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Tucson

Tucson Marriott University Park

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As of November 2019, the only reason to stay at the Tucson Marriott University Park is its incredible location, which is close to campus and the surrounding nightlife. The 231 room hotel is currently in the middle of an $18 million renovation, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019. During my stay, the hotel staff told me that the renovations of all guest rooms had been completed in October. However, common areas like the lobby and restaurant were still in process. The hotel opened in 1996 and had been known as one of the most dated and tired Marriott hotels in the country before renovations.

Besides the internal renovations, a new hotel is being constructed directly across the street. This new hotel will be called the Graduate Tucson. It will be a 14-story, 164 room hotel and is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2020. Until that is completed, guests of the Tucson Marriott need to be prepared to be woken up by construction noise at 6 a.m most mornings.

In This Post

Location

The hotel’s location is what makes it so attractive! It’s situated about a half a mile from the University of Arizona campus, which is known as “The Mall”. Within five to ten minutes, guests can walk to the university bookstore and explore the rest of campus. It’s also just a block from the nightlife along University Boulevard. If you want to grab a drink from one of the establishments on University, it’ll be an easy walk home at the end of the night. Popular places like Gentle Ben’s Brewing and Frog & Firkin are just a few hundred feet from the hotel.

Tucson Marriott University Park
In the background, you can see the crane which is helping to build a new hotel across the street.

Lobby

With renovations still in process, guests walk into a construction zone and makeshift lobby. The check-in area consists of a desk in front of green drapes.

Checking in was pretty painless but as they were checking my reservation, I was able to look around the sad lobby. It was a bit deflating to see the exact condition the hotel common areas were in. There was also a fairly strong sulfur smell in the lobby, which I assume was due to construction. Luckily the smell didn’t spread into the guest rooms.

Behind the green drapes, they setup a temporary dining area. There was a breakfast buffet available, but eating in their “dining room” wasn’t very appealing.

The Room

Similar to Embassy Suites, this hotel has an open concept where the rooms surround the lobby below. One of the goals of the renovation is to open up the space with brighter fixtures that reflect more light.

At first glace, the newly renovated rooms look nice. They are decidedly modern with grey laminate floors instead of carpet.

Rooms have everything you’d expect, including a television, desk, coffee maker, mini-fridge and lots of outlets and USB ports.

There’s also a small couch which offers extra seating if you have a larger group traveling with you.

The Bathroom

The newly renovated bathroom was clean but overall pretty average.

Miscellaneous

As we started using the hotel room, examples of cutting corners with the room renovations appeared. As you can see below, we found paint splotches on the bathroom wall that were not cleaned up. Also the toilet paper holder wasn’t installed securely, so it leaned to one side. Neither issue was a major problem, but it didn’t meet the expectations I had for a brand new room. These are the kinds of things I’d expect at a dated hotel in need of renovations, not a newly renovated one.

We also had an issue at check-out where bogus international charges had been added to our bill. As I was heading down to the lobby to leave, I took a closer look at the bill and noticed two international calls for a total of $40. Of course we never made any calls, so I stopped at the check-in desk and explained that we never made these or any other phone calls.

The staff agreed to remove the charges and said it would take several business days before they were reversed. However, I wasn’t very confident because it seemed like the staff was just telling me what I wanted to hear so I’d leave. I’m not sure they even wrote anything down as I was explaining the problem. After waiting two weeks, I called the Marriott corporate number and they started a ticket for me. Within two days, the money was refunded.

It’s also worth noting that one of the changes included in the renovation is to the outdoor pool and spa. It’s being removed and the space will be transformed into a multi-use terrace for private and semi-private use for up to 100 guests.

The view from our room was nice – you can see A Mountain (Sentinel Peak) on the right.

Bottom Line

The location of this hotel will always be the reason to stay here. Once the renovations are complete, my hope would be that the newly updated hotel provides other reasons besides just location. However, I’m not convinced the hotel will be as nice as they say it will be. If the cutting of corners in bathroom continues in the lobby and common areas, it will surely be disappointing. During my stay, I also felt like the staff was either disinterested or lacked proper training. It could also be disengagement from having worked through a construction zone all year. I would expect, that post-renovations, the staff is properly trained, happy and ready to serve their guests.

