Mattress running for Hyatt stays and bonus points

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Pure mattress running for hotel elite status rarely makes sense: you only receive status benefits for nights you stay, so the further away from elite status you are, the less worthwhile a potential mattress run towards status will be.

At the same time, mattress running for bonus points during promotions rarely makes sense because travel hacking makes hotel stays so cheap that any bonus points earned are unlikely to buy you much hotel than you can purchase any day of the week by simply manufacturing spend.

As a new Hyatt Diamond, I decided to see whether the current Stay More Play More promotion may make mattress running make sense for the combination of elite-qualifying stays towards renewing my status, and the bonus points earned.

How much does a mattress run cost?

To calculate the cost of a mattress run, I take the cost of a paid stay and, in the case of a Points + Cash stay, the cost of any points redeemed, then subtract the value of any points earned on the stay. Here are some sample calculations I scratched out last week, based on nightly rates at my local Hyatt property.

In words, I can pay $50.38 (after buying a gift card at an 18% discount) and 2,642 Hyatt Gold Passport points (4,000 minus the 1358 points earned on the cash portion of the stay), or I can pay $122.84 and earn a total of 1,872 points. A valuation of 1.61 cents per Hyatt Gold Passport point makes the two options a wash. If I value Hyatt Gold Passport points more highly than that, I should book an all-cash stay, and at a lower valuation, I should book a Points + Cash stay for my mattress run.

The question is, it possible for the Stay More Play More promotion to make mattress running cheap, or even free? The answer, it turns out, is yes — for a certain definition of free.

Stay More Play More makes mattress runs cheaper the more nights you stay

Stay More Play More is really 5 distinct promotions, and it's essential to grasp that to make any sense of this calculation:

  • one promotion offering 5,000 points on your 5th eligible night;
  • one offering 10,000 points on your 10th night;
  • one offering 15,000 points on your 15th night;
  • one offering 20,000 points on your 20th night;
  • one offering 25,000 points on your 25th night.

Keep in mind that no other nights are bonused in any way under this promotion: only these multiple-of-five eligible nights between April 1 and June 30, 2016, earn any bonus points at all.

The first promotion may be marginally worth a mattress run if you have access to a Category 1 Hyatt property. You'll earn 5,000 bonus points plus, as a Diamond, 6.5 points per dollar on the cash portion of your stay, plus 500 bonus points (at Hyatt Place and Hyatt House properties) or 1,000 bonus points (at other Hyatt properties).

A Points + Cash stay at a Category 1 property will thus cost $50 plus tax and earn a net of 3,325 Hyatt Gold Passport points, or 1.5 cents per Hyatt Gold Passport point at Hyatt Place and Hyatt House properties or 3,825 points (1.31 cents per point) at other Hyatt properties.

If you value Hyatt Gold Passport points at 1 cent each (when transferred from Ultimate Rewards), that's like paying $11.75 or $16.75 for a stay credit, which may be worth doing if needed to secure Diamond elite status the following year.

The promotion for later nights shifts the balance even more in your favor. Booking your 10th night on a Points + Cash stay in Category 1 gives a net cost of 0.6 cents per point and at Category 2 a net cost of 0.8 cents per point.

The deeper you get into the promotion, the more lucrative it becomes. If your 25th night happens to be at a Category 7 Park Hyatt on a Points + Cash stay, you'll pay 15,000 and $300 for the night — then get 27,950 points back, leaving you out of pocket just $170.50 for your Category 7 night.

Think twice before mattress running unbonused nights

The flip side of the structure of this promotion is that unbonused nights (all but the 5 bonused nights) make little sense for mattress running. Even at the very top of the promotion earning 5,000 bonus points per night leaves you paying 1.5 cents per point at Category 1 properties, which is 50% more than you would pay simply transferring in Ultimate Rewards points.

But even more importantly, if you are staying that many nights in a single 3-month period you're unlikely to need the elite-qualifying stays at all — you'll probably requalify for Diamond status on the stays you'll naturally book during the calendar year.

