ORLANDO for Nearly Free

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Nearly Free

Use Miles & Points to Visit Florida’s Theme Park Capital

Summer Hull as Mommy Points

and Andrea M. Rotondo

Digital

Due South

FREQUENT

FLYER

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Digital

or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

The authors have taken every measure possible to accurately represent strategies for earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. The rate at which individuals earn loyalty currency varies depending on many factors that are addressed in this book. Your level of success in earning nearly free travel is dependent upon many factors, including the amount of time you invest in this hobby, your credit score, income, monthly expenses, and willingness to participate in all types of

pro-motions through which you can earn miles and points. The authors cannot guarantee that you’ll earn a nearly free trip, but they have laid out the steps you’ll need to take in order to try to achieve that goal.

Cover photo by brocreative/iStock ISBN 978-0-9907766-1-1 (pdf)

For information contact info@frequentflyertoolkits.com

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Praise for Frequent Flyer Toolkits

“If you’re just learning how to use

mi-les and points, Mommy Points and

her Frequent Flyer Toolkits will save

you many hours of research—and

put things in an easy to understand

context you can’t get anywhere else.

These step-by-step guides illustrate

how to earn miles and points and put

them to use right away for a specific

trip. It’s a great concrete introduction

to making the most of the world, no

matter your budget.”

—Gary Leff, ViewFromTheWing.com

author & founder of BookYourAward.com

“Frequent Flyer Toolkits do a terrific

job of teaching beginners how to

ma-ximize their miles and use them

stra-tegically for nearly free flights and

hotel stays. Summer’s tips and tricks

are great for those looking to get into

travel hacking and get their family

around the world at a minimal cost.”

—Nomadic Matt (Matthew Kepnes),

How to Travel the World on $50 Per Day

“This book could easily be called an

‘Owners Manual’ to the

miles-and-points hobby since you’ll no longer

think of yourself as a ‘Dummy.’

Sum-mer’s Frequent Flyer Toolkits makes

easy anyone’s ability to earn a plane

ticket and hotel stay to the places you

most want to visit. Buy. Read. Fly.”

—Randy Petersen, founder of FlyerTalk,

BoardingArea, Milepoint, and InsideFlyer

“Frequent Flier Toolkits pull back the

curtain on how to start collecting

miles and points from airlines and

hotels, as well as for dining out and

shopping.”

—Kristine Hansen, writer for

Fodor’s, CNN.com, and TIME

“Summer provides a comprehensive

introduction to the ‘almost free’

tra-vel game with plenty of compelling

examples and graphics. I’d call this a

‘must read’ for anyone interested in

saving money.”

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How to Use Frequent Flyer Toolkits

7 Introduction

9 Chapter One: Miles and Points Primer

10 Airline Loyalty Programs

11 Hotel Loyalty Programs

13 Bank-Sponsored Loyalty Programs

15 Take Stock of Your Miles and Points Portfolio

19 First-Timer Tips

21 Action Plan

23 Cheat Sheet: Top Loyalty Programs for an Orlando Vacation

24 Chapter Two: Earn Miles and Points for Your Orlando Vacation

27 Flying

27 Rewards Credit Cards

27 Shopping

30 Dining Programs

32 Partner Deals

33 Targeted Promotions

34 Nearly Free Miles and Points

35 First-Timer Tips

36 Action Plan

37 Cheat Sheet: Sample Credit Card Offers

38 Cheat Sheet: Rewards Credit Card Planner

39

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Chapter Three: Plan Your Trip to Orlando

43 Where to Start

43 Set Your Travel Goals

44 First-Timer Tips

50 Action Plan

51 Cheat Sheet: Orlando Trip-Planning Worksheet

53 Chapter Four: Flying to Orlando for Nearly Free

55 The Value of Airline Alliances and Partners

55 How to Determine Which Airlines Fly to Your Destination

56 Airlines that Fly to Orlando and Their Nonstop Routes

57 How Many Miles Do You Need to Get to Orlando?

58 Use a Companion Certificate

59 What Are Airline Class Codes?

59 Redeeming Miles for Nearly Free Flights

59 Searching for Award Availability

60 Booking Award Tickets by Phone

63 Your Flight Options to Orlando

65 First-Timer Tips

149 Action Plan

150 Cheat Sheet: Book an Airline Award Over the Phone

151

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Chapter Five: Orlando Hotels on Points

