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Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Let us pull back the curtain and show you how you can maximize money you're already spending to earn enough credit card points and miles to travel with your family for nearly free.
We've used credit card points and miles to take our family of 5 on trips to places like Costa Rica, San Diego, Disneyland, Oceanside, NYC, Washington DC, Hawaii, and next year we have already booked Paris, Spain and Japan!
Using credit card points and miles (often called travel hacking) doesn't have to be overwhelming or take a ton of time, and we can show you how.
Can you earn a lot of points and miles without opening up multiple credit cards? Only if you have a really high amount of spend each month. For people with larger families, opening new cards is the easiest and fastest way to earn enough points and miles to take a couple of really low cost (but not low budget) family vacations every year!
If you want to learn ways to help you and your family travel more affordably using credit card points, this show is for you.
Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel
Last Minute Spring Break Ideas in the US (with Points Availability!)
With spring break approaching, today’s episode focuses on last-minute travel destinations within the U.S. that can be booked using points. We share insights on family-friendly locations, tips for booking on points, and emphasize the importance of using travel rewards before they lose value.
• Discussing the growing trend of last-minute spring break travel
• Highlighting family-friendly destinations like Panama City Beach and Clearwater
• Exploring Washington, D.C. as a free and fun travel option
• Recommendations for enjoyable stays in San Diego and Hawaii
• Advising on how to effectively search and book last-minute trips
• Emphasizing the value of utilizing points for travel experiences
• Encouraging families to set out on spontaneous trips and make lasting memories
If you've been putting off booking a spring break trip and think it's too late, think again. In today's episode we're sharing some last-minute spring break destinations that have availability on points for the month of March or April, and they're all within the US, so no passport required. Listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I'm Dwayne, and we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.
Speaker 2:We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.
Speaker 1:So if you're wanting to travel more with your family but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.
Speaker 2:So welcome to our podcast, where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip hello, welcome back.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in, welcome back to travel party of five podcast. So today's episode we were thinking that maybe some of you are not like us and do not have your trips booked a full year in advance. I've been seeing a lot of posts on Facebook, especially in various groups around, looking for last minute spring break destinations, and so I I kind of thought like of places where we would want to go on spring break. I looked up hotels that we either are on our bucket list or that we've previously stayed at, and I made a list of ones that have some points availability that you can book if you have points. So I thought we would just share a few of those today and maybe give you some last minute trip ideas, either for this spring break or, who knows, in the future. We're also going to share at the end how we like if none of the destinations that we list sound fun, I'm going to show you how I would think through booking a last minute trip and some tools that I would use. How's that sound to you?
Speaker 2:Sounds great and helpful.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, so why don't we talk about I think I also let me preface I was aiming for more warm climate places on this trip. I feel like that is generally what people want For spring break. For spring break yeah, you know, it's coming off the end of winter, especially if you live in a colder climate and you want to get away somewhere warm. The first place I think everyone thinks about is Florida. Yes, so I looked up a few properties kind of in the Orlando area and they were booked. But there's a couple of other properties that maybe might not be on your radar but that could be just as fun.
Speaker 1:Um, so the first one is Hyatt place, Panama city beach. This is in the panhandle of Florida. It's pretty close to Destin, which is a really beautiful beach, and they have availability on points, and this particular hotel is right on the beach. It is a high up place. So, again, temper your expectations. Not the fanciest, yeah, but it would be a great hotel for families. We've never stayed there, but it's definitely high on my list because my sister lives in Tallahassee, which is nearby, and the other Florida hotel that has availability again, I was looking for roughly five nights mid-March We've actually stayed at Maybe you want to talk about.
Speaker 2:It's the Hyatt Regency Clearwater. Very nice hotel, great location, right across the street from the beach, beautiful beaches. Uh, they had a very big pool as well. Oh, was it big it was.
Speaker 1:it was an average, I remember great hotel for families for sure we actually stayed there before we got into points and Miles, so we paid cash to stay there and at the time we just had two kids, our two boys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were there, for we went to Disney World.
