Our niece, Sophie, is currently a sophomore at the University of Maryland. We were unable to visit her during the 2021-2022 school year, so it was a priority to find a weekend to see her during this school year. As luck would have it the first weekend of November worked for everyone, so it was time to book the trip. Annie’s mother hasn’t had a chance to visit Sophie either, so she’s joining us as well. We’re taking the day off work on Friday to travel to College Park and we’ll return home on Sunday afternoon. We’re all very excited to see Sophie and her university!
Even though I didn’t use any points or miles for this trip, keep reading to see how I saved more than $500 on airfare and hotel costs.
Airfare
There are always plenty of daily flights options between Chicago and Washington D.C. Both United Airlines and American Airlines had seats available for $159 or 13,500 miles each way. If I went the miles route, I’d get a value of around 1.1 cents per mile ($159/13,500). Since I try to get at least 1.4 cents per mile value when redeeming miles on those airlines, I decided to pay cash instead. The tie breaker on who to book with came down to my American AAdvantage Gold Status. Just a few days before booking, I earned status, so it was a no-brainer to go with American.
Chicago to Washington D.C.
Even though I paid for the flights with cash, I still found a way to save money. American Airlines had basic economy tickets available in addition to their regular main cabin tickets. These tickets are more restrictive than main cabin tickets in the following ways:
- No changes are allowed
- You have to pay to check bags
- You have to board in the last boarding group
In exchange for those restrictions, the fee for these tickets is cheaper than for main cabin tickets. In this case, a ticket in basic economy was $60 cheaper.
The only restriction I had to consider is the “no changes allowed” restriction. Because I’m a Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select cardholder, I get free checked bags and Group 5 boarding. And now that I have Gold Elite status with the airline, I board with Group 4.
Note: There are several AAdvantage credit cards that get you free checked bags and preferred boarding, like the AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard®, the AAdvantage® Aviator® Business Mastercard and the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® card.
We’re taking a bit of chance if something does come up, but the plan is to take this trip no matter what. I also prepaid for the hotel in order to save some money, so I went with the basic economy ticket as well. With the basic economy savings (equal to $120), the tickets came to $514 in total.
To save even more money, I used $300 worth of gift cards earned through MyPoints.com against the cost of the airfare.
MyPoints
MyPoints is similar to other shopping portals which give you points or miles if you start your purchase from their website. However, it’s unique in that they have even more ways to earn points, like doing surveys or watching videos. After earning enough points, you can redeem them for gift cards to lots of different merchants, including American Airlines.
Mypoints deducts 15,880 points in exchange for a $100 American Airlines gift card. For this trip I earned points through online shopping, opening up a new bank account, making a charitable donation and completing surveys.
My biggest point earnings came from opening a bank account with Aspiration, in which I earned 13,000 points. I also earned 10,000 points after making a donation to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
In the end, if I had booked regular economy tickets, I would’ve paid $636 for our 2 tickets. Instead, I saved $120 booking basic economy, and after using $300 in gift cards, the final cost of the airfare came to $214!
Hotel
Sophie recommended we stay at The Hotel at the University of Maryland. According to Google Maps, it appears to be in a perfect location — right on campus and only a 7 minute walk from her sorority house. That should getting around campus much easier than having to drive and finding park wherever we go.
The hotel isn’t affiliated with any of the major hotel brands like Marriott, Hilton or IHG. That means there were no opportunities to redeem or earn points in those reward programs for this stay. Whenever that happens, I usually book through Hotels.com. Their rewards program is pretty straightforward — for every 10 nights booked, you earn 1 reward night. The value of the reward night earned is based on the average cost of the 10 nights booked.
The other option I had was booking directly with the hotel. The downside there is I wouldn’t earn any rewards on the stay at all and in this case, the hotel had a 3-night minimum and we’re only staying 2 nights. So I went ahead and booked through Hotels.com.
Booking
When booking the rooms, I took care of that for both Annie and my room and my mother-in-law’s room. After our stay is complete, I’ll earn 4 nights (2 for each room) towards a Hotels.com reward night. The total cost for each room came to $520.
Even though I wasn’t able to redeem or earn points at my favorite hotel brands, I was still able to take advantage of other offers. Before booking the rooms, I looked around online and found two offers to save money and an offer to earn bonus miles and Loyalty Points with American Airlines.
Saving Money with Amex and Citi Merchant Offers
The first offer was found on one of my American Express cards. I was able to save $10 by buying a $50 Hotels.com gift card thanks to Amex Offers. Amex Offers is a free program that saves you money or earns you points on shopping, dining and more. I first added the offer on my American Express® Blue Business® card and then used that card to purchase the gift card. Within just a few days, the $10 rebate appeared as a credit against my credit card balance.
The second money-saving offer I found was a Citi Merchant Offer. This offer, which was tied to my Citi AAdvantage MileUp℠ Card, offered 10% back, up to a total of $50 on prepaid hotel purchases made through Hotels.com. After first applying the gift card I had purchased, the total charge to my MileUp card came to $989. Citi Merchant Offers can take a little longer to process than Amex Offers, but at some point in the near future, I’ll receive $50 back as a statement credit.
Earning Miles
The last offer I was able to take advantage of was through SimplyMiles. SimplyMiles is a website where you can earn American AAdvantage miles on shopping, dining and more. As luck would have it, there was a deal was for 4 miles per dollar spent at Hotels.com. At the time of the hotel booking, I was still working towards achieving American AAdvantage Gold Status, so I was very happy to also earn Loyalty Points towards that effort.
The bonus miles and Loyalty Points were applied to my American AAdvantage account rather quickly. Unfortunately the offer had a cap of 2,325 AAdvantage miles/Loyalty Points per transaction. Regardless, the Loyalty Points I earned on this transaction pushed me over the threshold for AAdvantage Gold Status!
What’s great about these offers is the ability to use multiple offers at once, often called stacking. In total, for this 2-night stay in College Park, I’ll save $108 ($10 from Amex Offers and $98 from Citi Merchant Offers). In addition, I earned 2,325 bonus miles and Loyalty Points.
Rental Car
Booking directly with Budget was the best deal I could find, even better than with Costco Travel and AutoSlash. As I always do, I also input my reservation details in AutoSlash and they’ll email me should they find a better deal.
College Park Redemption Table
| Retail Cost | Our Cost | Miles and Points Used | Points Source | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 round trip tickets from Chicago (ORD) to Washington D.C. (DCA) | $318 per person ($636 total) | $214 | $300 American Airlines gift cards | - Mypoints.com |
| 2 nights at The Hotel at the University of Maryland | $245 per night + taxes ($520 total) | $460 | N/A | - Amex Offers ($10) - Citi Merchant Offers ($50) |
| 2 day car rental | $166 | $166 | N/A | N/A |
| Total | $1,322 | $840 | - AA gift cards | - $482 in total savings - 36% off retail cost |
Bottom Line
Even though I didn’t redeem any points or miles for this trip, I was still able to save money by checking my credit card accounts for available offers. In addition, I was able to earn extra American AAdvantage miles and Loyalty Points, which helped me achieve a level of status with the airline! It’s a fun game for me to try and find cost savings when I book trips, but I’m most excited to visit Sophie and enjoy being back on a college campus for a weekend!
Trip Report Index
- Saving Money on a Trip to College Park
- The Hotel at the University of Maryland
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.