153 Staying for Free

153 Hotels Chains in Orlando

153 Hotel Program Primer

154 Elite Status Matches and Challenges

181 Credit Card Hotel Perks and Discounts

181 Your Hotel Options in Orlando

182 First-Timer Tips

199 Action Plan

200 Cheat Sheet: Orlando Hotels on Points

201

BONUS

Chapter Six: Car Rentals in Orlando

202 Using Miles and Points to Rent Cars

202 Paying Cash to Rent Cars

202 Earn Miles or Points for Car Rentals

203 First-Timer Tips

204 Action Plan

204 Cheat Sheet: Car Rental Options in Orlando

205 Chapter Seven: Putting It All Together

206 How Will You Get to Orlando?

208 Cheat Sheet: How Many Miles and Points Do I Need to Get to Orlando?

209

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How to Use Frequent Flyer Toolkits

Tell us where you want to go next!

We take the guesswork

out of this hobby

and kick-start your

vacation plans with

actionable advice.

T

hank you for supporting Frequent Flyer Tool-kits, the ebook series that helps transform “bucket list” dreams into actual vacations of a life-time! Unlike other frequent flyer primers, our tool-kits provide a solid step-by-step blueprint to book a specific vacation. We take the guesswork out of this hobby and kick-start your vacation plans with actionable advice.

This project is a collaborative effort between Summer Hull, also known as Mommy Points—an expert when it comes to earning and using frequent flyer miles and hotel-loyalty program points—and Andrea M. Rotondo, correspondent for Fodor’s Travel Blog, Condé Nast Traveler, and Cruise Critic. We’ve crafted our toolkits to jump-start your trip planning and help you realize a nearly free vacation to the desti-nation of your dreams. You bought this guide because you want specifically to learn the best ways to leverage your hard-earned miles and points to get to Orlando. With this blueprint in hand, you are one step closer to that dream vacation!

Use this guide to learn how to earn and redeem miles for nearly free flights to Orlando (you will pay tax and sometimes other fees) and points for nearly free hotel stays. These topics can sometimes be con-fusing so don’t be shy! Ask questions along the way. We appreciate all of our readers and are always avail-able to answer any questions about travel-loyalty pro-grams. You can also visit the Mommy Points blog to search for more information (there are a ton of fantas-tic posts about planning trips to Orlando) and to start a conversation with Summer.

Each Frequent Flyer Toolkit in our series includes an introduction to the concept of earning and burning miles and points plus chapters dedicated to topics like planning your special trip, flying for nearly free, and

Tell us where you want to go next and we may

create a Frequent Flyer Toolkit especially for

that destination. E-mail us at:

info@frequentflyertoolkits.com

.

booking hotel rooms and suites using points. This par-ticular toolkit even includes a bonus chapter devoted to inexpensive car rentals.

Every toolkit steps you though the many ways you can earn miles and points, illustrates best prac-tices, and teaches you how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls.

At the end of each chapter you’ll find useful “First-Timer Tips” that will help you unlock the hidden potential of miles and points so you can use them to travel the world.

You’ll find handy “cheat sheets” at the end of each chapter. Fill out these worksheets as part of each chap-ter’s “Action Plan” to get you to Orlando. Simply review

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the information on the cheat sheet, fill in your selec-tions, and you’ll have a ready-made plan to get to Orlando for nearly free.

Are you looking for the “Quick Start” version of

Orlando for Nearly Free? If you don’t have time to read this entire blueprint right now, concentrate on the cheat sheets. The information therein will give you a bird’s-eye view of the trip-planning and mile/point-re-deeming processes.

