With the decision made to spend Thanksgiving 2022 in Scottsdale, it was time to book the trip. My wife, two daughters and I will be heading out to Arizona the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and coming home the Sunday after. Since we have family in Scottsdale, we’ll still get to experience a typical Thanksgiving celebration and a fun vacation. We’re so excited for this trip as this will be the first time that all four of us will be on vacation together in quite some time.

Airfare

My initial plan was to book two one-way flights. I wanted to use American Airlines miles on the flight to Phoenix and United Airlines TravelBank credits on the way home. In the end, I booked both segments on American because prices for the second leg on United were so much higher than on American. The majority of my TravelBank cash doesn’t expire for years, so it’ll be there the next time I book a United flight.

Chicago to Phoenix

When I began looking for flights to Phoenix, my plan was to use $700 in gift cards against the cost of the flight and pay the rest in cash. I always check both the cash price and miles price, just in case there’s a deal one way or another. When I checked for deals using AAdvantage miles, I found one specific flight offering tickets in First Class on one of American’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners for 30,000 miles per person. That was just a few thousand more miles than the miles price of the same flight in coach!

The Dreamliner has lie-down seats so we can all relax on the early morning flight. Plus we haven’t told our daughters so this will be a total surprise!

Note: Since booking the flight from Chicago to Phoenix, American Airlines made a flight change and we’re no longer flying on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. This is extremely disappointing but there’s not much I can do about it. We’re still flying first class, they just won’t be lie-down seats. I still don’t mind having spent 30,000 miles per person on these seats since they’re now going for 75,000 miles.

At $522 per person, the value of my miles redemption is 1.7 cents per mile. Most people value AA miles at 1.4 cents per mile, so the redemption is slightly above average. But most important to me is that we’re going to kickoff our trip in style!

Whenever you redeem miles on a domestic flight, the airlines still charge nominal fees. In total, I paid $22.40 for the four one-way tickets. To cover that cost, I paid with my Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card. I typically book flights with this card because of the many travel-related perks, like trip cancellation insurance, trip delay reimbursement and lost baggage reimbursement. In this case, I also used it because of the annual travel credit. Sapphire Reserve cardholders get $300 in travel credits each cardmember year and I hadn’t yet used them all. Within a few days of booking, Chase had already credited me back for this charge, making this a 100% free flight!

Phoenix to Chicago

After watching prices for months, American Airlines had consistently cheaper fares than United Airlines for the flight home. Even though I’m going to lose $125 in United TravelBank credits, I’m not upset. I received $25 because I’m an IHG® Rewards Premier Credit cardholder, and $100 after I enrolled in CLEAR for free. So while it’s annoying that they’ll expire worthless, I didn’t pay for those credits and I’m saving way more than $125 by booking flights on American. Plus I still have $250 in TravelBank credits to use on a future United flight and those don’t expire until 2027.

Unfortunately there was no way around paying an astronomical fee to fly home the Sunday after Thanksgiving. However, $348 per person on American feels like a steal compared to the $639 United was asking. That’s still really expensive but that’s as low as I’d seen it in months. While I had $700 in AA gift cards, I decided not to us them because of my recently opened AAdvantage® Aviator® Business Mastercard. I wanted to apply the full cost of these tickets towards meeting the minimum spending threshold needed to obtain the 80,000 mile sign-up bonus. The gift cards don’t ever expire, so I can always use them on my next trip.

To take some of the sting out of paying $1,390 for these flights, I decided to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points via Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature. As a Chase Sapphire Reserve® cardholder, I can redeem points to receive statement credits on recent eligible purchases. Points are worth 1.5 cents apiece, and I decided to redeem 56,667 points to receive a statement credit of about $850.

So in the end, flights which would’ve cost $3,476 in total were paid for with 120,000 AAdvantage miles and 56,667 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for a final net cost of only $540.

Hotel

From the beginning, we knew we wanted to stay at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa. It’s close to family and has five pools, a lazy river, a spa, golf, pickleball and plenty of dining options. To aid with the cost, I decided to apply for the Marriott Bonvoy Business™ American Express® Card late in 2021. Amex was offering a “best ever” sign-up bonus of 125,000 Marriott points plus two free nights, up to 50,000 points each, after meeting the minimum spending requirements. Redemptions at the Desert Ridge Resort go for about 50,000 points or less per night, so this works perfectly.

As of mid-July, nightly cash rates are around $600 per night, so I feel great to have booked our stay using my two free night certificates and 87,000 Marriott points.

Unfortunately Marriott still charges resort fees, even on points redemptions, so it’s not going to be a completely free stay. However, I’m still saving a total of $2,407 for the four night stay!

Rental Car

We’re going to need a car to get around Scottsdale and I was able to find a pretty decent rate using a promo code I pulled from American Airline’s website. $376 for a standard size SUV was far and away the best deal I could find. Booking directly with Budget was even better than what I could find with Costco Travel and AutoSlash.

Scottsdale Redemption Table

Bottom Line

I love being able to plan a trip like this and save 82% by using points and miles. The four of us can’t wait to take this family trip after having to postpone it for two years due to the pandemic. Plus we get to kickoff the vacation in style in First Class and stay at what looks like a fabulous resort. It’s even sweeter knowing this $6,400 trip will only cost around $1,100!

Trip Report Index

1. Introduction and Planning
2. Using Points and Miles to get to Scottsdale
3. Flight from Chicago to Phoenix
4. JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa