First Vacation Using Points

I am pretty excited about going on our first family vacation in over a year! Like everyone else, I have had several plans cancelled over the last several months. In early February we had a family vacation scheduled to go on a cruise that of course has been cancelled. We rescheduled our cruise a year out and hopefully we will get to take our trip then. In its place for this coming year, we are planning on driving the Florida Keys! I felt like we would be able to control our environment safely and still enjoy a family vacation on this trip. This will be our first family vacation using points for our flights and hotels. In this article I will discuss what we have booked so far. Assuming we get to do this trip, look for a series of articles on our trip in February 2021.

Being that this is our first big trip on points, I had quite the stash going in. I only have Chase Ultimate Rewards Points so far to work with and used the Chase travel portal to book most of our hotel stays. Considering we are going during high season to the Keys, our rate of redemption may not be the best, but overall all I am happy with our first foray into traveling with points. I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve so my points are worth 50% more when booking through Chase Ultimate Rewards (CUR).

Here is our breakdown:

Playa Largo Resort in Key Largo, 1 night at 22,740 points on CUR. Cash price was $303 on Bonvoy at time of booking

Courtyard by Marriott Marathon Florida Keys, 2 nights 42,945 points on CUR. Cash price $342/night at time of booking. The rates reflect that this is also a Friday and Saturday night stay.

Hyatt Centric Key West Resort, 3 nights at 75,000 points on Hyatt by transferring points 1:1 from Chase to Hyatt account. For this stay we are also going to be able to take advantage of the promotion of 15% of points back and free parking on stays until February 28, 2021. Cash price would be $374/night.

Baker’s Cay Resort in Key Largo, 1 night at 24,863 points on CUR. Cash price $330 on Hilton at time of booking.

Results:

Used 200,882 CUR points to book $2,439 of hotel stays. The cost per night that I used was using the best rate I could find if booking directly with hotel and not what CUR said price was. Ultimately I will get back 11,250 points to my Hyatt account due to the promotion used for our stay bringing my points used down to 189,632. So far I saved about $542 using my points through Chase vs. cashing out my points.

So this wraps up what we have booked so far and our experience booking through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal. I do have one more night to book for our last night before we fly home.