We were planning to visit NYC for about a week sometime later in the year. This is one of the instances where points didn’t really save much money, but did elevate the trip.
We wanted to leave at night from LAX and arrive in the morning in New York on specific days, which limited our flight and hotel options.
Flight to NYC: I had 4 Move to Mint certificates from the Jetblue/Delta Status match so Jetblue was really the only choice with points. There was also a 25% off promotion, which brought the flight down to $130.
If I didn’t have points, I would have booked Jetblue Basic, which would have cost $30 less per person.
Hotel in NYC: With points, the first option was the Hyatt Regency Jersey City, at 18000 points per night. I applied a suite upgrade to the Hudson River Suite. Another option was to get a suite at Hyatt House Jersey City for $131 + 6k points per night. There was also a double point promotion at Hyatt Houses at the time. Either choice would include breakfast and would have early check-in (if available) and late-checkout. The Regency room and breakfast should be nicer, so we opted for the HR option.
Without points, we would have booked the Doubletree at Fort Lee, which was $689 through id90travel. It wouldn’t have a view of NYC, wouldn’t have breakfast, would be a less nice room, and would be less convenient to public transportation.
GoCity Explorer Pass: The explorer pass includes touristy options like the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty. It’s available as a Hyatt Find Experience so we opted for the $150 and $300 find credit as a 50 and 70 night milestones on Hyatt. I would value them at roughly 50% of face value, so $350 find credit cost me roughly $175.
Without points, I would have purchased the passes from Groupon with a gift card and cashback portal for roughly $147 per person.
Flight from NYC: We booked a Jetblue Blue fare for $168 per person and used move to mint certificates. It was originally $204 but the price dropped.
Without points, we would have just booked the blue basic option for $153 per person.
Other expenses: We would have paid less for food since breakfast is provided at the Hyatt hotels. Other than that, the other expenses should be the same with or without points.
Totals: Our total expected cost for the trip for two people is: 90000 Hyatt Points, $1304, and 4x Move to Mint Certificates that was free from the Delta status match last year.
Without points, we would have paid about $2117. In this case, points didn’t really save us much money at all, but gave us a more luxurious experience. We would have lie-flat seats both ways and better accommodations that were closer to public transportation.
The sticker price for all the options would be some nonsensical number that has no bearing on reality since we would never pay that amount. The personal value of the trip (the amount I would have paid out of pocket) was around $2700. We would have paid $100 more for mint each way and about $300 more for the better hotel with breakfast. So we got a trip that we value at $2700 for $1304 and 90000 Hyatt Points.
Median Travels 