A handy resource section with links to more information is located at the end of each Frequent Flyer Toolkit.

Note: it’s important to realize that loyalty pro-grams often change rules and redemption awards. We’ll keep a list of major changes at our website

FrequentFlyerToolkits.com/updates while this book is in print.

Orlando for Nearly Free is one of the first e-books in the Frequent Flyer Toolkits series. Other available titles include Hawaii for Nearly Free with Paris for Nearly

Free coming in late 2014. We worked hard to create an easy-to-read plan that would help you learn about the various ways to go on vacation without spending a lot of money. However, we know there is always room for improvement. Please tells us what you loved about this ebook, and we’re even more interested to hear about how we can make it more valuable to you. Tell us where you want to go next and we may create a Frequent Flyer Toolkit especially for that destination. E-mail us.

—Summer Hull and Andrea M. Rotondo, authors of the Frequent Flyer Toolkits series

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Introduction

I

was very lucky to grow up in a middle class family that understood the importance of travel. We took one or two vacations a year to places like the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, the Colorado Rockies, and Disney World. Moments on these getaways—taking a mule down into the Grand Canyon when I was 12, or graduating ski school and onto the “real slopes” to ski with my family when I was five—will be with me forever.

Our family vacations were memorable in every sense, but we almost always drove, as flying a family of four was cost-prohibitive for our mid-dle-class budget. As I became an adult planning the trips, I assumed my travels would continue in a similar fashion. In college my friends and I would drive from Texas to Florida or Colorado on school breaks. We had a blast, but driving limited our destination options and the cost of travel certainly limited the number of trips I could take.

Enter airline miles. While attending graduate school at New York University, I flew back and forth from New York to my home in Houston many times. During that time I racked up a good number of Continental OnePass miles: enough, in fact, to fly my boyfriend at the time and myself to Hawaii after graduation (almost) for free! After getting a taste of paradise without having to open my wallet and buy the airline tickets, I was hooked.

In the decade since that fateful trip, I have become obsessed with airline miles and hotel points. I don’t earn them to hoard them. I earn them to use them to take my family around the world.

In 2011 I started blogging at my site Mommy Points about the ways my family earned and redeemed miles in the hope that others could do the same. Over the past few years I have had the honor of sharing our travel stories and practical tips with anyone who cared to listen. I am now thrilled to put some of those miles and points tips and strategies into one simple to read and utilize format via these e-books.

Florida, and Orlando specifically, are on many families’ travel “bucket lists” because there are so many kid-friendly activities in that area. From Disney World to Universal to NASA to the nearby beaches, it is basically a Mecca for fun. Orlando was my daughter’s second desti-nation at 18 months (on Southwest Airlines points!), and we have been back many times since. I hope this book enables your family to visit Orlando (almost) for free as well.

—Summer Hull as Mommy Points

Mommy Points

Summer Hull is known as Mommy Points online. Visit her at MommyPoints.com. (Photo by Chelsea Nicole)

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for playing word games at an online site or receiving hotel points by collecting codes on certain products from a major beverage distributor.

We’ll warn you now: This hobby can be addictive. That’s why it’s important from the get-go to under-stand what these programs can and can’t accomplish and how to set travel goals that will lay the ground-work for your earning and burning habits.

In a moment we’re going to launch into the nuts and bolts of how to earn and redeem miles and points, but first a note about setting realistic expec-tations. You bought this toolkit because you want to visit Orlando and we’re sure you want to get there as quickly as possible. However, it takes quite a few miles and points to get a family to Orlando though so it’s not realistic to think that you can start from zero today and redeem a free trip next month. A family of four can expect to spend approximately 100,000 frequent flyer miles for four round-trip economy class tickets to Orlando (though it can be much less). As for a hotel room that could accommodate a family of four, use the Walt Disney World Swan Resort as an example. It costs about 60,000 Starwood Preferred Guest Star-points for a seven-night stay at that property. That gives you an idea of the number of miles and points you’ll need. You’ll learn about leveraging credit card sign-ups for bonus points later in this book to get to those mileage totals without even stepping foot on an airplane or checking into a hotel room.

