What Our Family of 5 Spent on 17 Days in Singapore, Hong Kong, and China
Our family of five spent about $8,432 in cash on a 17-day trip through Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing, including a 3-night Disney cruise. That’s roughly $1,686 per person, or about $99 per person per day.
We also used nearly 1.6 million points and miles on flights and hotels, which is the only reason that first number looks the way it does. If we’d paid cash for everything, this trip would have run well over $20,000.
Here’s every line item, what we saved and how, and what I’d tell you to budget if you tried this yourself.
What did the trip cost in total?
| Cash, excluding the cruise | $4,082 |
| Disney Adventure cruise, 5 people | $4,350 |
| Total cash out of pocket | About $8,432 |
| Points and miles used | Almost 1,600,000 |
| Approximate cash value if we’d paid full price | Over $20,000 |
That Disney Adventure cruise number is based on 2027 pricing I checked in August 2026 for the equivalent sailing, since fares move constantly. Cruise pricing is not a fixed thing you can look up once. If you want a real number for your dates, fill out my trip inquiry form and I’ll get you a quote.
🎧 I also shared all about this trip on the Points Talk Squad podcast and you can listen to it here.
Where did the money actually go?
This is cash out of pocket, not counting anything paid with points. You can track your own inside the Travel Keeper app.
| Category | Cash | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Activities | $1,669 | 41% |
| Lodging | $766 | 19% |
| Flights (taxes and fees) | $737 | 18% |
| Transport | $526 | 13% |
| Other | $274 | 7% |
| Food | $110 | 3% |
Two of these need explaining, because the raw numbers are misleading on their own.
Food looks impossibly low, and there’s a reason. Meals on the Disney cruise were included in the fare. At the Grand Hyatt in both Hong Kong and Beijing, we had Club Access, which meant breakfast and dinner in the lounge for six of our nights. So the $110 you see is a Palo brunch on the ship, and the casual lunches we bought along the way weren’t tracked. Budget real money for food if you’re copying this.
Transport is the train, and not much else. The $526 is the Shanghai to Beijing high-speed rail for five people. Getting around within cities barely moved the needle. Our Grab from the cruise terminal to the Singapore airport was S$65, and Didi rides across Shanghai and Beijing ran $7 to $15 each. Call it another $100 to $200 across the whole trip that I didn’t log.
How much did the flights cost?
Almost nothing in cash, and a very large number in miles. Seven flight segments for five people:
| Route | Points | Cash |
|---|---|---|
| Rochester to Newark (United) | 55,000 | $28 |
| New York to Singapore (Singapore Airlines) | 402,500 | $28 |
| Singapore to Hong Kong (Singapore Airlines) | 62,000 | $258 |
| Hong Kong to Shanghai (Air France/Flying Blue) | 38,250 | $215.50 |
| Beijing to Singapore to Newark (Singapore Airlines) | 522,500 | $179.26 |
| Newark to Rochester (United) | 55,000 | $28 |
The New York to Singapore leg alone would have been around $6,250 in cash for five Premium Economy seats. Same on the way home. That’s $12,500 of this trip’s value sitting in two flight bookings.
Two things worth stealing:
United’s cardmember award discount. Rochester to Newark came out to 11,000 miles plus $5.60 per person each way, against a cash price around $159.
Flying Blue’s 25% award discount for kids. On the Hong Kong to Shanghai leg, I booked our flights on China Eastern Airlines through Air France. Adults paid 9,000 miles each and the girls paid 6,750. With three kids, small percentage discounts stop being small.
How much did the hotels cost?
$766 in cash across five hotel stays, because four of our hotels were on points.
| Hotel | Nights, # of Rooms | Points | Cash |
|---|---|---|---|
| voco Times Square, NYC | 1 night, 2 rooms | 34,850 IHG | $300, minus $250 credit |
| Andaz Singapore | 2 nights, 2 rooms | 26,343 Chase UR | $658, minus $250 credit |
| Grand Hyatt Hong Kong | 3 nights, 2 rooms | 150,000 Hyatt | |
| Courtyard Shanghai | 2 nights, 2 rooms | $358 | |
| Grand Hyatt Beijing | 3 nights, 2 rooms | 90,000 Hyatt |
We booked two rooms almost everywhere. A family of five rarely fits in one room internationally, and that’s a cost most trip budgets forget.
Three things that saved real money here:
Hyatt Club Access. We applied it to both rooms in Hong Kong and Beijing, which got all five of us breakfast and dinner in the lounge for six nights. That’s the single biggest reason our food spend looks the way it does.
The Hyatt Family Rate Plan. Used on the second room in Singapore, it saved about $98 a night. If you have kids and stay at Hyatt, learn this rate.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve “The Edit” credit. $250 back on the Andaz booking, which is why $658 became $408.
How much were the activities?
$1,669, and this is where most of our cash actually went.
- Great Wall at Mutianyu and Summer Palace private day tour: $619.20
- Hong Kong Disneyland tickets for five: HK$3,561, about $454
- Shanghai Disneyland tickets for five: ¥2,676, about $398
- Hong Kong Disneyland Early Park Entry: HK$995, about $127
- Karaoke room on the ship: $70
The separate $274 in the “Other” line was Hong Kong Disneyland Premier Access, a skip-the-line pass covering 8 rides and 2 shows at HK$429 per person.
So the two theme park days, with the add-ons, came to about $1,253. That’s most of what we spent on activities.
The Great Wall tour was a private driver and guide for the day, including the Summer Palace and lunch. For $619 across five people, on the far side of the world, that was the best value purchase of the trip.
Would this cost the same for you?
No, and I want to be honest about that.
The $8,432 figure is what we spent given the points we’d saved, the credit cards we hold, and the specific dates we traveled. Change any of those and the number moves a lot. I had been saving my points for this specific bucket list trip for quite some time!
Things that would push your cost up:
- Not having nearly 1.6 million points banked. That’s a couple of years of deliberate savings.
- Paying cash for the Singapore Airlines legs. Those two bookings alone represent about $10,000 in retail value.
- Traveling without lounge access at the hotels, which would put food back into your budget.
- Different cruise dates. Fares move constantly.
Things that could push the costs down:
- A shorter trip. Seventeen days is a lot of hotel nights.
- Choose cheaper hotels or smaller hotels that offer family rooms so you don’t need two rooms.
- Skipping the cruise, which was about half our total cash expenses.
- Fewer theme park days. The two Disney parks with add-ons came to about $1,253.
What I’d tell you to budget
If you’re planning something like this and you don’t have a points balance to burn, budget the full retail version and be pleasantly surprised. Call it $20,000 to $25,000 for a family of five doing this exact route with the same hotels, flights, and cruise, and start chipping away at it with points from there.
If you do have points, the strategy that worked for us was simple: use miles on the flights, and use hotel points where you can stack lounge access on top to cut down on your food spend. Pay cash for the things that are cheap in cash, like the Shanghai hotel and the ground transport.
That’s my whole system. It took about two years of saving toward this specific trip, and it was worth every point.
Our full 17-day itinerary, including how we did China without a visa, is shared here.
Want a real quote for your own version? Cruise planning is complimentary and custom trip planning starts at $250.
Want to compare Travel Keeper to other travel planning apps like Wanderlog and TripIt? See my full comparison post here.
