ski – TrupTravels

BOOK YOUR SKI HOTEL NOW. GREAT POINT RATE AT DOUBLETREE BRECKENRIDGE!

Our family loves skiing. Or I should say I love it, my son enjoys it, my daughter has a blast, and my wife will go along if she has to. This will be my sons 6^th year skiing and he is getting pretty good. Soon he will be better than me (which isn’t saying too much). Skiing is not usually a cheap activity. Between transportation, lodging, lift tickets, clothing, ski rentals, and slopeside drinks. But it can be affordable if you know the right deals.

Well right now you can book a hotel room for a great deal using your Hilton points in Breckenridge. The Doubletree Breckenridge over the holiday break is just 60k points a night. When staying 5 nights, the 5^th night is free. So its 240k points for 5 nights in a 2 king bed room. This would normally cost ya $2,463. So a value just over 1 cent per point with Hilton is a great deal. As a Diamond member we will also get free breakfast. They used to have a resort fee which included parking. It looks like that has changed and there is not resort fee, but parking is $35 a night….

Right now the American Express Hilton Ascend, Aspire, and Business credit cards all have 100k point offers after meeting the min spend requirements. Hilton also just started to allow points to be transferred between household members so between 2 people it can be very easy to accumulate 240k points.

If skiing is not your thing, the Doubletree is a great location to be able to walk quickly to all the shops and restaurants and winter blazed streets of Breckenridge. It’s also a 5 minute drive to Carter park which has a great bring your own sled hill. Doubletree also provide a shuttle service around the town.

I have stayed at this hotel numerous time over the past 6 years. It’s not the fanciest hotel, but its 50 yards from being able to put your skis on and ski down to the base of peak 9. Or you can walk another 50 yards up to other chair lifts. Typically they don’t have award nights available over winter break, and never seen it open with 2 king beds for points. So this may not last long. The rooms are quite large and offer plenty of room for a family’s ski items. They include a small mini fridge. So in the past we have bought a few drinks and sandwich making items to save a few dollars while eating lunch on the mountain. They also have ski storage which is nice and convenient. Then of course all the amenities of a normal Doubletree like their free cookies, restaurant, indoor pool, and several outdoor hot tubs. Hopefully they have their free s’mores at 4 which my son still talks about. They have a lot of seasonal staff so their service can be hit and miss based on past experiences. However the location is ideal!

Now of course you have to be able to get out there somehow. This is the last year I will have the Southwest Companion Pass where another person flies for free (well $5.60 security fee) when I fly. We still have some unused travel credits from gift cards we have bought with our AMEX Platinum cards and CITI Prestige Cards to get the $200 airline reimbursement each year. Plus we have points to cover the rest. So our flights are basically covered for as well.

Now we are just debating which ski pass to get. We have had EPIC passes in the past and they are great deal to buy now before you show up as lift tickets are over $150 a person the day off. I am debating on the 4 day pass (if this is my only ski trip this winter), the 7 day pass (which means I would unfortunately have to go again) or the EPIC local pass. The local pass is the same price as the 7 day pass but local has restrictions and 7 day has no restrictions. However the local pass has no restrictions on Breckenridge so its very tempting. Just have to figure out if I would go again and when and where….

WHY I USED A 7 NIGHT MARRIOTT CERTIFICATE FOR 5 NIGHTS AT A CATEGORY 3 IN SANDY UTAH

The Southwest Companion pass is one of the best values in points and miles. This will be my 6th year in a row having it, and we have gone to numerous domestic and international destinations on it. In order to get it for 2017/2018 I used 270k Marriott points for an air and hotel package that gave me 120k southwest points and a free 7 night certificate good for 1 year at a single Marriott category 1-5 hotel. (more and how I did that later.)

At first glance 7 nights in a category 5 Marriott hotel sounds great. But have you ever looked at the category 5 hotels? There are not many properties that are noteworthy. I am also not a person that typically stays in a hotel longer than 4-5 nights. With all the deals such as 4th night free using a Citi prestige card, or 5th night free at Hilton’s when using points, we have just gotten accustomed to shorter hotel stays and staying at multiple places. While I could have used more points to upgrade to a higher category, I would have had to upgrade for all 7 nights as well so that’s a horrible value to upgrade for nights you aren’t even going to use.

Also, if we are going to go somewhere for 7 nights, its going to be with the kids. For that time, I would really want a larger sized room, and not some city hotel room with 2 double beds. While a small room is just fine for a weekend trip, it gets cramped for a full week sharing 300sqft with a 7 and 9 year old. I can only stand (or smell) so many fart jokes.

Glad we had plenty of room. Just Snow boots, ski boots, and helmets take up plenty of floor space.

My certificate was expiring at the end of March. While there are reports on Flyertalk of being able to extend it for a year, I am not really sure what would have changed in the next year to use it at some amazing place. We knew we wanted to go skiing so I started looking at hotels close to ski destinations. While there are numerous Marriott’s within a mile of some of the US top ski destinations, they are either cat 7 or above, or they don’t have availability for 4 people using points during ski season. I was starting to begin to think that I was never going to be able to use my free 7 nights.

Last year we skid at Park City and stayed at the DoubleTree in Park City. I realized that SLC is very close to Park City and there are numerous other ski resorts in that area. You can also easily stay in SLC and be within 30 minutes to about 6+ ski resorts.

