Honeymoon: Need help planning BC area trip for June 2015!
 

HI all,
I am trying to plan a honeymoon for the week of June 7 - 11, 2015 and we want to try out the British Columbia region. Here's our info:

Home airport: St. Louis, Mo (STL)
Ages: 28/35

We want to maximize credit card bonuses/signup offers as much as possible for this honeymoon. Unfortunately, I already have these cards: Chase Sapphire, Hyatt, Hilton, Alaska Airlines, and Southwest. But my fiance does not have anything yet:)

Questions:

1. What card should we get for the airline portion of the trip?
2. What card should we get for the hotels/lodging portion of the trip?
3. any other advice/tips ?

To / from the USA, YVR is serviced by Air Canada, Alaska (Horizon), American, Cathay Pacific, Delta, United, US Airways (American) & WestJet.

Of those, United has the highest frequency of flights to their hubs. United can also book you onto Air Canada, although AC's reward seat availability is very stingy and their "Air Canada Rouge" subsidiary has terrible legroom.

You can also consider flying to SEA, renting a car and driving up. SEA to downtown Vancouver is about three hours of driving, plus the border wait time, which can be anything from five minutes to 2+ hours depending on the day / time.

SEA airport has pretty much every airline you might need.

All of the major hotel chain loyalty programs are represented in Vancouver, although some individual offerings aren't here, such as the W and aLoft.

If it's your honeymoon, try out the PanPacific Hotel www.panpacificvancouver.com as one of the premium luxury places to stay within easy walking distance of downtown attractions.

For real character, you could go to The Sylvia www.sylviahotel.com. This is where my wife and I usually stay and although old and the rooms small you can't beat the location and the 'vibe.'

An alternative is to take a ferry from Seattle to Victoria (or you could rent a car in Seattle and take it on the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria). It's a lovely place and June will be an excellent time to travel on Vancouver Island. You can go to Tofino where there are great seaside hotels on the west coast of the island and also there are some really nice little resorts on the east coast. The farther north you go the more the remote and mountainous it becomes. There are ferries to Vancouver on the mainland from the island at Nanaimo, Duke's Point, and Swartz Bay. You could return the car to Seattle via an easy drive.

I would check out the Westin Bear Mountain resort in Victoria, BC if you want a high value SPG redemption on a mountain golf course.

It's a beautiful property but well out of town. The Westin Whistler is also a good option. . .

what are your preferences in terms of activities? Sightseeing country, city, shows, food, hiking, etc... Also, do want to stay in one place or are looking to see a few different spots.

It is a big province.

I love the Okanagan area of BC. About 3 hours east of Vancouver, lots of wineries, a number of nice restaurants and reasonable lodgings.

However, there's not a lot of chain hotels here, so using points for rooms isn't going to be easy, unless you use something like the Capital One Venture card that allows you to remove vacation transactions with points after the trip.

The biggest town in the area is Kelowna, and this is where we stay, because we have partial ownership of a condo at the Grand Hotel on the waterfront. The other main town is Penticton, and it is more centrally located for access to the whole valley and wineries.

We've been visiting Kelowna for over 12 years, and are now friends with some of the winery owners and bar managers. We're visiting in a month or so to see one of our friend's new cocktail lounge and restaurant, although February doesn't have the best weather for a non-skiing vacation!

Protip: Icewine Cider

My brother originally picked up a load of this when they went through, leading to my parents picking up a whole pile of it when they drove back last time. It's pretty much the best cider ever.