in Scotland this summer for my 45th birthday. I have zero idea how I got to be this old, but I'm excited for this journey. I decided this off-the-beaten path would be a perfect time to spotlight stacking credit card benefits to piece together a big trip.

After consulting guidebook after guidebook, we landed on a trip that begins in Edinburgh, goes to St. Andrews, Inverness, the Isle of Skye, Oban, Loch Lomond, and ends in Glasgow. We're staying in hotels for 13 nights, will have a rental car, and are flying business class each way.

I have to say, after using points & miles to travel over 1,000,000 air miles, and having spent over 500 award nights in hotels, this is, BY FAR, our most diverse trip on points & miles. It was fun putting it together and I really hope it inspires you to think outside the box for your next trip.

Flights to Edinburgh

I have written many times about my status with American Airlines. I have also written about my love of Systemwide Upgrades (SWU), earned via the elite qualifying journey. You can read our guide here, but the simple way to think of a SWU is you can buy an economy ticket and upgrade to business class when charlie (C) class fares become available.

For our flights to Edinburgh, we found super cheap fares on American Airlines from New York to London for $334 each and we immediately confirmed business class seats. As we were already in NYC on a day that worked, there was no additional positioning cost.
Total Cost for business class: $6,450. Total Cost after 2 Systemwide Upgrades: $668.

From London to Edinburgh, we booked economy flights on British Airways for $74 each. We will credit these flights to AA to help with our AA status.
Total cost: $148 for 2.

Hotel in Edinburgh

To kick off our trip stacking credit card benefits, we needed 3 nights of hotels in Edinburgh. Sarah and I LOVE a good Waldorf Astoria, so we settled on The Caledonian. While it is no longer a Waldorf, all reviews indicate it is a fantastic property and worthy of our attention. While we could use 90,000 Hilton Honors per night, or a Hilton Free Night Certificate, we opted for booking 3 separate reservations via Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts. We rotated our nights, going Sarah reservation, Derrick, then another Sarah reservation, in hopes that there is a chance we will get 3 different $100 property credits, but we don't expect it.
Total Cost: $1,493.64 for 3 nights. Total cost after 3 FHR credits: $793.64. (Two FHRs booked before credit went from $200 to $300).

St. Andrews Hotel

I am a golfer and love golf. Strike that. I LOVE golf. There was no other option for us hotel-wise for our first trip to St. Andrews than to stay at the Old Course Hotel. This hotel is famous for golfers needing to hit the ball over the hotel's walled courtyard when teeing off on the 17th hotel. I convinced Sarah to let me splurge for a course-view room and I absolutely can't wait to experience this famous property.

The Old Course Hotel is part of Preferred Hotels and should count as a revenue stay for points-earning purposes. We booked this hotel stay with another Amex FHR credit. We'll receive free breakfast for 2, a $100 property credit, and space-available upgrades.
Total Cost: $884.54. Total cost after FHR credit: $584.54. Not too shabby for our only real splurge of the trip.

Hotel in Inverness

We continue stacking credit card benefits as we begin our search for the Loch Ness monster. After St. Andrews, we have two nights in Inverness to see the northernmost part of our Scottish roadtrip. We debated booking a Mercure property (part of Accor). The beauty of Accor is you can book via a travel agency (we book with the ToP travel agency and so can you!) for all the perks of luxury bookings and then erase the stay with ALL points at checkout. Those points are worth a fixed 2.2 USD cents each and can be used for any and all charges on your bill.

Ultimately, the Mercure seemed too expensive ($400+/night) for what it was, so we opted to book the AC Hotel Inverness. This helps us work on Sarah's Marriott status and she is only 80 nights away from qualifying for lifetime Platinum status. We booked the two night stay, which would otherwise cost over $775, for 58,500 Marriott points for 2 nights.
Total Cost: $775+. Total Cost after Marriott points: $0.00.

Isle of Skye Hotel

After we leave Inverness, we head to the Isle of Skye for 2 nights. I am super excited to see this part of Scotland. There are no chain hotels or luxury properties of any kind on this peninsula. We opted to book the Toravaig House Hotel. This bed & breakfast checks all the boxes, is highly ranked, and is centrally located. We booked it with our 2026 hotel credit on Sarah's Citi Strata Elite. Yes, this portal booking is risky, but when there are no chain hotels and you need to use a coupon, you gotta do it. We followed our advice about booking via portals and confirmed the stay directly with the hotel.
Total Cost: $429. Total Cost after Strata Elite credit: $129.