Trip Report Index

  1. Introduction and Planning
  2. Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson
  3. Tucson Marriott University Park
  4. Illinois vs Arizona Basketball Game

Illinois vs Arizona Basketball Game

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This trip to Tucson (and Phoenix) was centered around the Illinois vs Arizona basketball game, which was played on Sunday November 10, 2019. As I mentioned in my planning post, Annie is an Arizona alum and I’m an Illinois alum. While our two schools play each other every once in a while, it’s been 12 years since the last game. So it was pretty special when we learned the two schools would be playing a home and home series in 2019 and 2020. Annie’s parents are also Illinois alums so they joined us on the trip to see our schools battle on the hardwood!

There was a definite buzz in the air as we walked up to the McKale Memorial Center on campus. It was early in the season, but both Illinois and Arizona were unbeaten and Arizona was ranked in the Top 25. Even though 3 out of 4 people in our group were wearing Illini orange, the Arizona fans were very friendly and welcoming. It was an outstanding environment!

In this post I detail out how I purchased the tickets (and saved a little money) as well as how the game turned out.

Purchasing Tickets

Getting tickets to a basketball game at the University of Arizona is pretty difficult. Basketball is king in Tucson and most seats are held by season ticket holders. When single-game tickets finally went on sale in October, we looked at the university website the day they were released. However, most of the available tickets were only singles. Even when we found two seats together, the tickets were all the way at the top of the stadium. Annie and I sat up there once before and wanted better seats this time around.

So we started watching ticket sites like Stubhub, Vivid Seats and Seatgeek. Stubhub had the best inventory of available tickets by a long shot. We watched the site for a few weeks but it wasn’t until about 10 days before the game that we started seeing some good options appear. At first there were either few tickets available or the tickets that were for sale were ridiculously priced.

Finally we found two seats in section 4, row 10. The seats were being sold on Stubhub for $115 each plus taxes and fees. Altogether it came to $274.10. But I only paid $240.36 and I’ll receive $11.50 in cashback at a later date. So how did I save a total of $45.24 off the ticket price? It’s as simple as 1-2-3.

Step-by-Step

1) Raise.com

First I went to Raise.com to buy discounted Stubhub gift cards. Raise is an online gift card marketplace where you can sell gift cards for cash or buy discounted gift cards to all your favorite brands. Raise was selling gift cards at 6% off the listed amount. So I bought three gift cards worth $180 for only $169.26.

2) CashBackMonitor

Next I went to CashBackMonitor to see what shopping portals were giving the best deals at Stubhub. CashBackMonitor keeps tabs on 45 different shopping portals including cash back portals, travel miles and points portals and credit card points portals. After selecting the website where you want to shop, it tells you what percentage in cash back, points or miles each portal is offering.

I found the best deal for me at TopCashback.com, which offered up to 8% cash back on purchases made at Stubhub. TopCashback, like Rakuten, is free to join and pays you cash back for shopping at your favorite online retailers.

3) Stubhub

My final stop was to go to Stubhub (clicking through via TopCashback so my order was tracked) to order the tickets.

After selecting the tickets I wanted, it was time to check out. As luck would have it, I had a 10% off coupon sitting in my Stubhub account which knocked $23 off the total. Then I applied the $180 worth of gift cards and paid the remaining balance from my PayPal account. I used PayPal because it’s one of the Chase Freedom Q4 bonus categories. So I earned 5x Chase Ultimate Rewards points on that portion of my purchase.

While this might seem like a lot of steps, it only takes a few minutes. For this time spent, I saved $10.74 buying gift cards on Raise.com. I also saved $23 with the 10% off coupon and I’ll receive $11.50 in cash back from TopCashback.com. I don’t know about you but saving $45.24 was worth a few extra steps!

Of course, using Raise.com and CashBackMonitor can apply to lots of other online purchases and not just Stubhub. Next time you’re buying something online, spend a few minutes checking out these websites and see how much money you can save.

The Game

My Fighting Illini warming up before game time.

First off, we loved our seats. We were sitting 10 rows up from the court and had great views of the action at each basket. Watching games on TV don’t do justice to the size and speed of these athletes.

The ball is tipped!

The atmosphere in the stadium was electric, as if it were a March Madness game. Illinois came out hot, hitting their first three 3-point attempts. Arizona settled in and for most of the first half, the game was back and forth. At halftime, Arizona led 39-38.

By midway in the second half, Arizona started pulling away (Courtesy ESPN).