If you or someone in your family travels often for work or pleasure, you probably already have a good

stock of loyalty currency with which to start planning your trip. If you’re starting from zero though, it may take some time to build up your balances. How quickly you can do that will depend on what new credit cards you add to your wallet (for the sign-up and every-day spend bonuses), how much money you spend on a monthly basis (which can earn you miles/points if you move that spending from cash and checks to your credit card), how quickly you learn to leverage pro-motions, and how often you make purchases via loy-alty-program shopping portals. All of these earning methods will be covered in-depth in Chapter Two: Earn Miles and Points for Your Orlando Vacation.

As you learn more about this hobby it’s import-ant to see that the “game” can be easiest for middle and upper-class individuals with excellent credit scores (think 720+) as well as business owners with significant monthly expenses. If you are working a minimum-wage job and you’re not interested in taking part in some of the more wacky ways to earn miles and points (Bosley hair transplant consulta-tion for miles anyone?), it will take you a lot longer to earn your nearly free trip to Orlando. Do know that just because it might take longer doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth pursuing. You’ll just need to be patient and persistent.

There’s a second caveat: miles and points are a powerful way to stretch your vacation budget but don’t be fooled: these vacations will still usually cost you money—just significantly less than if you were paying cash. When it comes to air travel, frequent

Miles and Points Primer

I

t’s easy to feel a bit giddy when those first few miles and points you’ve earned finally hit your loyalty accounts. Watching your mile and point balances grow is exciting but it’s nothing like the feeling you’ll get when you book a fantastic—and nearly free—vacation using those miles and points! It’s especially invigorating when you book an award flight or free hotel night with miles and points you earned in interesting ways—like earning miles

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one else reserve those coveted seats before you do! Now that you have an idea of what to expect, let’s start right out of the gate with a tutorial about the various types of loyalty programs that are offered by airlines, hotels, and banks. To plan low-cost vacations effectively, you’ll want to earn “currency” in each type of program.

AIRLINE LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Most people get involved with this hobby because they want to earn a free flight. That’s easy. Simply join the frequent flyer programs of the airlines you fly (and even a few that you don’t—we’ll talk more about why you’d want to do that later in the book when we explain airline alliances and partnerships). You’ll earn miles that can be redeemed for flights on that program’s airline or on any of its partner carriers.

How to Earn Miles

Signing up for airline loyalty accounts is extremely important—even if you rarely fly. The truth is: there are so many more ways to earn miles than simply flying. You can use a co-branded credit card. Every time you swipe that card at a store, you’ll earn a cer-tain number of miles per dollar spent. You can also do business with that airline’s partners. For example, stay at a partner hotel, rent a car, order flowers, or take an Amtrak train and you can earn airline miles. Shop via the airline’s online portal or eat out at a participat-ing restaurant and you’ll earn miles too. Subscribe to a magazine or newspaper and miles are deposited into your account. Sign up for a new checking or invest-ment account at a financial institution and receive hefty bonus air miles. You can even fill out surveys, view ads online, or make a donation to a charity—all of which can earn you precious frequent flyer miles.

Chapter Two: Earn Miles and Points for Your Orlando Vacation will provide an in-depth blue-print that spells out how you can earn miles for your dream vacation.

surcharges and that’s when the tab can really start to add up. On the hotel side, you may get a free room on points, but you’ll probably still have to pay for things like parking and sometimes daily resort fees (which can run $20 per day or more). Even considering those fees, you’re still saving a lot of money. The other fan-tastic thing about this method of planning travel is that, if you want to, you can often upgrade your expe-rience and fly in business-class or first-class cabins and stay at nicer hotels than you would normally book when paying cash. It might take a bit of work to get up and running in this hobby, but once you do you’ll never go back to paying full price for travel.

