Who doesn’t like free stuff? I sure do and on our recent trip to Park City (I am here now), I took advantage of much of what my credit cards have to offer and enjoyed a lot of free goodies…..here are the details….
Flights-I used American Express Membership Rewards points to purchase our 4 Delta tickets to Salt Lake City. The total ticket price for the four of us was $2942.40 with taxes and fees and I used 294,424 Amex points, as Amex points are redeemed at 1 cents per points on airfare. Hmm, I can see right off the bat that I lost value on this transaction, but I am ok with that. I wanted free flights. Let’s see how much value I lost….Amex points are valued at 2 cents per point and I used 294,424 or $5888 in value for flights that cost about $3k. Oh well, I earn so many Amex points anyway with my American Express Gold card and my Amex Blue Business, I can afford to lose this value! I like to think of it as I saved $2942 on flights. 🙂
Bags-I have a lot of cards with airline incidental credits. Rob and I each have Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Cards that come with $250 in airline incidental credits. I selected Delta as the airline in our Amex online accounts and used those cards to pay for our hefty baggage fees (we travel with our skis), which will be reimbursed with the card.
Dinner at the airport-Me, Rob and Daniel all used our Amex Platinum cards to gain entry into the Delta SkyMiles lounge. I have additional Platinum cards (for $175 total) for Rob, Daniel and Jessie. Unfortunately, Mason has a mere Gold card under my Platinum. However, before we left, I made sure to select Delta has my airline under the $200 airline incidental credit benefit with my Amex Platinum. I then used it to pay his $29 guest fee. We all enjoyed yummy chicken and rice and a very nice assortment of salads in our cozy private area in the Delta SkyMiles lounge at JFK.
Stay-We stayed at the Hotel Park City, an Autograph Collection property for four nights for 240,000 Marriott Bonvoy points (60k per night). I always have a lot of Bonvoy points because each year I convert the options that I have in a few Colorado timeshare to Bonvoy points. Yes, I know had I stayed one more night, I could have gotten the fifth night free, but life awaits at home. We need to leave so they can go back to school Now for my value calculation…..Bonvoy points are valued at about .8 of a cent per point. So for the stay we used $1920 in value. Each night at this hotel costs about $880 so the stay had we paid would have been $3530. Yay, I gained a lot of value here and am looking it as a wash with my loss on the flights. Here, I consider we saved $3530 in cash.
Breakfast and shopping-I had a $300 Bonvoy resort credit that is attached to my Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express Card for each of my cardmember years. This $300 credit covered our breakfast each morning in Bandanas and I also threw in a red and blue plaid scarf doe myself from the hotel shop.
Uber-I took an Uber from my hotel in Park City to the Waldorf at The Canyons. For the trip, I used my $15 in Uber Cash that I receive each month with my American Express Platinum card.
Lunch and Spa at the Waldorf-I used my $250 Hilton Resort credit to cover these charges. Originally I thought I wouldn’t be able to, but I was luckily mistaken!
However, in the end, not everything on our trip is free. I spent a fortune for our 3 day lift tickets and am getting burned because I used my Citi Thank You Premier card for the tickets which I still maintain should be entertainment! And other than breakfast, we are laying for all of our meals on the mountain ($$$) and our dinners. Luckily, we all have the. American Express Gold card and are happily earning 4x Membership Rewards points at restaurants.
Speaking of the restaurants, we have been to Park City a bunch and we try to eat at different restaurants each trip. This trip we hit Main Street and went to Tekila, but skipped the tequila as it was our first night and we were tired but they had tons of brands and on another night this place could be a ton of fun. My shrimp tacos were delicious and so was the guac! Our second night, we finally made it to Sammy’s Bistro. We went on the early side, about 6:15 and only needed to wait 15 minutes. This place gets crowded and does not take reservations! It was great. It had been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, so that definitely adds to the crowds. Our final night, we enjoyed steaks at the Butcher’s Chophouse. It was reasonable for a steakhouse and also quite good. It Is on Main Street so you can make your way to Rocky Mountain Chocolate or Java Cow for dessert, places we visit every time we are here. One lunch that stands out is another DDD joint, Silver Star Cafe. This was my favorite restaurant of the trip. They serve dinner as well as lunch and have live music Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. I want to do that on my next trip back to Park City!