Greetings from Telluride! Our flight was scheduled to leave this past Sunday at 7am. There was a big snowstorm predicted Saturday night into Sunday morning. More snow in New York? What else is new? I was nervous. A car was scheduled to pick us up Sunday at 430 am. I decided instead, we should stay at a hotel close to the airport Saturday night.
I decided that this would be a great time to use Rob’s Marriott free night award, which was very close to expiring. Recall that Rob recently got the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card. In addition to the 70,000 Marriott Rewards that he received with the card, he also received a free night stay at a category 1-4 hotel. This free night is currently offered during the first year of being a Marriott Rewards Premier cardmember. Remember, after this first year, you receive a free night stay in a category 1-5 hotel each year after your account anniversary.
However, the Courtyard New York LaGuardia Airport, was a lofty Category 6 property. Huh? That is New York for you. Despite the fact that I called Marriott Rewards and the hotel, they would not budge. They made it very clear that the award must be redeemed at a Category 1-4 property. Plan failed. I booked the Marriott anyway. The rate was only $169 for the night. With a rate like this, no way was I using my Marriott Rewards points.
However come Saturday morning, I started getting more nervous. I was scared that our plane would not leave New York Sunday morning because of the wind and snow. On Saturday morning, I came up with an even more daring plan…….
You see, we were not flying direct to Telluride on Sunday. We were flying first to Houston and then to Telluride. Don’t forget, I got these flights using my Chase Ultimate Rewards points and although we have a direct flight home, we were only able to get a connecting flight to Telluride. (You need to be a bit flexible if you want to use points to travel for free).
I called United. A very helpful person on the phone was able to change our flights, with no charge!!!, to get us to Houston on Saturday instead of waiting till Sunday morning. (All flights to Telluride were booked on Saturday). Can you tell where this is heading?
I canceled the Courtyard Marriott reservation. I want to note here that I was within the 24 hour pd in which cancellations were not allowed. I called and was very very nice on the phone. I explained the situation about the weather, our flights, etc, and they cancelled the reservation with no penalty. I will definitely stay here one day. I would have eaten the $169 if I had to. So nice of the hotel!!
We booked the SpringHill Suites Marriott at the Houston Airport for Saturday night. Guess what. THIS WAS A CATEGORY 4 HOTEL!! We used Rob’s free night award which, by the way, was due to expire February 17th. We used it February 14th.
The stay was great. The hotel and room was clean, conveniently located to the airport and came with breakfast!! The room was like a mini suite–perfect for my family of 5. Also, instead of leaving from New York at 7am (remember getting picked up at 430 am), we only needed to make our original flight out of Houston at 1145. We had a leisurely morning at the hotel.
In case you are wondering, on Sunday, our flight from New York did take off a mere 18 minutes late and arrived in Houston only 4 minutes late. So it would have been fine. However, I saved myself a lot of stress and worry and the last minute planning and executing was a fun adventure for all of us!