One other thing to note: be realistic about your timetable. Most airlines open award availability at approximately 11 months out so you’ll want to pick potential vacation dates and note the first possible day that you could try to book reward tickets. Be as flex-ible as you can with your travel dates. Later in this toolkit we’ll tell you how many days in advance you can book an award ticket on the airlines that can get you to Orlando.

If you want to go to Orlando on a certain date, start looking for award seats (and have the miles/ points to pay for them) at approximately 11 months out. That’s not to say you can’t find open award seats closer in. In fact, some routes have better availabil-ity when booking closer to your departure date. Remember too that airlines dynamically allot award seats based on how many seats they expect to sell on any given flight so there really is no perfect formula to know when to look for seats. If your airline opens award availability 311 days before departure, you may or may not see the reward you want on that day. You might need to wait days, weeks, or months for seats on your preferred flights to appear. Ultimately they may never pop up on your specific dates—at least not at the lowest “saver” level. These programs are capac-ity-controlled and the airlines aren’t about to let you in on their metrics so you really have be patient, start

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elites earn a 25 percent bonus on the miles earned per flight, while Platinum and Executive Platinum elites earn a 100 percent bonus.

If someone in your household has elite status with an airline, he or she is already earning extra miles per flight and—depending on the airline—may also have access to better award ticket availability. Sometimes elites also pay lower (or no) fees to redeem miles or to change existing reservations.

How to Redeem Miles

If you’ve never used frequent flyer miles to redeem a free flight, you may not yet understand exactly how these programs work. Some people think that if you have 13,445 miles in your account, you can redeem them for flights that cover a distance of 13,445 miles. That’s sadly not the case. While you accumulate “miles,” you don’t redeem them in that literal sense. Instead, you must consult the airline’s award-redemp-tion chart to see how many miles you need to travel from point A to B. What generally matters is the geo-graphic region you’re traveling from and to and the class of service that you’re booking on the airplane. Many airlines offer round-trip domestic award flights in coach for approximately 25,000 miles. Travel to a different region of the world and the miles you need to book a ticket increase. Book a higher cabin of ser-vice—premium economy, business, or first class—and you’ll need more miles as well. Every airline has its own award chart and each chart has its own “sweet spots,” where specific redemptions offer a better value compared to other options. In this toolkit you’ll learn which airlines offer sweet deals on award flights to Orlando. Chapter Four: Flying to Orlando for Nearly Free will explain exactly how many miles you’ll need to realize your dream vacation.

Some newer to this hobby are also often under the impression that if you have frequent flyer miles you can redeem them for whatever flight you want

whenever you want. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that’s sadly not the case either. Frequent flyer award seats are capacity-controlled with some programs so not only do you need to have the right

How Many Miles Will

I Earn Per Flight?

When you fly there are two ways airlines calculate the miles you receive. One method nets you a certain number of frequent flyer miles—usually one to one— for every mile you fly. For example, if you fly from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Orlando, Florida, you’d travel 1,930 miles each way, so you’d earn 3,860 frequent flyer miles for a round-trip flight. WebFlyer offers a useful Mileage Calculator for determining the dis-tance between two cities. Great Circle Mapper is also a good tool to use for this purpose.

On the other hand, some airlines—like JetBlue, Southwest, Virgin America as well as Delta as of Jan-uary 1, 2015 and United Airlines as of March 1, 2015— use a revenue model for rewarding frequent flyers. A certain number of miles are rewarded for each dollar you spend on airfare.

Elite Flyers and Why They Earn

More Miles Than You Do

Individuals with elite status earn even more miles per flight. That’s because the airlines hand out bonus miles to customers who have proven their loyalty by flying a certain amount of miles or segments per year. Airlines track qualification for elite status on an annual basis from January 1 through December 31.

Let’s take American Airlines as an example. The airline offers three elite levels: Gold, Platinum, and Executive Platinum. To earn Gold status, you need to fly 25,000 butt-in-seat (BIS) miles or 30 segments in a calendar year. If you fly 50,000 miles or 60 seg-ments you’ll earn Platinum status. In order to earn Executive Platinum status, you must fly 100,000 miles or 100 segments. (Segments are defined as flights between point A and B. If you fly from Newark (EWR) to Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) to Honolulu (HNL), you are flying two segments: EWR to DFW, and DFW to HNL.

