Looking for help booking an anniversary trip

jlkendrick

New Member
This should be easy, and once upon a time, I was much more into collecting and redeeming points, but it makes my head hurt these days.

My husband and I are going to playa del carmen for our anniversary, Jun 21-June 24. I have a hotel booked already.

I need flights. I'm in Austin. I don't want to waste a day traveling so I'd prefer to arrive around 3 pm local time. Likewise, on the return, I don't want to leave until I have to, so nothing before 12.

I've got about 9500 Chase UR, 27000 United miles, 877 MRs, 26,000 spg points (I'm not sure what they're called anymore, but they're with my SPG card)

Gracias amigos and amigas.
 

kuchbhi001

New Member
Not trying to discourage you but with that degree of inflexibility in your schedule and 2 people traveling, I really doubt you will be able to find availability for any awards. Also, you don't have enough miles to be able to book round trip awards for 2 people with any program (unless u have 877K MRs and not just 877). You might be able to get a one way (or at max a round trip) award on united for 1 person with your UR+United miles, but you are most likely going to have to purchase a revenue ticket also.
 

SanDiego1K

Level 2 Member
Not trying to discourage you but with that degree of inflexibility in your schedule and 2 people traveling, I really doubt you will be able to find availability for any awards. Also, you don't have enough miles to be able to book round trip awards for 2 people with any program (unless u have 877K MRs and not just 877). You might be able to get a one way (or at max a round trip) award on united for 1 person with your UR+United miles, but you are most likely going to have to purchase a revenue ticket also.
I agree with this analysis. If I were you, I'd start by looking at flight options by using flights.google.com. That shows you the flight possibilities between your city pairs, their cost in dollars, and the alliances. About your only possibility is to move everything into your United account. Your UR points move over at 1:1. Your SPG points (if indeed still SPG) will be converted at a 3:1 with Marriott but then converted at the same ratio as in the past to United. United offers a 10%? 12% bonus when moved from Marriott. So 20K SPG/60K Marriott moves into United at 25K UA plus the bonus (which takes several weeks to post). That gives you a sense of the maximum number of United points that you can have. If you have find that United or one of its partners flies between the cities of interest to you, you then move onto united.com and check for award availability. Do all of this before moving any points. You'll quickly see whether there is an award that appeals.
 

SanDiego1K

Level 2 Member
I looked at award seats on United on the dates of interest to you. There are seats both directions. The outbound meets your criteria of arriving before 3pm. It leaves Austin at 7am and gets into Cozumel at noon, flying via Houston. It is 25K miles plus $35 in taxes per person (as is the return, which isn't quite as good of a schedule). You can do an analysis of the price for a RT versus a price for one way. If it makes sense, you can use 50K points for your outbound award seats.

Also, analyze the cost of simply buying the seat versus using points. The one way fare is $194 basic economy or $224 for economy. You spend 25K points to save $194 less $35 or $224 less $35. That's poor return unless you have no other likelihood of using those points. Your Starwood points alone would cover a hotel stay of greater value.
 
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