When the Fun Stops

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If you've ever visited Las Vegas, you've no doubt seen the constant parade of advertisements run by the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, with the campaign slogan "When the Fun Stops."

I've persisted, in the face of pressure from Rolling Stone, in calling travel hacking "the game," which makes us players, and which usefully raises the specter of problem gaming. In general, I think there are three ways a healthy attitude towards travel hacking can become problematic.

Getting stuck on the status treadmill

One of the great intellectual triumphs of the loyalty industry was making it difficult — but just easy enough — to qualify for elite status. Hotel loyalty programs offer three good examples:

  • The Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express and Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve give top-tier Diamond elite status after spending $40,000 on either card;
  • The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express gives 5 nights and 2 stays towards SPG elite status just for being a cardmember;
  • The Chase Hyatt Gold Passport credit card gives 2 stays and 5 nights towards elite status after spending $20,000 with the card, and 3 stays and 5 nights towards elite status after spending a total of $40,000 with the card each calendar year.

Likewise the Delta Platinum and Reserve business and personal American Express cards each offer Medallion Qualification Miles towards elite status at certain spend thresholds, the Citi / AAdvantage Executive World Elite MasterCard offers 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles after $40,000 in calendar year spend, and the Barclaycard AAdvantage Aviator Silver World Elite MasterCard gives 5,000 Elite Qualifying Miles after spending each of $20,000 and $40,000 on the card per calendar year.

For an experienced travel hacker those thresholds are easy to meet, which is easy to confuse with being worth meeting.

But if you'll enjoy few or any of the benefits of elite status, you shouldn't be going out of your way to earn — or even think about earning — elite status in programs you don't actually take advantage of!

Losing track of point values

The Chase Marriott Rewards credit card has earned 1 Marriott Rewards points per dollar spent everywhere, well, forever.

But the Marriott Rewards program has undergone a series of horrific devaluations since the credit card was introduced!

The same card that would have earned you three free nights at the JW Marriott in Washington DC for $50,000 in spend will now barely earn you one night for the same spend (the property now costs 40,000 Marriott Rewards points per night).

If you got on board early, you could have powered your way through a series of devaluations and suddenly find yourself earning far fewer stays for the same amount of spend.

Losing track of costs

This is a story I've told before, but I think it's still illustrative. I was introducing a friend to travel hacking right about the time when Vanilla Reload Network cards stopped being sold to credit card users at national pharmacy outlets.

I broke the news to my friend and explained that only cash was now accepted for the reload cards. And my friend, who was eager to earn as many United MileagePlus miles as possible for an upcoming trip, asked me, "well, what if I take out a cash advance from my card and use the cash to buy a Vanilla Reload card?"

It's a funny story, but it illustrates an actual problem I see all too often: once folks are stuck in a groove, they'll do anything to stay in that groove, even when the costs slowly (or rapidly!) start to outweigh the rewards they were initially earning.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I'm a travel hacking enthusiast. I think this game, in the huge variety of forms it takes, will be around for a long, long time to come.

But that general relaxation about the bigger picture shouldn't be treated as an invitation to take your eye off the particular credit cards, programs, and techniques you use!

A relentless focus is the only way to make sure you're getting the most value out of every second you spend playing this game.

And if you don't have that focus? Well, there's always tennis.

The concept of loyalty and the Wyndham Rewards revaluation

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I had an interesting exchange on Twitter the other day with Seth, the Wandering Aramean, who was arguing in response to Trevor at Tagging Miles that loyalty currencies are on a perpetual downward valuation spiral. While they devalue at different rates and different times, Seth claimed, they never increase in value.

My response was, "What about Wyndham?" After all, the May 11, 2015, revaluation of the Wyndham Rewards program made the 4 cheapest award categories (5,500 to 14,000 Wyndham Rewards points) more expensive, while the 5 most expensive award categories (16,000 to 50,000 Wyndham Rewards points) became less expensive when all properties were realigned at 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points per night.

