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Posting in here to perhaps give others inspiration or a reminder on how the points game can really benefit us. I chatted to Rob before posting…..
I’ve collected points across all platforms for years, and have redeemed plenty of flights & hotels along the way. In early 2019, we made a decision to do a family (2A & 2C) West Cost USA road trip in 2020. That obviously got postponed as did the original reschedule of 2021. We therefore took this trip in August 2022, after over 3 years of planning.
We flew BA Club Suite from LHR to SFO as a family of 4, using 2 x 241. The original booking for 2020 was made in the usual way – outbound online, return by calling BA and adding to it. When the COVID delays hit, we were able to move the entire booking to 2021 then again in 2022 – we done this both times and I guess were lucky with availability – folks still not travelling or securing plans.
We stayed 25 nights across California & Nevada. 23 of these were points and 2 were cash, with IHG Ambassador free weekend night used to only pay for 1 night.
Our route was San Francisco down to San Diego, stopping at various points along the way. Over to Las Vegas, up through Death Valley to Carson City then back to San Francisco via Sacramento.
The points run down was:
273,750k Avios used for 4 return flights Club Suite. A month before the flight, the seats were selling for £10k each.16 nights in IHG hotels for points. 577,000 IHG points used – this was the main brand used, as with dynamic pricing, I saw huge reductions in points required during 2021 for booking in 2022. Travel hadn’t restarted so demand was low. I cancelled and rebooked every room at least once.
7 nights in Hilton hotels for points. 420,000 points used. This included the stay 4 nights, get the 5th free which we used in Las Vegas at Resorts World.
We then had 2 nights booked at a Radisson in Napa Valley, for 67,500 points. However Trip Advisor reviews were terrible so I cancelled this a couple of days prior and used the Intercontinental free night certificate for San Francisco at the end of our trip instead.
We managed to have free breakfast for all 4 of us at each IHG property – including 2 Intercontinental (LA & SF). Hiltons were the usual credit allowance each day for both adults which barely covered coffee in Las Vegas.
I also had car hire booked with Avios for the original 2020 trip, but then needed the Avios for other flights, so managed to lock in a low rate by pre paying with Avis for the trip when I booked it in late 2021.
I used Curve Metal for each hotel check in, car hire pre-auth etc. and had no issues.
I have loads of data on the trip – including driving 3,750 miles in 22 days, plus all redemption info. Happy to give my lessons learnt or answer any other queries in here or at an email I set up for the trip – westcoastusa2022 at gmail.com
Hope this helps someone to plan a family trip – it can be done with planning and timing of vouchers etc. Safe to say all 4 of us had an amazing, once in a lifetime trip. Both kids are now mid teenagers and we probably won’t do anything like this again.
Thanks for sharing/posting- we’re currently planning a trip to the NW US & Canada next year and some really useful info here to help with that. Great you were able to do the majority of it using points.
I want to share too and am happy to answer questions. I might not be able to repeat something similar cause some hotel points earning routes have now closed!
I took mum on a road trip around Utah and skipped to Yellowstone for a couple of days, booked in Jan and went in May 2022.
– London To Denver, the return was Seattle to London using BAPP 2 for 1 voucher in business class using 125k points plus tax. Seat cost at the time of booking was £3.5k each
– 3 internal flights, one I had to pay for cause I have no united miles. Otherwise use Virgin miles for a Delta flight between Salt Lake City to Idaho Falls, and Avios to book a flight with Alaska Airlines from Idaho Falls to Seattle. Paid <$10 per person in taxes per flight if I recalled correctly.
– of the 13 nights, 9 were using points or free nights certifications, and one was partly paid with Hotel.com’s “free night”. The only reason I paid for 3 nights at Yellowstone was that the only points option I had was at an IHG where the reviews weren’t great. I mainly used IHG and Hyatt points (got an amazing upgrade at Hyatt Regency Seattle) with one night in Hilton. GBP cost of hotel savings were £1700 ish excluding any fees for having a particular credit card. If I had to pay for all in cash, I might have stayed at a slightly cheaper place in Seattle and Moab. So cost savings is pretty on point.
– Had free breakfast most days (although not really due to status) otherwise ate at quite a few airport lounges. The Hilton food credit was not enough to cover breakfast, think I paid an extra $4. Sometimes we grab a piece of fruit or something for a snack later in the day too.