The second half was a different story, however. For the first eight minutes of the second half, Arizona extended leads only for Illinois to claw back into the game. With twelve minutes left, Illinois had reduced the deficit to one, trailing 53-52. From that point on, though, Arizona took control and showed why they’re ranked in the Top 25. Two of their heralded freshman took over with Nico Mannion and Josh Green hitting shots from all over the court. By the game’s end, Arizona had 90 while Illinois had 69.

While it would’ve been fun to see a close game decided in the final minute, the environment at McKale was superb and I’m glad we were there. We’re already looking forward to December 2020, when these two teams meet again in Champaign, Illinois!

Bottom Line

It’s fun to splurge to see your favorite teams play away from home. While this can inevitably get expensive, if you know a few simple tips and tricks, you can save a little money. Instead of just purchasing tickets outright, I used sites like Raise.com, CashBackMonitor and TopCashback.com to save a little bit of money. Even though I only saved $45, I’d rather have that money that not. In fact, that $45 bought us appetizers and drinks while pregaming at Gentle Ben’s Brewing Company.

Trip Report Index

  1. Introduction and Planning
  2. Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson
  3. Tucson Marriott University Park
  4. Illinois vs Arizona Basketball Game

Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson

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It’s not everyday that Annie’s Wildcats and my Fighting Illini play each other in college basketball. So when we learned that the University of Illinois is traveling to play the University of Arizona this November, there was no question we had to be there.

Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson
The University of Arizona was the first university in the Arizona Territory.

For this trip, we’ll be spending two nights in Tucson and then driving to Phoenix. After one night in Phoenix (which we extended to two nights afterwards) visiting family, we’ll head back to Chicago. Of course, this was another opportunity to see how much money I could save by booking the trip using points and miles. This post explains how we booked and what we saved.

In This Post

Airfare

Annie and I have flown American Airlines to Tucson in the past and they have several flight options that work with our schedule. Checking on flights from Chicago to Tucson and Phoenix to Chicago, I found that two tickets in the main cabin would set us back $870.

As I mentioned in my Tucson planning post, the two non-cash options were to use American Airlines miles or use Chase Ultimate Rewards points and transfer them into British Airways Avios miles. As a reminder, these options would cost me either:

  • 50,000 American Airlines miles, or
  • 40,000 British Airways miles

So Which Option is the Better Deal?

Figuring out which option is the better deal can be a difficult one, but there are few points you should be aware of while you compare the options.

  1. How much are miles or points worth in the programs you’re comparing?
  2. What is the equivalent spend of the miles redemption?
  3. Do you need to save a particular program’s miles for a different trip?

How much are miles or points worth in the programs you’re comparing?

The industry standard value of American Airlines and British Airways miles is around 1.5 cents per mile. With option two, I’d be using Chase Ultimate Rewards points to transfer to British Airways, so I also need to consider the value of Chase points. Based on most valuations, Chase points are worth around 2 cents per mile.

What is the equivalent spend of the miles redemption?

If I spend 50,000 American miles on this trip and those miles are worth 1.5 cents each, that’s the equivalent to spending $750 (50,000 x 0.015).

If I spend 40,000 British Airways miles on this trip and those miles are also worth 1.5 cents each, then the equivalent spend is $600 (40,000 x 0.015).

Would you rather spend the equivalent of $600 or $750? Obviously the lessor amount is better, so that means redeeming British Airways miles is the better deal in this comparison.

Now because the source of my British Airways miles are actually Chase Ultimate Rewards points, I need to compare the American Airlines miles spending equivalent to that of Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Chase had a 30% bonus special running on transfers to British Airways when I transferred my points. So instead of the normal 1:1 transfer ratio, I received 1.3 British Airways miles per each Chase point.

Prior to May 30, 2019, flights between Chicago and Tucson cost 10,000 British Airways miles. Beginning May 30, 2019, those same flights went up to 11,000 miles. Due to not thinking about time zones, I actually booked the outbound flight prior to May 30 but the flight home after. It was technically May 29 in Chicago, but already May 30 in London. So instead of needing 20,000 British Airways miles per person, I ended up needing 21,000 miles or 42,000 in total.

To have enough miles to use for this redemption, I transferred 33,000 Chase points to British Airways. With the 30% transfer bonus, that translated into 42,900 Avios.

The equivalent spend of the 33,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points is $660 (33,000 x 0.02). Again this is better than the American Airlines spending equivalent of $750.

Do you need to save a particular program’s miles for a different trip?