Once you have elite status in American’s pro-gram, you’ll earn bonus miles on each paid flight, as well as other perks like priority access at check-in and boarding, and free baggage allowances. Gold

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dining out, and the like.

How Many Hotel Points

Will I Earn Per Stay?

Each program sets out the base number of points you’ll earn per night and per stay. Many programs like Hilton HHonors and IHG Rewards Club also often offer periodic bonus points via promotions that sig-nificantly add to your stay total. Elite members tend to earn more base points than non-elite customers, and individuals holding the co-branded credit card asso-ciated with the hotel chain also often receive more base miles than the average Joe (if they use that card to pay for their hotel stay).

Let’s take a look at an example. Neil, Vicky, Ted, and Wanda are vacationing together with their fami-lies in Orlando. They’ve decided to stay at the Renais-sance Orlando at SeaWorld, a Marriott property. Neil has no status with Marriott Rewards. Vicky is Silver and receives a 20 percent bonus of base points on each stay. Ted is Gold and receives a 25 percent bonus of base points per stay and Wanda is a valued Platinum member and receives a 50 percent bonus of base points for each stay. Of the four couples, only Ted carries the Chase Marriott Rewards Visa Signature credit card that rewards cardholders with five points per dollar spent at Marriott properties.

The hotel is running a $199/night special for king, queen, and double rooms with a garden view. All four couples select the same room type and rate for seven nights, which comes out to $1,393 per couple before taxes and fees. The loyalty program offers 10 base points per dollar spent on the room rate at its Marriott-branded properties. You do not earn points on taxes.

At the time of booking, Marriott Rewards was also running a bonus promotion. If you signed up for the promotion you would be awarded double base points. Vicky and Ted were the only two of the group who signed up for this special bonus.

an award seat to be available. There are some airlines that offer much better availability beyond the capac-ity controlled “saver awards” if you pay substantially more miles, but that typically isn’t the route to go if you are playing with a limited number of miles in your account. However, you’ll soon learn that with the miles-and-points game, there is an exception to every rule. There are some airlines, like Southwest, that have no capacity controls on award redemp-tions at all.

Award seats are not available on every flight and award availability does fluctuate over time. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to redeem miles for the flights you want, but it does mean that you have to know how to read award charts and how to look for availability. You also have to be aware of the window to book award tickets (how far out award seats are loaded into the airline’s booking system), and then— finally—how to actually book the reward tickets. We’re going to show you how to do all of those things for your upcoming trip to Orlando.

HOTEL LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Hotels also offer robust loyalty programs and you’ll want to map out a plan to earn hotel points to redeem for your Orlando vacation. These pro-grams are sponsored by the major chains, such as Hilton and Marriott. Join these programs even if you always stay at campgrounds, boutique hotels, or B&Bs. That’s because you can earn points with-out ever staying in a hotel, and those points can be redeemed for more than just hotel stays. We’ll get into that in Chapter Five: Orlando Hotels on Points, but for now here’s what you need to know about hotel loyalty programs.

How to Earn Hotel Points

The most logical way to earn hotel points is to stay at a hotel, but it’s far from the only way to earn points. Like airline programs, hotel loyalty schemes offer

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Some hotel programs like Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, IHG Rewards Club, and Star-wood Preferred Guest offer a nice perk called “Cash and Points.” For this type of award, you pay—as you probably guessed—with a mix of both cash and points. This can be a fantastic way to save money while stretching your available points.

Some hotel programs like Marriott and IHG also offer seasonal awards or “pointsavers” for which you can redeem fewer points for free nights at select properties. Other options include the use of points to book upgraded room types or the ability to book a certain number of nights on points and get one night free as a perk from the program. Still other programs offer a discount on the points price of the room, or a percentage of your redeemed points back if you have their co-branded credit card. You’ll learn more about these options in Chapter Five: Orlando Hotels on Points.

