A few weekends ago, we went back to my Alma Mater for a college football weekend. Similar to wedding weekends, a short weekend getaway can add up quite quickly between flights, hotels/AirBnB, football tickets, rental car, meals out, bar tabs…the list goes on. Normally, we like to plan these trips out way in advance, as small college towns fill up quickly around football weekends. This time we didn’t know we were going until about 3 months before the game.
Limited and expensive options
Due to the late planning, overall options were limited. AirBnB’s were selling out fast and none were big enough for our whole group of 12 traveling down. So I went to work checking on hotels. To my surprise, hotels were charging $400 and more with a two night minimum stay. Call me cheap, but I didn’t really want to spend at least a $1,000 on accommodation in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Always check for multiple options
Based on this, I went back and checked on points availability. I use a website, Award Mapper that shows all hotels in the area. You can pick which points you have available and see their locations on an area view. Luckily, I was able to find something right away. The Hyatt Place had rooms available at just 8,000 Hyatt points per night. We had actually stayed at this hotel before when it just opened a little over a year ago. So we knew the location was great and the rooms spacious. In general, The Hyatt Place is awesome as you always get a large room with tons of space and most are fairly new.
It doesn’t always need to be glamorous to utilize your points
Using points on basic suburban hotel is certainly not as exciting as a luxury beach resort while flying first class. But, it does show that you can find a ton of value in everyday life and situations you might not have thought about otherwise. Based on the cash price, this was a no brainer for us and saved us 1,000 big ones.
Since there was also a special promotion going on, I actually made some points back, making this an even better redemption.
How did I book the hotel?
I booked the hotel directly in the Hyatt app on my phone at 8,000 Hyatt points per night.
Cash Cost of hotel:
At the time of booking which was about three months out cash prices were at $500 per night before taxes. Assuming the total cost including tax would have been around $1,100, I ended up with getting close to 7 cent per point redemption value.
How did I accrue the miles?
I accrued the miles through some work travel and transferred Chase Ultimate Reward points to top off my account. Points from UR transfer instantly, so no worries about awards disappearing on you while you wait for the transfer. The UR points were from my daily spend on my Sapphire Reserve and Freedom cards.
Summary:
This was a huge score for us and certainly made the weekend a lot more affordable. This hotel gave us a great base right next to campus with breakfast included. To be able to find award availability was somewhat surprising to me, but again shows the value of having points at your disposal.
Anyone else have a good story were they saved big money on less glamorous redemption?
Alex, great suggestions. Can you start a place on your blog where you list all these different resources in one place with a link and short description of what it’s for? So when I remember to try them, I can easily find them?
Hi Jayne. That’s a great suggestion. I will look into how I can add a resource page.