– Got free meals at the following: BA lounge at LHR, the Centurion lounge at Seattle and Denver (via plat card) and Delta lounge at salt lake city (via plat card and flying Delta.
– car insurance covered by Amex plat, had free additional driver via perks at work for one of the car rentals (I had some problems with them so probably won’t use them again)
– I also had $300 ish reward on another card which was used to pay for several nights of dinner@Scottpat78 That’s a great demonstration of what can be achieved in our hobby with a bit of dedication – it is an example and inspiration to us all!
We are planning a mini version of this in November : 9 nights between SFO and LA. A four day slow meandering drive down the Pacific coast highway book-ended between two 2 night stays at Fisherman’s Wharf (Kimpton) and Santa Monica (Oceana Hilton LXR resort). Returning to our SFO flight back via the Amtrak Starlight coastal train service from LA. Flights are with VS on a 2-4-1 in UC. This is all on points too except for the Kimpton (using Ambassador free night certificate) and of course the Amtrak.
The hotels I’ve booked for the road-trip part are HIX (Monterey x2 nights, Pismo Beach & Carpinteria so far) as I figured we wouldn’t be in each for long and they were only 20k points each in the recent IHG ‘flash’ sale (can’t argue with 4 nights including brekkie for 80k points). However, one of the other main reasons was to avoid the ridiculous valet parking charges (plus tax) levied at nearly all other US chain hotels. What was your experience with this?
Also, how did you find the drive down that part of the coast – any tips to offer a fellow Brit who is used to driving on the left in an island where the max speed limit is 35 mph?!
Great choice on the LXR, it’s a lovely hotel. Small but perfectly formed, with a real luxury feel to it. Great location overlooking the sea and the rooms are superb.
My daughter and I had two nights there in June on points – got the customary room upgrade as Gold. And the F&B credit was just enough to cover both our breakfasts (juice, croissant & fruit platter). We got our coffee fix from one of the Starbucks in the centre.@Scottpat78
Also, how did you find the drive down that part of the coast – any tips to offer a fellow Brit who is used to driving on the left in an island where the max speed limit is 35 mph?!Driving in America is generally easy as everything is very large so there is lots of space; and the Pacific Coast Highway is very easy. Most people are dawdling so slow speed is no issue. There’s a fantastic thread on best things to see here somewhere – will try and find a link later.
Skip Pismo (it’s a bit American Skegness) and put extra time into Santa Barbara would be my instant suggestion. Enjoy!
@Scottpat78 That’s a great demonstration of what can be achieved in our hobby with a bit of dedication – it is an example and inspiration to us all!
Also, how did you find the drive down that part of the coast – any tips to offer a fellow Brit who is used to driving on the left in an island where the max speed limit is 35 mph?!
A lot of it is a single lane either way, so you’ll be stuck in long convoys of traffic. When you get to an overtaking stretch someone towing a caravan or a truck will pull out, barely overtake one car and then you still dont get past the person doing 30. So just like driving anywhere else 🙂 There are plenty of places to pull off to the side and let the traffic go past.
Also fog in the mornings can be a real issue at some times of the year, it generally burns off before lunchtime.
If you’re switching from always driving manual to a typical US automatic, remeber to just plant your left foot. Otherwise it’ll come pretty easy. The drivers in the US are generally way more polite and laid back compared to the UK cities.
Great choice on the LXR, it’s a lovely hotel. Small but perfectly formed, with a real luxury feel to it. Great location overlooking the sea and the rooms are superb.
My daughter and I had two nights there in June on points – got the customary room upgrade as Gold. And the F&B credit was just enough to cover both our breakfasts (juice, croissant & fruit platter). We got our coffee fix from one of the Starbucks in the centre.Thanks @Degsy – Good to hear about the Oceana quality level as it will be Mrs Trotter’s birthday one of the nights there! Also as I am Hilton Gold too hopefully we can enjoy the brekkie and an upgrade too like you and your daughter did 🙂
I love driving in the US, so I found it easy as am pretty used to it. Who doesn’t like turning right on a red light?!!
