What I Booked: Qatar Qsuites, an African Safari, and Emirates First

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Summer planning in our house this year produced two summer trips that have nothing in common except for a stack of points and miles used to book them.  The first is a father-daughter trip to South Africa: Qatar Qsuites, 2 unbelievable safari lodges, Cape Town, and then home on Emirates First Class. It is exactly the kind of trip that makes this hobby feel ridiculous, magical, and financially suspicious all at the same time. The second is a full-family trip to Scotland and Iceland: Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy to London, a train to Edinburgh, a Highlands road trip, a week exploring new parts of Iceland, and Icelandair home to Toronto.  Both trips were booked with a mix of points, cash, TD Rewards, and the usual amount of travel-planning overthinking that I tend to do. This is an overview of what I booked.

Summer Trip 1: South Africa

The first trip is just my daughter and me, which makes this one feel special before we even get on a plane. We are heading to South Africa for a safari near Kruger National Park, followed by four nights in Cape Town. Of the two summer trips, this is the aspirational one, and the overall routing looks like this:

Flights

The flight highlights here are Qatar Qsuites on the outbound and Emirates First Class on the return, which is a pretty strong way to bookend a safari trip. In fact, safari, Emirates First, and Qsuites are really the three pieces that make this itinerary feel less like a normal vacation and more like one of those ridiculous redemptions that only makes sense in this hobby.

I chose Qatar because I still consider Qsuites to be the best business class product in the sky, especially when travelling with someone else, where the middle seats are unbeatable. The splurge on Emirates First Class was not an easy decision given the taxes, but I felt it was worth it. After all, I do consider it my favourite first class. Emirates first class awards through Skywards have been restricted to status holders only since last year. Luckily, I have Skywards Gold status from my Barclays card. An additional plus is that I not only managed to book this before the devaluation of the award chart and Membership Rewards transfer ratio, but also took advantage of the discounted 2nd connecting flight. I have talked about this before: adding a connecting flight to/from Dubai has a very marginal increase in cost.

Here is a run down of the total flight costs:

A notable booking here is also Airlink, which is exclusively available on United Mileage Club for redemption. Given the cash equivalent of these flights was over $500/pp, spending 20-20k was well worth it.

You may be wondering whether I had any concerns about booking both Qatar and Emirates given the U.S./Iran war. My concern was not really safety, but rather the potential impact on flight operations. Since one of the safari bookings became mostly non-refundable after May 1, I needed to make sure I had backup flights in place to get us to and from South Africa if things became messy. This is what I came up with:

Hopefully I won’t have to fly this, but it puts me at ease knowing the trip can still go as planned. Here’s a breakdown of the costs of the backup flights:

Traveling to South Africa through Brazil is an uncommon route, but there’s a key requirement: if your layover in Brazil exceeds 12 hours, you must show proof of yellow fever vaccination. I experienced this firsthand in 2011 when I took a similar route and had to spend an extra day in São Paulo to get vaccinated. It’s important to keep this in mind when preparing a backup plan. While relaxing in safari lodges, flying Emirates First, or Qsuites sounds luxurious, the actual planning involved a lot of detailed spreadsheets rather than champagne.

Hotels and Safaris

Once the flights were locked in, the trip stopped being just about getting to South Africa and became about building the right experience around them. Safari, Emirates First, and Qsuites may be the headline, but the lodges are what will probably decide whether this trip actually lives up to the hype.

After arriving at Skukuza Airport (SZK), the plan is to head to Leopard Sands, a relatively new Marriott Bonvoy property located just outside Kruger National Park. I am treating this as our safari acclimatization stop before moving on to the main event: three nights at Inyati Game Lodge in Sabi Sands.

Leopard Sands was also a strong redemption. I paid 98,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night and offset the cost with two 85,000-point free night certificates. Given that cash rates can often exceed $1,000 USD per night, this felt like a very good use of Bonvoy points and certificates, especially for a property that lets us ease into the safari portion of the trip before heading deeper into the Sabi Sands experience.