Since I have a ton of Chase points, transferring them for this trip would not negatively impact any future trips.

My Redemption Summary

In total, our flights cost 33,000 Chase points (equal to 42,000 British Airways Avios) plus $22 in taxes. That’s a savings of $848! 

We saved ~$848 using miles!

Hotel

I have a free night from my Hotels.com rewards account that I decided to apply to this trip. We want to stay close to campus and I found a room at the Tucson Marriott University Park, which is literally steps from the university.

Tuscon Marriott University Park (Photo courtesy Marriott Hotels)

The free night is worth $157 which almost pays for one whole night. In total, the hotel will cost us $252, with a total savings of $157!

In Phoenix we were originally planning to stay with family but those plans changed. So now we’re going to stay two nights at the Hilton Garden Inn Scottsdale North/Perimeter Center, which is only a short drive away.

Hilton Garden Inn Scottsdale North/Perimeter Center (Photo courtesy Hilton Hotels)

Rental Car

Getting a cheap rental for this trip was a must and I performed an exhaustive search. I started with the car rental companies themselves, checking Hertz, Avis, Budget and Enterprise. I also looked at Costco and on the Chase and American Express travel portals. In the end, for a full-size vehicle, Enterprise had the cheapest price at $253.

Although it was more than I wanted to pay, I knew I had explored all avenues so I was confident I had found the best deal. Then I remembered about AutoSlash. AutoSlash is a website that tracks car rental reservations you’ve made elsewhere and notifies you if it finds a better deal.

To enable AutoSlash to track your reservation, you need to fill out a form on the website. It take no more than a minute or two, and requires information about the booking, including name, rental company, confirmation number, pick-up date and the price reserved. It also uses information about which memberships you hold and which credit cards you carry to help get you the best deal.

AutoSlash found a lower rate!

About 15 minutes later, I received an email saying that AutoSlash had found a lower rate for my upcoming rental. They had found me a rental through Hertz for $118, a savings of $135!

Click here for my guide to saving money on car rentals with AutoSlash.

Tucson Redemption Table

Retail CostOur CostMiles and Points UsedPoints Source
2 one way tickets from Chicago (ORD) to Tucson (TUS)$240 per person ($480 total)$5.60 taxes and fees ($11 total)15,385 Chase UR points -> 20,000 BA miles- Chase credit cards
2 one way tickets from Phoenix (PHX) to Chicago (ORD)$195 per person ($390 total)$5.60 taxes and fees ($11 total)16,924 Chase UR points -> 22,000 BA miles- Chase credit cards
2 nights at the Tucson Marriott University Park$205 per night ($410 total)$2531 free night from Hotels.com Rewards (worth $157)- Hotels.com Rewards
2 nights at the Hilton Garden Inn Scottsdale North/Perimeter Center$227 per night ($454 total)$454N/AN/A
3 day car rental with Hertz$253$118N/A- Autoslash
Total$1,987$847- 32,309 UR points
- 1 Hotels.com Rewards night		- $1,140 in total savings
- 57% off retail cost

Bottom Line

Using miles and rewards allowed us to book a weekend trip for $1,140 less than if we paid for everything out of pocket. In total that’s 74% off the retail cost of the trip! This is going to be a really fun weekend. We’ll get to hang out in a cool college town which Annie loves, see our two schools play each other in basketball and see family in Phoenix. Sounds like a pretty great trip to me!

Trip Report Index

  1. Introduction and Planning
  2. Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson
  3. Tucson Marriott University Park
  4. Illinois vs Arizona Basketball Game

Tucson: Illinois at Arizona Basketball Planning

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My wife, Annie is a die-hard fan of her University of Arizona men’s basketball team. And I’m equally as big a fan of my University of Illinois team. So we were really excited to learn that our schools had agreed to play each other in basketball in 2019 and 2020. Our schools do not play each other often, so we knew we had to take this opportunity to see it in person. This year’s game is in Tucson on November 10.

Tucson Illinois at Arizona Basketball 2019 Planning

Arizona vs Illinois College Basketball History

These two schools have a storied history in college basketball. The University of Arizona owns the 14th most victories all-time, while the University of Illinois ranks 18th.

The two teams have been playing basketball since the early 1900s and yet have only played each other 14 times. Arizona currently owns bragging rights, winning 8 out of the 14 matchups. Arizona has won the last two meetings—a 2007 game in Chicago and a 2006 game in Phoenix.

