Saving $100 on Marriott Hotel Stay
As the sunshine and wonderful weather in summer comes around, many of us will be taking vacations. Some of us will be driving to the shore and beaches, while others will be flying. A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Credit Card took a short trip to New Jersey for a couple of days. This was how she used our reward points to save on her hotel stay.
Right now, we are mainly using our American Express Platinum Card, the Blue Cash Card and the Chase Flexible Rewards. We have accumulated quite a bit reward points for both the membership rewards and our Chase Flexible Rewards.
There are a couple of ways that we could do to use our points. Firstly, Mrs Credit Card drove to New Jersey, so there was no need to use points for an airline ticket. Secondly, she decided to stay at the Marriot Hotel since it was in a convenient location. Our first choice was to use the membership reward points and either get a gift certificate for Marriott, or transfer points to the Marriott Rewards program. Mrs Credit Card decided not to sign up for the Marriott Rewards program so she decided that she wasn’t going to do that.
She also checked with the Chase Flexible Rewards program and found out that we can exchange 10,000 points for a $100 check. We decided to use the Chase Flexible Reward Points because we simply did not want to use our membership reward points (saving up for airline tickets). The Chase Flexible Reward Points also have a five year expiration date so we decided to just it this time round. The hotel bill was around $149 a night excluding taxes. So while we could possibly have got the hotel stay for free, we simply decided to check out the Chase Flexible Rewards. So Mrs Credit Card saved $100 with a $100 Marriott check.
Now that summer is here and you may be planning your vacation, I think it would be prudent to check all the reward points you have earned with your credit card. If there are any that are expiring soon, it is best to use them (especially for a vacation or short weekend trip).