Meanwhile, the Barclaycard Wyndham Rewards credit cards continue to offer 2 Wyndham Rewards points per dollar spent everywhere.

Reconciling these two positions is easy, as long as you can tell the difference between loyalty programs and loyalty.

If you were a loyal Wyndham guest, you probably got screwed

I admit that I've been travel hacking so long that it's a bit tough to remember what "loyalty" is supposed to signify.

But if "loyalty" means anything, it's surely the willingness to pay more to direct your stays or flights to a particular travel provider, not for any short-term interest but because over multiple nights, flights, stays, and years, your business will be rewarded in a way it wouldn't if you stayed at the cheapest possible hotel and booked the cheapest possible flight each time you traveled.

Since most travelers, most of the time, are traveling domestically, and only rarely staying in the most expensive categories of property, the change of cost of Wyndham Rewards nights to a flat 15,000 points was, as Seth asserted, a radical devaluation for "loyal" travelers, which is to say for travelers who directed their paid stays to Wyndham in order to secure cheap future award nights.

If you're a travel hacker, the Wyndham Rewards revaluation was a godsend

Compared to putting the same spend on a 2% or 2.105% cash back credit card, the Barclaycard Wyndham Rewards credit cards allow you to purchase a night at any Wyndham Rewards property in the world for between $150 and $158. As it is for a "loyal" Wyndham Rewards customer, at many properties that's an increase over the cost prior to the May 11, 2015, revaluation.

But the key takeaway for the travel hacker is that other, cheaper options remain for the nights you'd otherwise have redeemed Wyndham Rewards points for. There's a difficulty in analyzing the situation precisely, but fortunately Wyndham still makes available the list of properties which went up and went down in category in 2013, which at least gives a sense of what properties were in which categories prior to the 2015 revaluation.

With all that in mind, here are some United States properties which, as of 2013, cost less than 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points per night. These are properties that became more expensive after the 2015 revaluation. Next to each property I also suggest the cheapest nearby competing property and its imputed redemption value.

I don't claim this is exhaustive research — anybody can do the same research and find more extreme examples at their leisure using the links provided above.

  • Baymont Inn and Suites Florence/Muscle Shoals. Was 14,000 Wyndham Rewards points ($147 IRV). Nearby: Hampton Inn Florence-Midtown. 20,000 Hilton HHonors points ($70 IRV).
  • Days Inn Tempe ASU. Was 10,000 Wyndham Rewards points ($105 IRV). Nearby: Embassy Suites Phoenix - Tempe. 30,000 - 40,000 HHonors points ($106 - $141 IRV).
  • Days Hotel Oakland Airport-Coliseum. Was 14,000 Wyndham Rewards points ($147 IRV). Nearby: Hilton Oakland Airport. 30,000 HHonors points ($106 IRV).
  • Ramada Denver Midtown. Was 10,000 Wyndham Rewards points ($105 IRV). Nearby: Hampton Inn & Suites Denver-Speer Boulevard. 30,000 - 40,000 HHonors points ($106-$141 IRV).
  • Knights Inn Lafayette Midwest. Was 5,500 Wyndham Rewards points ($58 IRV). Nearby: 
    Homewood Suites by Hilton Lafayette. 30,000 - 40,000 HHonors points ($106-$141 IRV).
  • Travelodge - Columbus. Was 5,500 Wyndham Rewards points ($58 IRV). Nearby: 
    Hyatt Place Columbus/OSU. 8,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points ($80 IRV). Also
    DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Columbus Downtown. 20,000 - 30,000 Hilton HHonors points ($70 - $106 IRV)

Conclusion

The point of this post is not that the Wyndham Rewards revaluation was "a good thing." Whether or not a particular individual benefited or suffered from it depends on that person's past and future pattern of paid and award stays.

My point is that for a travel hacker the increases in prices at Tier 1-4 Wyndham Rewards properties are easily offset by balances in competing programs with more reasonably priced properties in the same markets.

