How I saved thousands of dollars for a 2 week vacation in San Francisco area in airfare and hotels using miles and points!
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I am going to show you how I rolled for a new adventure in the summer of 2017…
This is very unusual for us as we always travel abroad. But, because our son is now working as a summer intern in Sunnyvale, California for the summer, we decided to do a trip to the San Francisco Bay area instead. 13 nights total.
So, here is what travel hacking is all about:
3 Round Trips direct flights Detroit DTW – San Francisco SFO 20,000 Delta Skymiles each for a total of 60,000 Skymiles (25,500 minus 5,500 delay compensation)
Night #1: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport for 10,800 World of Hyatt points (12,000 minus 1,200 for 10% rebate promo)
Night #2: Intercontinental San Francisco using a Visa free night cert
Night #3 & #4: Fairmont San Francisco using one Visa free night and one Platinum complimentary night. Confirmed Suite
Night #5-9, #13: Country Inn & Suites in Sunnyvale for 44,000 Club Carlson points per night for a total of 264,000 Club Carlson points for 6 nights
Night #10: Fairmont Berkeley Claremont Club & Spa for a cash rate of $279 per night, all paid by Fairmont gift cards obtained by Fairmont Visa points redemption
Night #11: Intercontinental The Clement Monterey using a Visa free night cert
Night #12: Hyatt Carmel Highlands Monterey for 25,000 World of Hyatt points in a suite as Guest of Honor of a Globalist elite
Hertz Full Size Car for 8 days $248.08 using Autoslash.com (down from initial price of $482.45 & about 10 automatic price reductions) Pay out of pocket, sad! (earned 1,753 points)
Some notes:
Very thankful for Delta Skymiles. Oh wait, did I just say that? Finding three tickets at our preferred dates and times just turned out to be splendid!
My initial plan was to use one of my two free Fairmont night at the Berkeley Claremont Club & Spa property. And use nights #2 and #3 at the Category 4 Hyatt Centric Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. But availability using one free Hyatt Visa night and another one with World of Hyatt points just never meant to be as it was always sold out one of these two nights. Therefore, I decided to burn a free IHG Rewards night at the Intercontinental San Francisco and then moving on to the Fairmont for two nights by moving my free Visa night from the Claremont and then getting a cash rate for that property (paid in gift cards, come on!). So, three hotels in four nights in San Francisco may be a bit too much for some of you but it’s just fine for us and much better than going four for four 🙂
I am a lifetime Fairmont Platinum due to this legendary deal years ago. Not sure how much longer as Accor bought Fairmont and we all dread the killing of the fantastic Fairmont President’s Club.
We have tickets to the night Alcatraz tour. Must book way in advance!
We have a dinner reservation to the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar in the Fairmont San Francisco. We will spend about $250 in food certs in my Platinum account. High Five!
Of course we will spend some time at the Amex Centurion Club in the SFO airport. Update: Not convenient if you fly Delta! Spent time in the Delta Sky Club instead.
I have Five Star elite status with Hertz, going for that convertible free upgrade you guys :-). Update: I earned 463 Hertz points.
I earned 750 Club Carlson points in a combination of providing feedback and Gold amenity bonuses.
I earned Hyatt points on the breakfast which showed up in the folio but was deducted at check out, hooray!
I earned 600 “Welcome Point Bonus” in one of the free Visa IHG stays.
I could have done the pricing on these hotels and show you how much dough we get to save…but I need to pack. Let me just say it was A LOT!
Hooray for the Club Carlson points that came though in a big way again in a very expensive hotel area #winning
Son’s apartment is 1.1 miles away from our hotel in Sunnyvale. We get to do laundry. For freeeee! #winning
And I leave you with this…
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Loved, The Clement Monterey, try to get a room facing water, beautiful views.
Have great trip, Buzz. Don’t forget to take pictures of the toilet, and report back on whether you turn left or right in getting off the elevator.
The DeYoung and Disney museums are great, if you’re into that sort of thing.
How did you amass 264K Club Carlson points?
USbank CC.
churnable?
Make sure you take photos of the family holding CCs in front of each property!
5* at Hertz is not much, keep your expectations low…
Delta’s hub in Detroit is a big deal. I bet that’s why you found seats with miles. It took about a minute to clear the border in Detroit on the way back from Sicily.
The Delta club at SFO is very nice to wait for a red-eye to JFK.
Awesome, have a great trip!
That second half last night vs. Jamaica was awfully entertaining.
You should go see Ric Garrido in Monterey, lovely gent.