Speaker 1:We went to Orlando for my sister's college graduation. I previously lived in Orlando, if anyone doesn't know. I graduated from UCF, go Knights, and my sister also graduated from UCF, and so we went for her college graduation and we did a day at Disney and we also did a night in Clearwater. So Clearwater is going to be on the West coast of Florida, north of Tampa, and it has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. They are like white sand beaches. The water is warm and fairly calm because you're right on the Gulf of Mexico, so you're not on the Atlantic side, and it's just. It was a really fun hotel for kids.
Speaker 2:My favorite part of that trip was driving around the Scientology headquarters and looking for Scientologists. I thought that was great. Yes, I was looking for Tom Cruise. And what's the Heather or no Remini, oh Leah Remini.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's not a Scientologist anymore.
Speaker 2:But I was hoping she was out there doing like some filming Protesting.
Speaker 1:Yes, scientology does have a big like campus.
Speaker 2:It's like their headquarters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in Clearwater and you can drive around it. If I remember correctly, it looked fairly empty, which is hilarious.
Speaker 2:And the people walking around seemed like they were robots.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but Clearwater is a really fun, family-friendly little town and again, the beaches are beautiful. You can't beat it. You could fly into either Orlando or Orlando or Tampa to stay there, and again, they had availability middle of March. I just think that it's. It's not a property people talk about a lot and so it's not as popular as like a Hyatt Regency, Grand Cypress or something which is pretty popular and is in Orlando.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you can't go wrong. Hyatt Regency, clearwater.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really beautiful. Okay, our next destination is also on the East Coast. We also have used points to stay here, and it is Washington DC. We also have used points to stay here, and it is Washington DC. I think that DC is an incredibly underrated destination for families, because a lot of the museums and activities that you're going to want to do are completely free. Yeah, so, in addition to booking your hotel for free on points, you can do a lot of museums also completely free. So really, your only expense then is food and maybe parking If you um are driving in. We did not have a car there, so we actually just use the Metro to get around, which was completely fine, worked great and also it was fairly inexpensive. Also, if you're going to go in the spring, like March-ish, that is cherry blossom time, so you might get lucky and be able to see the cherry blossoms bloom, which would be really beautiful.
Speaker 1:There's lots of hotels there that have availability, but a few that I checked are the Thompson, the Grand Hyatt, which is where we stayed. There's actually a metro stop directly in the hotel, so you don't even need to go outside. Also, the Hyatt Place, washington DC White House had availability, and there's a bunch of other properties there too. For Hyatt there's also a Waldorf or a Conrad, which are both Hilton properties if you have Hilton points, and those are definitely more on the higher luxury end. But they did have standard room rates available. So if you had Hilton free night certificates, you could use those there. During that time. We really liked Washington DC. We were there for three nights in the fall of 2023. We went to visit my sister who at the time was living in Harrisonburg, virginia. She used to work at JMU and I mean we really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's definitely great for families. A lot of history there, so many places to go and visit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had some good meals. You can book a White House tour, also for free. You have to book through your senator, and I know that sounds weird, but they generally all have a White House tour form on their website and that's how you would do that, and then they kind of let you know right beforehand if you've been approved or not and like what day and time your tour is, so you can do that. But, yeah, we really liked it when we went there. It was an interesting mix of like I guess I'm going to call them like politicians, right, like we saw several politicians eat while we were eating, coming in with like security but also families, and so it was a. It was an interesting mix of of, um, people, um, okay, now we're gonna travel from the east coast to the west coast and we're gonna say san diego, it's one of our favorite destinations, primarily because we can drive there, but it's also really beautiful and fun.
Speaker 2:So beautiful 65 degrees year round. It's also really beautiful and fun. So beautiful, 65 degrees year round, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:It may not be as warm as you're expecting in March, like Florida, will definitely be warmer, so keep that in mind. Also, the Pacific ocean is much colder than the Atlantic, so also keep that in mind. Um, there were a few hotels in San Diego that still had availability for mid March, um the Hyatt Regency La Jolla, which we've stayed at, and also the Park Hyatt Aviara, which we've also stayed at, which is one of my favorite properties.