Meanwhile, the decrease in prices for properties in Wyndham Rewards tiers 5 to 9 (16,000 to 50,000 Wyndham Rewards points) make their top-tier properties radically more affordable in the same markets as their competitors continue to charge high prices, whether you choose to pay in cash or in points.

Am I mainly a domestic traveler? Does it matter?

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The idea for this post came to me last weekend when a reader I met in DC suggested that I'm "mainly a domestic traveler," in contrast to his own travel style as an international business class traveler.

This exchange happened to resonate with me since I remembered a post Matt at Saverocity wrote last year which claimed I tend "to fly on these domestic tickets a lot, leveraging super sweet spots with the Flexperks and other programs," while he "see[s] little of [me] flying internationally."

I was a bit surprised by both claims, since I think of myself as doing a lot of international travel.

So, am I mainly a domestic traveler? What does or would that mean?

My 2015 travel was mainly domestic

In 2015, I spent a total of 81 days wholly or partially traveling, only 11 days of which were spent traveling internationally, on my Italian caper.

That produces a fairly low 14% of travel days spent on international travel, which suggests I may, indeed, be primarily a domestic traveler.

My 2016 travel (so far) is mostly international

The travel I've booked so far in 2016 is much more evenly split: of the 35 days I've either traveled or have booked for 2016, 18 of them are international, on my upcoming summer vacation in Europe, while 17 are domestic, including my January trip to New York and March trip to San Francisco and my upcoming trip to Lexington, Kentucky.

That being said, I'm sure my travel in the second half of 2016 will bring the ratio of domestic versus international travel days up substantially.

Folks should do whichever kind of travel interests them most

I have a buddy in the venture capital space who once explained to me that when a venture capitalist invests, he or she doesn't buy a portion of the existing company, they buy a portion of the company as it will exist post-investment.

In other words, the investor isn't buying a share of the scrappy garage-based company, they're buying a share of the company once it moves into its swanky new headquarters in Brooklyn.

People sometimes seem to apply a similar principle to their own travel once they begin travel hacking. They gradually (or suddenly) become less interested in taking the trips they used to take at a fraction of the cost, and become increasingly excited about booking travel that never would have occurred to them before they learned just how cheap travel could become.

Know and remember who you are

There is a vast travel hacking blogosphere intent on selling you on the most comfortable new airline equipment, the longest new routes, and the best new inflight champagne.

If you were jealous and anxious about the airline equipment and inflight service you were missing out on before you started travel hacking, then by all means, use travel hacking as a tool for satisfying your envy, if you think it will help.

But if you were fine traveling in economy before you discovered travel hacking, it's worth thinking long and hard about whether you'd rather take the same trips and pay a fraction of the price, while saving the difference, or pay the same amount and fly in a cabin of service that meant nothing to you before bloggers and forums starting explaining how you haven't lived until you've spent 10 hours in a slightly more comfortable box.

Conclusion

I'm well aware that my readers are an eclectic bunch and I'm not in the position to tell anybody what cabin anybody should be booking their domestic or international travel in, or which currency they should be booking it with.

What I'm interested in is keeping my readers grounded in the real world they actually inhabit, in the face of a blogosphere intent on pumping awards balances as high as possible with credit card applications that don't make a lick of sense in the context of the trips they're actually interested in taking.

Earn cash first, spend cash last

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Last week I wrote about the option of redeeming Wells Fargo's Go Far reward points for 1.22 cents each when using them to purchase Hyatt gift cards (an offer that's still ongoing).

Commenter Rob S made an observation in the comments to that post that I think is worth exploring in some more depth. He wrote:

"but those WF reward points can be used for flights at 1.5 cpp. Some people can redeem at 1.75 cpp. so i don't think I will be doing this"

Rob is referring to is what's called, for reasons lost to history, "uplift," the ability to redeem Wells Fargo rewards points for more than 1 cent each towards paid airfare after spending a certain amount on certain Wells Fargo rewards-earning credit cards.