You can book most hotel award stays online. Simply go to the program’s website, type in your hotel name or destination city as well as your dates, check the “use points” box, and you’re on your way.

Let’s see what it looks like when you book hotel awards at Hilton’s website.

Type in your destination and travel dates (or click the “Use flexible dates” box). Then select the number of rooms you’re booking as well as the number of adults and children in the room. Check the “Use HHonors Points” box (see red arrow). Click “FIND IT.”

The next screen will show you all of the hotels in the area—even ones that don’t have available award rooms. Both the cash price and points price are listed so you can easily make comparisons between differ-ent properties easily. If you want to pare down your Assuming each couple spends $1,393 on the room

(not including taxes), how many Marriott Rewards points will each traveler earn?

No-status Neil will earn 13,930 points

(1,393 x 10 base points)

Silver elite Vicky will earn 30,646 points

(13,930 + 20% bonus of 2,786 + 13,930 from the promotion)

Gold elite Ted will earn 38,307 points

(13,930 + 3,482, a 25% elite bonus + 13,930 promotional offer bonus + 6,965 credit card points)

Platinum elite Wanda will earn 20,895 points

(13,930 + 6,965, a 50% elite bonus)

You can see why it’s important to keep an eye out for any bonus offers and to register your account to take advantage of them. In our example above, Ted earned more than eight times the number of miles than Neil did—for taking the exact same trip and spending the exact same amount of money. And Ted even earned more points that Wanda, who holds the highest status level—Platinum—in Marriott’s loyalty program.

For more information about hotel loyalty pro-grams, visit the program’s website and study the list of major hotel promotions on Mommy Points’ Hotel Promos page.

How to Redeem Hotel Points

When it comes time to redeem your hotel points for a stay, simply look up your hotel of choice and con-sult the online award chart. It will tell you how many points you need to redeem for each night’s lodging. Some programs—like Choice Privileges, Hilton HHonors, Hyatt Gold Passport, IHG Rewards Club (formerly Priority Club), and Starwood Preferred Guest—have no capacity controls on reward stays. That means if a standard room is available to book with cash, you can book it with your points. Even so, you’ll want to lock in your hotel award as soon as you know your dates of travel because standard rooms can sell out.

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in at 20,000 points, but you can book upgraded rooms for additional points.

Most hotel chains have a similar online book-ing engine for award nights. We’ll talk about the spe-cific hotels that accept points as payment in Orlando in Chapter Five.

Be aware that some hotel awards—like Hyatt’s Cash and Points option—are only available by calling the program’s reservation center or using Direct Mes-sage on Twitter. When in doubt, pick up the phone and call the program. Reservationists can answer your questions about award availability.

BANK-SPONSORED

LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Some of the most valuable and versatile travel loy-alty programs are actually run by credit card issu-ing banks like American Express, Chase, Citi, and Barclays. That’s because they offer points that can be transferred to airline and hotel partners, used to book travel through their own websites, or redeemed for travel-related statement credit. Keep-ing a stock of bank points can help diversify your loyalty portfolio and provide the sort of flexibil-ity you’ll need as you start to plan nearly free vaca-tions. The two most common bank rewards pro-grams are American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards. Barclaycard Rewards is another player that is also gaining in popularity. Citi ThankYou points were previously looked down upon by some for their lack of value, but recently the company has instituted some new airline trans-fer partners and that has breathed new life into the ThankYou Rewards program.

American Express

Membership Rewards

The program from American Express used to be incredibly strong but it’s lost some powerful transfer partners, like Continental Airlines and IHG Rewards, options, you can search by any Hilton hotel brand.

Let’s see what our options are at DoubleTree Hotels

(see red arrow).

Here are the first three entries. The Double-Tree by Hilton Hotel at the Entrance to Universal Orlando looks good for 20,000 points per night so click “Book a room.”