Choosing the right safari is tough, but after a lot of analysis and talking with friends, I decided on the Inyati Game Lodge rather than spending the entire time at Leopard Sands or on another safari in Africa with my Marriott Bonvoy points (e.g., JW Marriott Masai Mara).  Inyati stood out because it offers a more intimate Sabi Sands safari experience, with a strong reputation for Big Five viewing and especially good leopard sightings. Set along the Sand River, it felt like the right balance of comfort, wildlife focus, and classic safari atmosphere for a father-daughter trip. Now, Inyati does not participate in loyalty programs, so this meant paying cash, which wasn’t cheap. The total for 3 nights was just about $9000 with transfers. As an avid collector of Scotia Scene Points, I was able to cover the full cost for 900,000 points.  I also booked it through Expedia to earn a couple hundred dollars in their OneKey cash, and paid with my Chase Sapphire Reserve to earn 4x points, or about 22,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. How did I pay with my Chase card but use Scene points? Well, that’s for you to figure out. 🙂

Between the safari, Emirates First, and Qsuites flights, this trip had become one of those trips where the routing is almost as exciting as the destination!

Inyati Game LodgeFinally, in Cape Town, I’ll be returning to The Westin Cape Town. I came very close to booking one of the more aspirational options, including the Belmond, One&Only, or Fairmont, but I could not justify spending over $1,000 per night, even if I could soften the blow with a 2cpp Chase Edit booking or an Amex FHR stay. The Westin was just $220 per night, and based on my previous stay, it is a solid hotel that does the job well without turning Cape Town into another wildly expensive part of the trip.

The combination of a safari, Emirates First, and Qsuites makes this trip feel like a proper aspirational points-and-miles redemption.

Summer Trip 2: Scotland’s Highlands to Iceland’s Waterfalls

The second trip is with the entire family, which changes the equation completely. When I am travelling alone or just with my daughter, I can tolerate a bit more weirdness: odd routings, strange flight times, questionable hotel choices, and the occasional “this connection should be fine” moment that is, in fact, absolutely not fine. With the whole family, the goal is different. The trip needs to work, the logistics need to make sense, and the routing  for this summer trip needs to be something everyone can survive with their patience mostly intact. Here is how our Scotland and Iceland itinerary came together:

Flights

We are flying Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy from Toronto to London, which I managed to grab for a mere 16,500 points each! This will be my 2nd ever premium economy trek across the Atlantic, a cabin that I am trying to get accustomed to given the absurd devaluation in business class rewards, unless I go through hoops of positioning and connections; no thank you. The flight to London is so short that it’s a waste of time going through all this effort.

Here are my flights and the cost breakdown of each one:

The other notable flight booking is our Reykjavik to Toronto flight on Icelandair. I have flown Icelandair before, and for a short 6 hour transatlantic flight, I think it offers a perfectly solid product.

If you are wondering about the cost calculation of  155,200 points (Cash/Amex MR),  this  reflects the now mostly extinct 35% Membership Rewards rebate that was available when booking a business or first-class cash fare with the U.S. Business Platinum Card and applying Membership Rewards points toward the purchase. After the 35% rebate, the final cost came to 155,200 Membership Rewards points total, or 51,733 points per person, which I think is a very solid deal. Unfortunately, while the benefit still technically exists, it is now limited to select airlines, making redemptions like this much harder to replicate.

Hotels

What’s notable about hotels for this trip is that, outside of London and Edinburgh, all hotels were paid for with TD Rewards points, which, alongside Scotia Scene points, create an arsenal for redeeming at locations where there are no regular hotel reward options. Add to this, anyone with families can relate that finding standard rooms that can accommodate more than 2 people is a nightmare, and strategies have to be employed without resorting to some Airbnb equivalent.

What stands out about the hotel strategy for the second of our summer trips is that, outside of London and Edinburgh, every hotel was paid for using TD Rewards points. Alongside Scotia Scene+ points, these fixed-value programs are incredibly useful in places where traditional hotel award options are either limited, overpriced, or simply nonexistent. This is especially true when travelling as a family to Europe. Anyone trying to book rooms for more than two people knows how quickly “standard room” availability becomes a nightmare (2 persons max), especially in destinations with limited chain-hotel coverage. In those situations, fixed-value points let you book the hotel that actually works for your family without immediately resorting to an Airbnb-style alternative.

London

First, let’s start with London. We are only staying for one night, but we should have most of the day to explore if we feel like pretending jet lag is not real. With that in mind, I wanted something central and booked the London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square directly into an upgraded Executive Room with a sofa bed.

