Thanks for the response biggestbopper.

I will be applying for more cards this week, with plans to travel to Europe next year with our family of four (and all kinds of destinations are on our bucket list for the next several years). We only have 6 nights we can get away by ourselves, and overseas from the west coast just takes too much time for this getaway.

We haven't been to Maui since 1995 (before kids), and want to go this year, as is our 20th anniversary year. We figured a Maui trip by ourselves is a good start to getting free travel (we haven't gone away more than two nights by ourselves in the last 12 years).

If I paid cash for our tickets, which I have looked into, then it would really cut way too much into our food/entertainment budget for the trip, and we'd like to eat at nicer restaurants than we normally do, and go on some nice outings while there.