But back in 2005, Illinois pulled off one of the most memorable comebacks in NCAA tournament history with a 90-89 overtime win to advance to the Final Four. The Illini came back from a 15-point deficit with only four minutes to go to force overtime and the eventual victory.

Illinois fans can re-live the comeback below (Arizona fans, please skip ahead):

During the 2000-2001 season, the teams squared off three times with Arizona taking the first game in Maui and the Illini returning the favor a few weeks later in Chicago. But the Wildcats got the last laugh, as they took down the one-seeded Illini 87-81 to advance to the Final Four.

For the first time in 12 years, our two schools are playing each other! We’re excited to visit Tucson, walk around campus, eat and drink at some of Annie’s favorite places and of course, attend this highly anticipated non-conference game.

For this quick trip, we’ll be spending two nights in Tucson and then driving to Phoenix. We’ll spend one night with family before heading back to Chicago.

Airfare

Annie and I have flown American Airlines to Tucson in the past and they have several flight options that work well with our schedule. Two tickets from Chicago to Tucson and Phoenix to Chicago in the main cabin are going for $870 total.

So I started reviewing our options to use points and/or miles instead of paying for airfare. We had two options involving American Airlines:

  1. Redeem American AAdvantage miles
  2. Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards points and transferring to British Airways

American AAdvantage

The first, and most straightforward, option would be to redeem some of our American AAdvantage miles. If we use this option, American Airlines would charge us 12,500 miles per one-way ticket, or 50,000 miles in total for four one-way tickets.

Chase Ultimate Rewards

However, there was another interesting, and slightly more complex option—use Chase Ultimate Rewards points. British Airways is a Chase transfer partner and so we could transfer some of our Chase points to British Airways Avios program. But how would that help us fly American Airlines from Chicago to Tucson and from Phoenix to Chicago?

British Airways and American Airlines are partners via the OneWorld alliance. That means you can redeem British Airways Avios miles for flights on American Airlines. What’s great about this option is that British Airways uses a distance-based rewards chart to determine how many miles you need to redeem for a given flight. This creates some sweet spots where the same flight can cost less miles when booking through British Airways then through American Airlines.

Chicago to Tucson is 1,437 miles and Phoenix to Chicago is 1,440 miles. Flights in that distance range fall into Band 3 on the British Airways rewards chart. Prior to May 30, 2019, Band 3 flights cost 10,000 British Airways miles. Beginning May 30, 2019, redemptions for Band 3 flights went up to 11,000 miles. So a round-trip flight booked on or after May 30 would cost you 22,000 miles—which is better than using 25,000 American AAdvantage miles.

When it’s time to book the flights, I’ll do some calculations to determine whether it’s a better deal to book the flights using American AAdvantage miles or British Airways Avios miles via Chase Ultimate Rewards.

Hotel

For hotels in Tucson, there’s only two we’re looking at. We want to be as close to campus as possible so that we can walk to restaurants, bars, and the basketball game. There’s also a vibe you get when you stay close to campus that you don’t get when you stay a few miles away. The options are the Aloft Tucson University and the Tucson Marriott University Park.

We stayed at the Aloft once before. It’s a newer hotel, built in 2013 and we had a pleasant stay there several years ago. It’s located on the northwestern edge of campus and is close to the basketball stadium. The Marriott is on the east side of campus, but more in the heart of everything then the Aloft is. Not only is it on campus, it’s very close to several popular bars and restaurants.

Even though we’ve read that the Marriott is old and in need of a renovation, I think it’s likely we’re going to give it a try on this visit. We like the idea of being on campus and since we’re only staying two nights, if the rooms are in terrible condition, at least it’s only two nights.

Car Rental

Finding a cheap rental has been difficult. It could be due to high demand during this time of year. It’s also partly because we’re picking up the car in Tucson and returning in Phoenix. Many car rental companies will assess a one-time drop charge or mileage charge in addition to the rental rate on one-way rentals. Whenever I search for rental cars, I always start with the car rental companies themselves. I also always check Costco Travel and the Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express travel portals.

The next post will detail which airfare, hotel and car rentals I booked and how we saved over one thousand dollars!

Trip Report Index

  1. Introduction and Planning
  2. Using Points and Miles to get to Tucson
  3. Tucson Marriott University Park
  4. Illinois vs Arizona Basketball Game