Uplift isn't something I've written about before and I can't find any good blog posts to link to about it, but Rob is exactly correct: some people can redeem Wells Fargo rewards points for 1.5 or 1.75 cents each for paid airfare after meeting certain spending thresholds with their Wells Fargo credit cards.

The question I want to explore is, under what circumstances does uplift change the value proposition of redeeming Wells Fargo rewards for cash?

Earn cash first

I have a simple approach to my manufactured spend practice: I earn cash first. That's because cash is basically the opposite of miles and points: it's worth face value when redeemed for goods and services, and if you choose to invest rather than spend it, it increases, rather than decreases, in value over time.

Miles and points, on the other hand, are worth varying amounts depending on current cash prices and award availability. Therefore, given the option between cash and points, I'll always earn cash first.

Spend cash last

The flip side of the above principle is that once I have miles and points in my rewards accounts, I'll redeem them whenever possible rather than spending cash. Again, that's because cash is flexible and can be deployed wherever necessary, while miles and points can only be redeemed for dates and flights the loyalty programs choose to make available.

When I find that availability, you better believe I'll redeem miles and points for it.

How uplifting are Wells Fargo rewards?

Suppose a Wells Fargo cardholder has earned the maximum uplift of 1.75 cents per "Go Far" rewards point redeemed for paid travel. Keeping in mind that those rewards points can each be redeemed for 1 cent in cash, the uplift provides a discount of 43% off paid airfare (a $175 flight would cost $100 in foregone cash back redemptions).

That's a pretty good discount, for a civilian.

But a 43% discount off paid airfare is not exactly inspiring for a travel hacker. If you earn US Bank Flexpoints, then at the top of each redemption band you'll get a 50% discount off paid airfare (plus a $25 credit towards in-flight purchases). If you earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points (transferred to United or British Airways) or American Express Membership Rewards points (transferred to Delta) you might be accustomed to getting much larger discounts, depending on your local airfare market.

Hyatt gift cards are cheaper than cash

The reason I wrote favorably about redeeming Wells Fargo rewards points for Hyatt gift cards is not because they give a discount off Hyatt stays, but because they give a discount off the cash portion of Points + Cash stays (or, in the cash of pure mattress runs, the cash cost of the stay). That's the portion you've already committed to paying in dollars, which is the component you should be seeking to minimize the cost of.

Paying $41 instead of $50, or $246 instead of $300, is a savings in cash for the portion of a stay you were going to pay in cash anyway. There is literally no other currency but US dollars you can use to pay the cash portion of a Points + Cash stay.

 

How to meet your favorite blogger (as long as it's me)

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I love meeting readers, for a lot of reasons. It lets me get a sense of what kind of people are attracted to this site, and what they like about it. It gives me an unparalleled chance to learn since, as I'm fond of saying, every travel hacker knows something you don't know. And of course it's nice to be reassured that there are really human beings out there reading my blog and not just bots pulling my e-mail address for spam directories.

I've now met quite a few readers all around the country, both during my own vacations and while attending (slightly) more organized gatherings like the Saverocity DO's and TravelCon II last year. With that experience under my belt, here are some tips for what you can do if you'd like to meet me in person.

Follow me on Twitter

I live on Twitter, as my Twitter followers will warn you, and I usually tweet about my upcoming travel destinations and while traveling, depending on my access to the internet. That's the best way to find out where I am and where I'm going.

If we'll be in the same place, contact me

You can direct message me on Twitter, or send me an e-mail, and I'll usually get back to you in pretty short order, again depending on my internet access and how busy I am.

Suggest one or two concrete times and places

This is typically the key hangup. I don't know your city, I don't know your geography, I don't know what you call downtown versus what I call downtown, and if we have to do a bunch of laps back and forth while I'm on vacation, I'm gonna lose interest real quick.

But as long as you're specific about some times and places you'll be available, I'll usually try to join you for at least a beer or two.

