After going away for Thanksgiving, I thought that we were done with our travels for 2013. However I just couldn’t resist, so I booked us one last short trip. We’ll be leaving this afternoon.

We were originally thinking of a couple of options, one being El Salvador and the other being a week in Texas to visit Dallas and Austin. However, I wasn’t off during the full winter break so we settled on visiting just one city in Texas: Dallas.

We’ll be visiting Dallas for the first time and have lots of ideas for things to do. It will finally be  nice to get out of the airport and experience a little bit of Texas firsthand. If the flight times weren’t an issue we probably would’ve picked Austin for this trip but based on what I’ve read so far, there seems to be some great things to see and experience in Dallas.

Trip Planning:

The Flights:  We’ll be flying roundtrip on Southwest

• New York (LGA) to Dallas (DAL): 9,720 points (cost if purchased- $188)
• Dallas (DAL) to New York (LGA): 20,400 points (cost if purchased- $355)

For this trip I used (just about) the rest of my Southwest points to fly us to Dallas (leaving me with 468 points in my account). This will be our last trip with my Companion Pass. Getting home we will be using Kim’s Companion Pass and points for the first time. This will also be Lucas’ last trip as a lap baby! Besides the points listed above, we each paid $5 tax going to Dallas and $2.50 for the way home.

The total cost of our flights= 30,120 Southwest points & $15 tax.

The Hotel:

• Park Inn by Radisson Dallas-Love Field

We were looking to make this trip as cheap as possible so this hotel fits the bill. It won’t be fancy but it should certainly get the job done. If we paid for the room, it would’ve cost around $55 per night due to a discount for booking 3+ nights. The total cost with tax would make it around $254. However, we used our Club Carlson Gold Points, each booking a 2 night stay. Kim and I both have Club Carlson credit cards so when we book with points our second night is free. We each booked two nights, paying for the cost of one which is 9,000 points.

The total cost for 4 nights hotel stay= 18,000 Club Carlson Gold Points + $0

Car Rental:

I decided to pay for a car rental since I want to save my Hertz points to get a one week rental in the future. Car rentals weren’t so cheap while I searched so I went with booking through Hotwire. Hotwire matched us up with a standard size car with Alamo. While not cheap, it was the best price I found while doing some quick searching.

The total cost of our 4 day car rental= $108.77. Before booking, I went through TopCashBack and earned $1.52 (if you don’t already have an account, sign up for one here. If you use my link I will earn a referral commission.) With TopCashBack, I will be receiving $1.52.

Our total out-of-pocket expenses come to $122.75 ($15 tax on flights, $107.25 for the rental car.)

We’re looking forward to our visit to Dallas and have a bunch of fun things already planned. If you have any recommendations- restaurants and/ or can’t miss sites, please share your tips with us in the comments below.