Speaker 1:The Aviara is fantastic for families. We have a whole episode about it. You can go back and listen. It's from summer of last year. They do turn down service, which I love, but they also have a really great pool and all that fun stuff. It's really close to Legoland, so you could do Legoland for a day. You could drive over to Oceanside and hang out for the day.
Speaker 1:Some of our other favorite hotels are the Seabird in Oceanside. We've stayed there several times that actually did not have availability or I would have recommended it. Um, but you, you cannot go wrong with the park Hyatt Aviara and if you want to spend a few less points again, the Hyatt Regency La Jolla is a. It's a still a really good hotel. It has, um, like fire pits and stuff. It's probably still cool enough at night to have a fire. They do have a pool. It's not a fancy pool but it gets the job done and it's in a really good location. You can easily drive to see the seals in La Jolla. La Jolla in general is I really enjoy it. There's like a Philz Coffee and a shopping plaza right behind the hotel, so like a one-minute drive. They have a kava there.
Speaker 2:We've minute drive. They have a kava there. We've stayed there several times.
Speaker 1:Bunch of japanese restaurants, yeah, which is my favorite. So you can't like, you won't be disappointed if you book there and, you know, spend your time in san diego anywhere in san diego.
Speaker 1:There's, there's a hit yes, um, the other hotel that you could do if you have hilton points is the Hotel del Coronado is a Hilton that is on Coronado Island. We've never stayed there but it is on my list and they did have standard room availability again where you could use free night certificates or book on points. The other thing that's not necessarily San Diego but is kind of in the same area as the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach. That's a couple of hours north, more towards LA.
Speaker 2:It's like right in the middle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they also had availability. We've also stayed there. We have a podcast episode on that if you want to go back and listen. And that is also a really nice hotel for families.
Speaker 2:Yes, Huge property, multiple pools, right across the street from the beach yep, lots of things to do in the hotel.
Speaker 1:They have like a pizza place and an ice cream shop, a bar, a little arcade priorities yes, a small arcade. Um, starbucks, yes. So, again, really good property for families and walkable to like the downtown huntington beach area too. So that is it for like the super West coast. Um, texas was another place on my list. Texas is never high on my list of like places to visit within the U? S, but there is a Hyatt property that I think is really good for families. That's in the I'm pretty sure it's the San Antonio area. It's called Hyatt Regency Lost Pines. This is a hotel with so many amenities that you could just go there and stay there for five or six days and never leave and have plenty to do. So they have pools, they have like all kinds of games that you can play, they have a lazy river and texas is fairly warm in march. So, and they did have availability. Again on points for middle of march. Um, another location on the west coast. You want to talk about this one.
Speaker 2:We've stayed here so many times you're talking about the grand hyatt, scottsdale. Yeah, oh, perfect place for families. They have a great pool comes with a water slide, a little beach area that has sand, a little splash pad in the middle, um, they have a climbing rock wall, ping pong, a little playground. This is all at the pool. Uh, we've been there where there has been um painter that would come out and like paint t-shirts for your kids. Oh, yeah, um, they also have like a candy necklace or a candy bar.
Speaker 1:Yes, that was during the summer, and they it was some kind of month-long event where they had different events every day. So again, this is the Grand Hyatt Scottsdale, formerly known as the—.
Speaker 2:Hyatt Regency, scottsdale. So, they just renovated to make it a grand.
Speaker 1:March. Talk about coming here in March. We live here, so it's not as exciting for us. But if you don't live here, like what else is in March here, oh Lord, spring training is here in March. So if you're a baseball fan lots of spring training games around the valley. It's a very popular time to visit here because it's some of our best weather it's not cold, not too hot right before the the summer hits yes, and again spring training.