The room priced at 132,400 Marriott Bonvoy points, which is not exactly gentle for a one-night stay. However, I was able to apply an 85,000-point free night certificate, bringing the additional points cost down to 47,400 points.

Edinburgh

Once we get to Edinburgh, we are staying at The Caledonian Edinburgh, a Curio Collection property by Hilton. If the name sounds familiar, that is because this was previously a Waldorf Astoria and has long been one of the city’s grand hotel landmarks. The Caledonian has a rare combination of true grand-hotel history, a prime Princes Street location, and iconic Edinburgh Castle views, with the Royal Mile, Old Town, and Princes Street Gardens all within easy walking distance. It also has that classic “Caley” sense of occasion: a historic railway-hotel landmark with polished public spaces, spa facilities, and proper old-school Edinburgh grandeur.

I booked the stay using 3 Hilton free night certificates, so the room was essentially free.  The catch, of course, is that the certificates only booked us into a standard room, which accommodates only 2 people. Since we needed space for 3, I used my usual strategy: book the base room first, then email the hotel directly to ask about a paid upgrade to a room that would work for our family.  Thankfully, the strategy worked again. The hotel offered us a suite for an additional $200 per night, which I happily accepted. Yes, as a Hilton Diamond member I might have been upgraded for free, but I was not willing to gamble on that when travelling with family. For $200 per night at The Caledonian, in a confirmed suite, I am more than happy with that outcome.

Scottish Highlands

After Edinburgh, we head to the Highlands, where we are primarily staying at the Isles of Glencoe Hotel, in a family room for $689 CAD, which costs 118,000 TD Rewards points, to cover $589, as the remaining $100 would be covered by the annual expedia credit offered on TD First Class Travel visas

Iceland-Reykjavík

Upon arrival in Iceland, we have 1 night in Reykjavik, and unfortunately my go to EDITION wasn’t available, so I opted for the Candlewood Suites, an IHG property for $753 for the night, or 131,00 TD Rewards points after the $100 Expedia discount. The hotel is nothing special, just a comfortable, clean place to sleep in the heart of the city.

Iceland-Vik

After Reykjavik, we head back along Iceland’s southern coast, returning to an area we have already explored before on our previous visits to this stunning country. For the night in Vik, I booked Hotel Kria, where we have stayed before and had an excellent experience. The one-night stay is priced at $820, but after applying the $100 Expedia rebate, I used 144,000 TD Rewards points to cover the remaining cost.

Iceland-Jokulsarlon

From Vik, we continue farther along the south coast toward the Glacier Lagoon, where we are staying two nights at Hótel Jökulsárlón. This one was painful at $1,168 per night, but that is Iceland in peak summer travel season doing what Iceland does best in peak summer travel season: making otherwise normal hotel rates look personally offensive. After applying the TD Expedia credit, the 2 night stay required 447,200 TD Rewards points.

 

Iceland-Austurvegur

Finally, our last hotel in Iceland is Hotel Loa, which we booked as we make our way back toward Reykjavik and, more importantly, the airport the next day. It is a fairly plain looking hotel, but it works well as a practical midway stop, and most importantly, it had a room that could accommodate 3 people. The one-night stay cost $1,421, or 264,200 TD Rewards points after applying expedia rebate.

Iceland Hotel – Total Costs

Iceland is insanely expensive, especially as a family, and that is exactly why summer trips like this are where TD Rewards points can shine.  Just take a look at the total hotel costs for the 5 nights that was covered by TD Rewards:

Final Thoughts

These two planned summer trips show exactly why I still love this hobby. South Africa is the aspirational side: Qsuites, safari lodges, and Emirates First Class home. Scotland and Iceland are the practical side: premium economy, free night certificates, TD Rewards, and fixed-value points doing the unsexy work of making expensive family travel possible. Neither trip is perfect, and both have real costs, compromises, and logistics. But that is the point. The best redemptions are not always the ones with the highest cents-per-point value; they are the ones that help create trips you actually want to take. Sometimes that means Emirates First Class after a safari. Sometimes it means surviving premium economy and using TD Rewards so a hotel room in Iceland does not financially ruin your summer. Both are wins, and both are exactly why points and miles still matter.