Not knowing exactly where we were going to ski, (we needed up skiing at Brighton, which was awesome. Details here) we wanted to stay at a easy access suite on the west side of SLC. We found the perfect Residence Inn in Sandy Utah. Bedroom, plus sitting room with sofa bed, and a full kitchen. It was like our own condo for 5 days. It was close to the Mountains, close to restaurants and malls, and close to several ski shops.Plus they had a pool, basketball hoop, hot tub, free breakfast, and snacks and drinks on some evenings.

Great to have a kitchen for family dinners.

We ended up arriving late on a Thursday night, and then staying till late on Monday. Our flight on Monday wasn’t until 830pm, so it was a benefit to be able to get back to the hotel at 4pm, shower and eat while not having to worry about a late checkout.

The posted rate for our stay was about $169 a night after taxes. So for our 5 nights we got a value of $845. While we could have found some place to go and get a hotel room that was $300 a night and gotten closer to $2,000 in redemption value, sometimes you have to remember its not about the list price but more about the vacation itself. The best points are the ones you have redeemed.

So how did I get this certificate? Well I signed up for a Marriott Personal and Business card a few years ago back when they were about 80k and 100k bonus. Then I had about 90k points from stays over a few years. Marriott participates with several different airlines all for about the same package, but mine specifically was 270k Marriott points redeemed for 120k southwest points and a free 7 night certificate at a category 1-5. Now back in March 2017, this counted for the Companion pass as well. However that is no longer the case.

While this certificate redemption worked out just fine, I will not be using points for another package anytime soon. If you are thinking about it, just make sure you have a specific hotel in mind and that they often have award availability.

I am starting to plan my ski vacation for next year. While it would have been nicer to be slope slide, the value and ease of staying in a place like a Residence Inn can far outweigh the cost of staying close. We will see where we end up next year!

A nice drive to the slopes. Even when it was snowing, the roads were pretty good.

3 DAYS OF SKIING IN UTAH. LIFT TICKET- $706 VS $1,584 FOR OUR FAMILY OF 4. (WITH 2 LESSONS)

Just got back from an awesome spring break trip in Utah. Wanted to highlight some great savings on ski tickets. Last year my son and I each had an EPIC Pass and used it to ski at Park City. We had a great time there, but it was nothing special for us. Maybe because it was warm spring skiing and the snow just wasn’t that great last year by March, but we just didn’t fall in love with it like we have other resorts such as Breckenridge in Colorado.

Park City- but no snow in town or at the base….

This year our family of 4 decided to head up to Salt Lake. We did not have any passes this year so we were pretty much playing it by ear on where we should go when we got there. Our first day there we decided a head of time not to ski and just to check the area out. We were staying in East Salt Lake using points so weren’t ski in and out or anything. (more on that in another post) We drove up to Park city and saw they didn’t have much snow at the base. We talked with quite a few locals, and they all said go to Brighton.

Wow are we glad we listened to them. Not only because they had great snow and got about 20 inches of snow while we were compared to Park City’s 6 inches; but also because it was a ridiculously good deal. The biggest thing is kids under 10 ski free. Yes FREE! For our 3 days of skiing, lift tickets cost our family of 4 $706 compared to $1,584 if we were at Park City. That includes our daughter taking 2 days of ski lessons.

	Park City	Brighton
1 Day in advance Adult	$129
Day of buying from Ski N See		$81/76*
1 Day advance Child	$81	Free
Child Ski Lesson All Day	$239	$115
*Weekend vs Non Weekend rate

The snow was awesome, the runs were nice, the staff was great, parking was easy, snow was awesome, several terrain parks, and did I mention the snow was awesome!!!

IMG_20180319_110514 — The sun did eventually come out.

Now its not the biggest resort out there. There are no gondolas. Basic area at the base. No bands on the mountain or fancy DJ’s at the base. For a family with young kids though it was great. My kids often get tired when doing a super long run and want to take a break halfway through. These runs were the perfect length where they were tired by the end, and then able to get rest on the lift, and do it all over again. The only aspect I didn’t like is there wasn’t a ton of signage for the runs, so make sure you read the maps.

IMG_20180317_125835 — No Lines for Lifts!

If you are going to the Salk Lake area, check it out. Even if its only for a day!

AMEX HILTON OFFERS AND 2 CENTS PER HILTON POINT or 4 CENTS PER AMEX POINT AT WALDORF PARK CITY

I got the mailer below today for $70 back for staying at a Waldorf Astoria or a Conrad between now and Feb 28th 2018. After missing our ski vacation last week, I thought maybe I could plan a quick 2-3 night getaway to somewhere nice in Park City.

I thought this was a special offer just for me, and then logged into my AMEX account and realized this was already an AMEX offer. Also in there was the buy a $50 gift card, get $10 back, which is available up to 4 times. So between these 2 offers you could save up to $110 at a nice Waldorf or Conrad.

I know that WA’s are expensive but was thinking it could be nice to stay a night there one night but use 2 full days of the benefits there while staying at a cheaper place the other nights. Well even with $110 off, its still outside of my price range from now until the promotion ends Feb 28th. I didn’t find any dates below $900 a night, and most dates are over $1k a night.

This would be a great redemption on points though at over 1 cent per point. As TPG reported , AMEX has increased the transfer ratio to 1-2 so these rooms could be had for 40k AMEX points as well. Throwing in the Honors 5th night free on points, this is a great redemption for 5 nights at over 2 cents per Hilton point or 4 cents per AMEX point!!! (320k Hilton points or 160k AMEX points) Now that Gold and Diamond members get free breakfast, you can use those gift cards for tips you put on your room, or for any drinks from the bar as well.

Anyone planning on taking advantage of these offers?

*Weekend vs Non Weekend rate