Blog subscribers are also invited to subscribers-only meetups

At the suggestion of a long-time subscriber, about a year ago I started holding subscribers-only meetups, which are chances to hang out not just with me but with fellow travel hackers who have decided to support this site through a monthly blog subscription. So far I've held subscribers-only meetups in Chicago and New York City, and the feedback has been terrific. After all, my readers have a lot more to teach each other than I have to teach anybody!

And of course don't be offended if I can't make it

I take my vacations seriously, which means a lot of sleeping in, a lot of site-seeing, and a lot of late nights. So I might not be able to find the time to meet with readers on any given vacation. It's me, not you, so don't take it personally!

Redeem Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards for Hyatt gift cards

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Maybe you got in on the Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status match in time. Maybe you didn't.

But if you have a Wells Fargo credit card that's earning 5 "Go Far" rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and pharmacies, you should seriously consider redeeming those points for 1.22 cents each by ordering Hyatt gift cards.

Hyatt gift cards are a strong competitor to the Chase Hyatt credit card

The Chase Hyatt credit card gives 2 elite-qualifying stay credits and 5 elite-qualifying night credits after spending $20,000 on the card in a calendar year, and another 3 stay credits and 5 night credits after spending $40,000, total, within the same calendar year.

The same spend manufactured on a 2% cash back card would yield $800, while Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to Hyatt come at a cost of 1 cent each (the cash value of the same Ultimate Rewards points redeemed for cash).

That means, as I explained on episode 26 of the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast, you're paying a minimum of $80 per stay for each of the 5 stays you earn manufacturing $40,000 in spend with the Chase Hyatt credit card.

But the same $400 in Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards points (otherwise redeemable for cash) will purchase $487.80 in Hyatt stays in the US, Canada, or the Carribean (the regions where gift cards can be used).

In other words, your breakeven point is not $80 per paid stay, but rather $97.56 per paid stay — and that's ignoring the points you earn on paid stays, which aren't earned on the elite-qualifying stays awarded by the Chase Hyatt credit card.

Discounted gift cards provide real savings — don't discount them

If you're able to buy Hyatt gift cards at an 18% discount, then redeem them for paid stays which, in turn, earn 500 or 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points each, you should be properly comparing manufactured spend on a Chase Hyatt credit card to stays costing as much as $107 after taxes.

So while manufacturing spend on the Chase Hyatt credit card is an easy and convenient method for racking up additional elite-qualifying stays and nights, you may find that you're leaving money on the table by doing so.

Going by train

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I've now travelled on a substantial minority of long-haul Amtrak routes, depending on your definition:

  • Empire Builder (entire route, both directions)
  • Coast Starlight (entire route, both directions)
  • Southwest Chief (Chicago to Los Angeles)
  • City of New Orleans (Chicago to New Orleans)
  • California Zephyr (Chicago to Emeryville)
  • Acela Express (Providence to New York City)
  • Northeast Regional (all over the place)

This doesn't make me anything close to an expert in Amtrak train travel, but it's given me a lot of experience. Here's what I've learned.

If you can't get to an Amtrak station, Amtrak will probably take you

I've written about this before in the context of Amtrak thruway bus cabotage, but the overall point is that Amtrak contracts with a wide range of local bus carriers in order to ferry people from cities and towns that aren't served by Amtrak to cities and towns that are serviced by Amtrak.

The one thing you need to know about Amtrak sleeping accommodations

There are three (primary) types of Amtrak sleeping accommodations: roomettes, bedrooms, and family bedrooms.

These are basically ordered by size, with roomettes being the smallest (a tiny room with two fold-down beds), bedrooms having some room to stretch, and family bedrooms being the largest, capable of accommodating up to 2 adults and 2 children.

That's all academic: the key thing to know is that only bedrooms (the middle category) have en suite toilets and showers.

Now, maybe that's a big deal for you or maybe it isn't. But either way, it's the primary difference between the room types (besides square footage).

If you choose a room type without en suite toilets and showers, you can use the toilets and showers downstairs in each sleeping car.