Hello everyone from the Hyatt Regency SFO. Pretty nice property, decent service, free coffee refills in the beautiful Atrium area, lots of Japanese guests, airport shuttle runs non stop. And that is my review. Worth the 12k Hyatt points, oh yes. We crashed last night, 3 hr time diff is not helping, daughter is still sleeping as of 9.30 am CA time!
I am up TBBing…for you…for free it appears once again as clicks have again vanished. Yeah, same old sobbing story.
Took some hours off in Feedly and it is so apparent that everyone is trying to get the same credit card clicks pretty much. It is so awfully pathetic. And, here is the kicker, I find myself trying to do the same thing as you will see in tomorrow’s post. And it hurts when I do it. But it sure pays some bills to justify me to keep going as all other monetizing stuff I have tried is not even worth mentioning…I just do not see myself pumping away like the Titans by having bankrate cheering me on to pump inferior offers and then me going along with that, no freaking way! So, same old, I just keep going entertaining, educating and rarely inspiring. Until this is no longer fun…End of sobbing.
@ Jay: Thanks for the feedback. I will try to charm my way into a suite like I always do. Results always vary 🙂
@ Sam: Thanks. If I post a hotel room toilet picture here Ramsey will never ever let me forget it. No Disney fans. Never heard of the other museum, we’ll see if it is nearby and time permits.
@plane2port: Yeah, the Club Carlson Visa cards had some amazing promos back then until they killed the amazing BOGO free award night benefit. The card still awards 5 points per dollar by the way. Amassed about 600k and have had an awful time using them but lately they have come through in a big way, this time in the Sunnyvale area and last year in Traverse City in the summer! Warning: Getting approved by US Bank can be sometimes an ordeal. But I never give up 🙂 I did not try to churn them as I did not want to go through the same ordeal. I transferred wife’s CC points to me and canceled hers. I keep my Club Carlson card, pay the annual fee which gives me 40,000 points I believe.
@Oliver2002: Ok, I will try to remember to get them to model with plastic, they still owe me that 🙂 I know not to expect much with Five Star…I had a higher status but I guess I was downgraded.
@ DML: Oh yeah, Detroit hub sure helped in this case. 4 daily flights to SFO! I walked by the Delta Club in SFO, I remember I had visited it years ago, very nice.
Question: It appears that we won’t be able to visit the Amex Centurion Club in Terminal 3 inside security when we return for the flight back to Detroit? Can someone confirm?
@ Ryan: Thanks amigo!
@ Nick: I can’t believe the flight was scheduled when the Gold Cup final took place so I missed it. I caught the goals and highlights. I like the job Bruce Arena is doing, they should have never hired that German skinny dude!
@ Raffles: Yeah, I have met Ric, great guy. But I think he may be still looking for his wallet in Prague 🙂
Can’t wait to read the trip report!
Mark your calendar for 2019!
🙂
Definitely before…2020!
George, nice put together trip! I am another that never wants to see another toilet photo, unless barfing in Trump Tower 😉
We Greeks (2%) have to support each other….
Thanks for the card!
Enjoy SF George, lovely city. I always recommend biking from fishermans wharf to Sausalito (mostly downhill after the Golden Gate Bridge) and then back to the wharf via ferry.
That sounds great. But daughter is complaining her legs hurt again big time (due to dancing). So not much walking/biking it appears in this trip. They slow me down 🙂
Had to wait in line for almost 2 hours at Mensho Ramen last night. Good but, oh boy, I think it is over hyped!
Intercontinental SF is very nice. Everything s fantastic. Went to the gym for an hour #winning
I heard the Tonga Room has the BEST happy hour in SF during the week… check it out!
I have reservations for all of us, including son, there this Saturday at 6.30 pm. I need to ask the happy hours 🙂
Son interviewed at Apple yesterday! And he will bring friend this weekend, she is visiting from…NASA…TBB #2 is doing well #genes?
I’ll reiterate my previous commentary. The Tenderloin district
Mensho Ramen is in that district. Concierge at IC told us to avoid one street on the way there. We didn’t. It was pretty interesting. Some interesting characters. Nothing too shocking.
Are you flying coach?? Please, dear god, nooooo….
Hell yeeah, I am flying coach! Less than 6 hours domestic flights are just fine. We snagged exit rows that were sitting empty right after boarding. No money was given to Delta. Zippo. I like to take from the airlines (and hotels and especially banks lol). Being elite these days requires way too much money to give TO airlines! Especially mega assholes like the Delta execs.
Free agent since 1/1/12.
It’s a new era. In the hobby too, sad!