Pacific Highway 1 is definitely easy going for most of it. The majority of folks in cars we saw were all tourists and had cameras stuck out the windows at various times. There are lots of vista points where you can pull in and appreciate the view. Definitely one for taking your time. You absolutely want to go south on this road though – so nothing is obstructing your view from the other side of the road (you’ll be on the right if you are travelling south).
I felt we pitched the timings right in each location, and made a point to not eat at any chains we could find in the UK or even just in the US. Starbucks was the only exception 🙂
I wouldn’t go back to LA, that was the only place we didn’t really enjoy. We did spend the Amex dining credit in LA though, at Everton Royce Bar and that itself was great.
We went into smaller towns to stay such as Lompoc & Watsonville and these were great to see, away from the normal tourist traps.
Death Valley was also great to see and going from -150ft to +8,000ft sea level at various points in 1 car trip was quite fun!We stayed at Holiday Inn, HIEx, Intercontinental, Staybridge Suites plus Hilton & Hilton Garden Inn.
Our itinerary was:
San Fran – 4 nights
Watsonville / Santa Cruz – 1 night
Monterey – 2 nights
Lompoc – 2 nights
LA – 2 nights
San Diego – 4 nights
Las Vegas – 5 nights
Carson City – 1 night
Sacramento – 2 nights
San Fran – 2 nightsOur highlights of the trip were: whale watching (& seeing whales feeding) in Monterey, San Diego zoo, Freemont St zip line then Alcatraz tour when back in San Fran.
I am Diamond in both IHG & Hilton, so the free breakfasts, occasional upgrades and welcome drinks etc. were all very welcome. Amex Platinum for car hire insurance was great to have, luckily I didn’t need to use it.
We booked the hire car in San Fran for the last day we were there, to avoid the $70 + tax valet fees. I went on the BART (underground) to SFO and picked up the car easily enough, then dropped it off in the same place at the end of the trip. You don’t need a car in SF.
We also paid mandatory valet in LA then choose valet in Vegas as it was just a lot easier. Everywhere else we self parked for free.
Since we changed a trip from the Radisson in Napa Valley to the IC in San Fran late in the trip, I ended paying valet in SF when we returned. If it was planned, I would have dropped off the hire car upon returning to SF for the last 2 nights.
@Scottpat78
However, one of the other main reasons was to avoid the ridiculous valet parking charges (plus tax) levied at nearly all other US chain hotels. What was your experience with this?Some great reports here I loved reading for one of my favourite holiday types (have done a few road trip variations for most locations in southwest USA and up to Yellowstone several times – my very favourite place).
To anyone planning the classic SF to LA coast drive I’d flag up in particular Will in SJC’s superb post in this useful previous thread on the subject.
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/california-road-trip/#post-301732
We booked the hire car in San Fran for the last day we were there, to avoid the $70 + tax valet fees. I went on the BART (underground) to SFO and picked up the car easily enough, then dropped it off in the same place at the end of the trip. You don’t need a car in SF.
We also paid mandatory valet in LA then choose valet in Vegas as it was just a lot easier. Everywhere else we self parked for free.
Since we changed a trip from the Radisson in Napa Valley to the IC in San Fran late in the trip, I ended paying valet in SF when we returned. If it was planned, I would have dropped off the hire car upon returning to SF for the last 2 nights.
@Scottpat78
However, one of the other main reasons was to avoid the ridiculous valet parking charges (plus tax) levied at nearly all other US chain hotels. What was your experience with this?
@Scottpat78 Thanks for all the really helpful pointers and also for starting this thread in the first place!Some great reports here I loved reading for one of my favourite holiday types (have done a few road trip variations for most locations in southwest USA and up to Yellowstone several times – my very favourite place).
To anyone planning the classic SF to LA coast drive I’d flag up in particular Will in SJC’s superb post in this useful previous thread on the subject.
https://www.headforpoints.com/forums/topic/california-road-trip/#post-301732
@The Savage Squirrel Thanks so much for this and also your tips earlier! 👍
Finally – a wish that I will also put in the housekeeping thread – oh how I miss the nested replies on the old daily comments post. So much easier to be able to keep replies on sub-topics together and generally to make the conversation less disjointed! Failing that, a notification when people quote you would be good so that you can easily see when a conversation is continuing, rather than having to review the whole thread to the end each time…
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