Speaker 1:So scottsdale area, there's lots of bars and shopping and and all that. Um, when is the phoenix open? Is that also in march?
Speaker 2:the waste management is this weekend, oh okay, next weekend oh, I have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yes, but yeah, spring training. So if you're a baseball fan, it's a popular time and the hotel is really beautiful. They just finished renovating it, so again now, like Dwayne mentioned, it's a Grand Hyatt. Excuse me, we've been going there every summer for probably the last six or seven years.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And our kids look forward to it every year. It's fun. So we definitely recommend that. And they have availability on points again for mid-March, which I was surprised by because again it's a really popular time to stay here.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a huge property. They have so many rooms. That's probably why, yeah, and it's in a great location. It's in bougie, scottsdale, where it's next to a bunch of restaurants, the Fashion Square Mall. It's not walkable.
Speaker 1:Not walkable? No, it's not walkable, so you would need a car likely, or take an Uber if you don't have a lot of plans, yeah, short.
Speaker 1:Uber ride but it is close to a lot of things. Keeping with our West Coast theme, I think if you're on the West Coast, this is a viable spring break option. If you're on the East Coast, it makes it harder. But Hawaii, you know, is a quick five to six hour flight from the West Coast, depending where you are. And I checked the Hyatt Regency Maui, which is our favorite island and property on Hawaii that we've been to, and they had availability on points for middle of March, which is our favorite island and property on Hawaii that we've been to, and they had availability on points for middle of March, which, again, I was surprised by. That's the time of year where we went in 2023. I would still 100% recommend it. We haven't been back since the fires, but Maui is just so beautiful. So again, maui Grand Hyatti, hyatt Regency Maui has availability on points in March.
Speaker 2:Go ahead. I was going to say on the east coast you can go to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1:Yes, puerto Rico, I think, is often overlooked. You don't need a passport to go there. It's a US territory and there is again a Hyatt there. It's the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve. Puerto Rico we have not been, but it looks stunning. I've read a lot of good reviews about it and they have availability on points for March. If you're looking for a tropical island feel but you don't want to go far and you don't want to go to Florida, then consider Puerto Rico. You still don't need a passport and most people speak English there.
Speaker 1:I've been to Puerto Rico once. It was a long time ago and I was actually there for work, which is a whole other story, so I didn't get to do anything fun, but it was real. I remember it was really beautiful flying over on the plane. Okay, so I feel like we've given a good roundup of popular and maybe some not so popular destinations, but if none of the destinations that we talked about sound interesting or fun, or maybe you've done them all, maybe you're like been there, done that. Here's how, like a few different ways that I would approach finding a last minute spring break destination. So there's a couple of different, like award search tools that you can use to find either hotels or flights. Oh and again, going back to flights for all the places that we mentioned, I mean Southwest flies to all of them. If you have companion passes, then that's probably the route that's going to make the most sense.
Speaker 1:If you don't, then I the way that I would start is I would do um, well, actually I would do what we're about to do, which is points. Yeah, dot com has a free like search tool where you can search from one destination to another and get like the cheapest points flights, basically. Seatsarrow is another one. I actually we pay for the premium version of that. I find that better because you can look a year out, whereas if you pay, if you use the free version of Seedsarrow, you're limited to a certain timeframe and because we booked so far out, we need that.
Speaker 1:But pointsyeahcom is a pretty good tool for free and you can do it one of two ways, so you can look for a specific like this city to this city, kind of a thing. Or what I think is more fun is they have a tool called the daydream explorer and you can basically just put in the US to the US, meaning like I want to stay within the US, but I'm open to wherever. Or you could put in your city to wherever in the US and type in the dates that you want to go and it will give you all kinds of flights and their points value to give you some additional ideas, and it'll tell you like 25,000 points, you know, to book this route or whatever for flights For a new destination or any of the ones that we talked about today. That is a good recommendation.
