Once In a Lifetime: Take Two
Last November nspfiance and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Colchagua Valley and Lima – flying first-class, hanging out in international first-class lounges, staying at 5-Star Hotels – pretty-much all for free. Almost $10K in value cost just shy of $300. This, by all accounts, should have been one of those “once in a lifetime” trips.
Hilton, however, has tried to force our hand. This November, we are possibly looking at a repeat. On March 27th, at midnight, Hilton had a massive devaluation of their HHonors Points. That announcement didn’t sit to well with me or nspfiance, given her balance sat at 142K and mine at 103K. We had been eyeing a trip to Bora Bora or the Maldives, both costing 145K HHonors points for a 4-night stay prior to last Thursday, and both costing 395K after the clock struck midnight and our HHonors Points turned into a giant pumpkin.
So what were we to do? After some research, we decided upon choosing Koh Samui, Thailand for a potential trip. The Conrad Hilton was hard to say no to:
Bedroom overlooking the Gulf of Thailand
Nspfiance was just under 3K miles shy of the award, so our 2 options were to buy 3K points for $37.50 or transfer them from my account for $25. After 32 minutes on the phone with the Hilton Diamond Desk, they told us there was no longer any availability for any dates for this property. As an apology, without even asking, they said they would give nspfiance 3K points just due to the fact that she had been on the phone for 32 minutes and wasn’t able to book a stay. That was really nice. And quite convenient.
Nspfiance was frustrated, but I told her to give me her account numbers and I would call back up. Funny enough, 2-minutes later we were booked November 30 – December 4th. Long Live the power for Hang-Up & Call-Again!
A quick search on United showed first-class travel on all segments going for 70K United Miles. That’s pretty easy, given Ultimate Rewards can be transferred immediately to United. There is also an American award from Tokyo to Cleveland for 62.5K miles. We haven’t decided where to spend our other 2-3 nights, but neither of us have been to Tokyo, and funny-enough, it’s on the way home!
At this point the trip is purely speculation. But Tokyo for a few days, possibly using our Free Hyatt Nights from our annual credit card fee of $95 (rooms valued at $410/night) seems to be a pretty killer deal.
Hyatt in Tokyo
We can cancel our Hilton AXON Award with no penalty 30 days in advance. I don’t anticipate being able to fully book this until July rolls around, just so nspfiance and I can lock in some details surrounding our work. That gives us about 4 months to think about how we could make this trip even better.
Any suggestions?