Our Stay in Oban

I forget why we are staying in Oban, but every single guidebook suggested visiting. We have several months to figure out why and we'll be fine. We frantically used Sarah's Citi Strata Elite 2025 credit to get this hotel booked. Much like Isle of Skye, there were no chain hotels available and we had a coupon to use, so we rushed to get this booked on December 30 or 31, as this credit goes by calendar year. We choose the Kilchrenan House and look forward to visiting the area for 2 nights.
Total Cost: $328.91. Total Cost after Strata Elite credit: $28.91.

Hotel in Loch Lomond

Before we finish off our trip in Glasgow, we I insisted on a castle stay. Queue up the Amex FHR program again and a stay at the Cameron House on Loch Lomond. Other than the Old Course Hotel, this might be the property I am most excited to try. I feel like I found a mistake fare, as our mid-week night was barely above the FHR credit. We'll call this win a double win! Hard to ever argue with less than $25 out of pocket for free breakfast for 2, space-available upgrades and a $100 property credit!
Total Cost: $323.47. Total Cost after FHR credit: $23.47.

Finishing the Trip in Glasgow

We finish off this exciting trip in Glasgow. Like the rest of the trip, we were stacking credit card benefits here too. I wrote about this hotel stay in fall 2025, as we found insane value in the IHG program with Chase's The Edit Hotel program. You can read all about this redemption here. We are staying at the Kimpton Blythewoods Square for 2 nights. We'll get similar perks to the Amex FHR program and it will stack with Sarah's IHG Platinum status. We booked this hotel with our $250 Edit credit on Sarah's Sapphire Reserve Business card and 27,500 Chase Ultimate Rewards redeemed at 2 cents per point.
Total Cost: $801.82. Total Cost after Edit Credit and 27,500 Ultimate Rewards: $1.82.

Rental Car

We decided to pickup a car as we were leaving Edinburgh and drop it off as soon as we get back to Glasgow. Because of this, we required a rental car for 8.5 days and wanted a one-way rental. We booked this car through the Capital One Venture X travel portal. Sarah had just opened a new Venture X, so we used her $300 annual travel credit to offset almost half of the $677.04 cost. We used 37,704 Cap1 miles to erase the remaining charge. Again, we followed-up with the rental car company to confirm our reservation and this rental is also fully refundable until pick-up time.
Total Cost: $677.04. Total Cost after VX travel credit and 37,704 Cap1 miles: $0.00.

Flights Back to USA

GLA-LHR

For some reason, cash fares are crazy expensive from Glasgow to London (more on this below) on our Tuesday departure date. We booked our flights with 10,000 American Airlines miles and $41.40 each. We could have booked with 7,500 Alaska Miles and $51.45 each, but we have a ton more AA miles and it is easier to have my AA/Oneworld status recognized when booking AA.
Total Cost: $313.45 for 2. Total Cost after 20,000 AA Miles: $82.80.

LHR-IAD

So why are we positioning from Glasgow to London to fly home? Because while stacking credit card benefits, I found a gem! On the exact date we needed, I found business class flights on United Airlines from London Heathrow to Washington Dulles for under $1,800 each. Unfortunately, I'm still way too cheap to ever pay $1,800 for a one-way flight, even if it is business class.

But in fall 2025, Chase introduced Points Boost. This program allowed us to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards for these United business class fares at 2 cents per point, or 88,997 points per person. And since this is a revenue flight, we'll earn miles on the cost of this flight. Even with a deeply discounted fare, we'll earn 7,680 United miles each. So a net cost of around 80,000 miles, for a non-stop, business class flight on our preferred date and to our preferred home airport.
Total Cost: $3,559.88. Total Cost after 177,994 Ultimate Rewards: $0.00.

Birthday Trip Summary

If we weren't stacking credit card benefits, this massive trip would be insanely expensive, at least by our standards. But thanks to lots of research, hard work, a plethora of credit cards, and a whole lot of persistence and stubbornness, we're paying a fraction of what this once-in-a-lifetime trip would otherwise cost.

Total Cost for Rental Car, 2 International Business Flights, 2 Domestic UK Flights, and 13 Hotel Nights: $16,184.75.

Total Cost after Stacking Credit Card Benefits: $2,460.18.

Gives me chills to think about it, once it is all added up. This is a splurge trip for us, full of famous hotels and international business class flights. All for points, miles, credit card coupons and less than $2,500.

Stacking Credit Card Benefits: ToP Thoughts

Writing down this entire trip reminds me how much work I have put into this massive roadtrip. It also highlights how many credit card coupons we all have. While they significantly helped lower the costs on this trip, it is not sustainable for all future trips, especially where more simple points and miles planning is possible. But hopefully this shows you that if stacking credit card benefits to plan a multiple week trip is your goal, it is certainly possible.

So what do you think? How did we do in planning my 45th birthday trip? Come over to our Facebook group and let us know.