Speaker 1:You can also start on Google Flights, and the way that I do that is, I would start on Google Flights, I would look to see if there's any airlines that offer nonstop flights, because that would be a priority for me, especially traveling with kids and then I would go to those airlines specifically and figure out okay, what points do I have that can transfer to one of these airlines that has a nonstop flight? If there is no nonstop flight, then I go to a minimum of one stop, like we're not taking more than one layover on a trip, right?
Speaker 2:Right. So too much of a headache with it's a pain. Family of five yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and then, as far as hotels go, like searching for hotels in certain destinations, so aways is a tool you can use for this. I really like this tool, actually, with one exception you are limited to, I think, five free searches, and so when you're going to look on a ways I would already have your location that you want to go to like narrow down. Because I didn't realize this and I was using it and then they were like, oh no, you've reached your maximum number of searches. So then I thought, okay, maybe I'll upgrade to the premium version, but the premium version is also not unlimited searches, it still has a limit. And so I thought, well, I'm not doing that, like I'm not, it just seems silly. Yes, so I really like the tool and if you don't know, a ways is basically like you can put in okay, I want to visit, you know, scottsdale, arizona, and it will tell you what hotels are available to book with points, and it will it will pull Hilton, it will pull Hyatt, it will pull Marriott, it will pull whatever you want it to pull, so you can get a good idea of like what, what hotels have points options available during your dates. So it's very specific and very helpful, but again, you're limited on the number of searches you can do, so I would not use that until you've already narrowed down where you want to go. The other one that you can use is Max, my Point, but for this you have to have a specific property in mind. So you would put in, for example, the Hyatt Regency, puerto Rico, you would search for that, and then you can look at their calendar for the month of February or March or April or whatever, and it will tell you what nights have points rooms availability, and then what nights have cash. And it will even tell you, like, if there's only a suite available, you'll be able to tell, because it'll be a high number of points. And so that's super helpful If you know the property you want to stay at and you're just trying to figure out the dates, especially because with Hyatt in particular, it's kind of a pain in the butt to find availability because they have their like award calendar. But it doesn't mean there's availability, it just means if there is availability on this date, this is what it will cost you to get a standard room. And so, max, my point is saying, like, oh, there are points rooms available, you know, on these, whatever days.
Speaker 1:You also can set up an alert If you have the free version, which is what I have. You can only set up one alert at a time. So we have an alert, for example, for one of our Hyatts in Japan. We have one night that we need to book that doesn't have availability because the flight that we ended up getting back was a day later than the day I wanted it to be. So that's what we have set up for now, but, again, you can only set up one alert at a time if you have the free account.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of how I would start searching for a last minute destination is. I would use some of those tools, again keeping in mind the limitations of a ways. And again, if none of the places that we suggested today sound fun, start with points yeahcom. Use their daydream explorer. Explorer, put in your home airport and search to you know wherever. Maybe you have a passport and you want to go outside the US. That would be fantastic too. It can help you find, like, the cheapest points flights available. I think that's a really fun tool.
Speaker 1:So I hope, if spring break vacations are on your list, but you haven't planned anything yet. I hope that this was helpful. And if you're sitting on points and you're just afraid to use them, don't be because points lose their value every single day that they sit in your account. Earn and burn that is the motto. Airlines and hotels are constantly doing devaluations. Flying Blue just did one, marriott just did one, meaning that it now costs more points to book than it did a week ago. So that's an example of points being devalued, like that's what we mean when we say that. And so if you are sitting on a buttload of points, you should book a trip, and I hope that you take this as your sign to do it.
Speaker 2:Yes, you got to use them.
Speaker 1:Yep, if you have any questions, as always, find us on Instagram at travel party of five. I answer all questions sent to me over there and if you have gotten any value out of this podcast whatsoever, we ask that you, number one, leave us a rating or review wherever you listen, and, number two, share it with a friend. We would greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yes, we appreciate you. Thanks for listening. Thank you, bye.
Speaker 1:Catch you on the next one have a good one. Bye.