The food is pretty good, with limitations

As a sleeper car passenger on an Amtrak train, everyone in your compartment is entitled to breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining car.

These meals are pretty epic. You can order anything off each menu, and each menu has very elaborate offerings: omelettes, french toast, or pancakes for breakfast, burgers and sandwiches for lunch, and steaks, pasta, or specialty items for supper.

Of course, since you're confined to a train for anywhere from 24 to 70 hours, you should definitely not be eating that much food.

Did I mention dessert is served with both lunch and dinner?

Basically, your best move is to pick a few entrees you'd like to try over the course of a long-haul trip, and order one per day. Other than that, eat salad.

The views are completely unique

This is where you accuse me of burying the lede. Traveling by train gives you a view of the terrain of the United States that you literally can't get anywhere else.

These train routes are carved through landscapes that don't have any roads, sidewalks, or even hiking paths.

You will never see this view of the Colorado River anywhere except on an Amtrak train:

That's because there's a mountain on one side and train tracks on the other. If you're not on the train, you're out of luck.

Conclusion: go by train, while you can

Long-haul train routes in the United States are an endangered species. Some of them are subsidized by local governments seeking tourism revenue, some are subsidized by Congress, and others are subsidized by redirecting revenue from the few profitable routes, primarily on the coasts.

But that's a far cry from suggesting that such long-haul passenger train routes are "a waste." They're remarkable and unique ways to view parts of this remarkable country which are inaccessible by any other means of transportation.

Anatomy of an Award Trip: Spring Break in San Francisco

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If you follow me on Twitter (as you should!) you know I spent last week in San Francisco. It was only upon returning that I realized I hadn't posted an anatomy of the award trip. Better late then never!

Getting there: Amtrak's California Zephyr

This was my last long-haul Amtrak sleeper cabin redemption before the December 8, 2015, revenue-based Amtrak Guest Rewards devaluation. I transferred 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak Guest Rewards points for a 2-zone bedroom reservation between Chicago and San Francisco on the California Zephyr.

Total cost: 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points, transferred from Ultimate Rewards. Total value: $1,246. Value per point: 3.12 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

Staying there: Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf

As a newly minted Hyatt Diamond, I was eager to see what all the fuss was about and booked a 5-night Points + Cash reservation at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, and applied one of my 2015 Suite Upgrade Awards.

Total cost: 37,500 Hyatt Gold Passport points and $582.25. Total value: $1,769.96. Value per point: 3.17 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

I then earned 3,250 of those points back, bringing my final value per point to 3.47 cents per Ultimate Rewards point. Note that this value is based on an ordinary room reservation, not a suite reservation, since I could have applied a Suite Upgrade Award to either type of reservation.

Getting back: Delta first class tickets

To get back, I employed a strategy I use increasingly often: I booked my partner on an award ticket and myself on a paid ticket using a Delta voluntary denied boarding voucher. My partner doesn't play the game at all (besides traveling with me) so I don't make any attempt to get her elite status or earn bonus miles in her accounts.

Total cost: 37,500 Delta SkyMiles and $5.60, plus $729.10 in voluntary denied boarding compensation. Total value: $1,458.20. Value per point: 1.93 cents per SkyMile.

Conclusion

From my point of view, this award trip was quite close to ideal: I redeemed points I earned extremely cheaply for relatively expensive reservations.

In the case of Ultimate Rewards points redeemed at 3 cents or more per point, I earned close to 15% back on spend I manufactured with Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards in their 5-points-per-dollar bonus categories.

In the case of Delta SkyMiles earned at 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar spent with my American Express Delta SkyMiles Platinum credit card, I earned roughly 2.7% back when redeeming those miles for my partner's first class ticket, which is quite strong for unbonused manufactured spend.

And of course when redeeming Delta voluntary denied boarding vouchers for my own travel, I came out ahead simply by being able to redeem it at face value.

Tune in tomorrow for some reflections on the train ride, hotel stay, and my impressions of a 5-day visit to the bay area!