When I first discovered travel hacking, I had a goal to get my husband and myself back to Hawaii. While I worked on that goal, an opportunity arose to go to Las Vegas and watch our home team Pittsburgh Steelers take on the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium in September 2023. Since I had been working the travel hacking game for almost a year at this point, I had accumulated a hefty bank of points and decided to see if I could travel hack this trip! If you know anything about football, you know Steeler fans travel well and since this was the first time, they were playing in Vegas I knew prices would be at a premium. On top of that, the weekend of the game was also the weekend of the iHeart Radio music festival in Las Vegas. The minute they announced the game schedule in May, we hopped online and started pricing out the trip details. Tickets were going to be an out-of-pocket expense and going fast so we had to make quick decisions. This is where having a bank of points came in handy. Now, I did make my first travel hacking error, I looked up flights on Southwest, saw the point prices to be around 12k points per person one way and decided to sleep on it a night to decide which day we wanted to leave. BIG MISTAKE! By the next day, the prices for the original day we were going to leave had tripled in point prices since Southwest follows a dynamic points chart. This means the more people that book, the higher the point prices and the dollar amounts rise.

This was my first hard travel hacking lesson and my first tip to those out there planning their first trip. If you see a flight you want at a point price you can afford, book the flight! Southwest makes it fairly easy to book and then change point flights. After completing booking, you can check back daily, weekly or however often you wish and if points drop, you can easily walk through changing your flight and get the points refunded to your account. You can do this as many times as you want up until the day of your flight to make sure you are getting the best price possible. You can also cancel flights easily when paid with points and have the points deposited right back in your account. One thing to remember, if you paid for early boarding or upgraded boarding, those fees are nonrefundable even on point purchases if you decide to cancel. We’ll get into booking on Southwest more in future points.

After procrastinating and seeing the points rise to an outrageous level, we decided to change plans and fly into Phoenix. These flights were still only 12k points per person. We then decided we would drive to Sedona and stay at the Hyatt Pinon Pointe (booked with points through Hyatt) and take a tour to the Grand Canyon. We then would drive from Sedona to Las Vegas and stay 3 nights in Vegas at the Bellagio (also paid with points) and fly home from Vegas on Tuesday. Points flying out of Vegas were still absurd, so we decided to fly home on United at a much more reasonable price.

Here is a breakdown of our trip:

Flights from PIT to PHX on Southwest Airlines for 2 people one way: 24k points total plus $20 a person for early bird check in and $22 total in taxes and fees. (Every flight on every airline will have taxes and fees associated that will not be payable by points. Depending on the airline, what country it is based out of and distance of the flight, these fees will vary per trip).

Rental car for 3 days picking up in PHX and dropping off at Hertz in the Mirage in Las Vegas when we arrived because the last thing you need in Vegas is a car: $200

2 nights in Sedona at the Hyatt Pinon Pointe: 15k points per night=30k points total for a standard King suite. This property is a timeshare property and the sizes of units vary. Typically you can book their standard studio suites for 15k to 18k points per night depending on the time of year. The studio suite consists of a King bed and is set up like a basic hotel room. It does include a small kitchenette, 1 bathroom, and a decent size balcony or patio area depending on if you are on the 1st or 2nd floor. Sedona has a size limit on all buildings. They are not allowed to be taller than 2 floors as not to block the view of the amazing red rock mountains that surround the area. We were on the 2nd floor facing the red rock hills. The room was marked as no view, but we were lucky in the unit we were assigned and actually had a decent view off the balcony. The suites are a smaller part of a larger condo unit walled off and with a connecting room door. The walls are fairly thin, and it is easy to hear those in the unit next to you so if you are a light sleeper, keep this in mind. The location was perfect as there is a Pinon Pointe Plaza across the parking lot from the Hyatt with food, Starbucks, shopping etc. The restaurants in that plaza also offer a discount if you show your Hyatt key and the front desk will provide you with a list of vendors that participate. The property is also an easy walk down to the northern downtown Sedona area with additional restaurants and shops. Pink Jeep Tours is walkable from the property and the perfect place to book a jeep tour through the red rock! The pool area has an amazing view, is fairly large for the property and has plenty of seating. They were not pushy about sitting through a timeshare presentation. When you first check in, the front desk will send you over to guest services where they will give you the rundown of the area and offer you Hyatt points in exchange for sitting through a timeshare presentation. We didn’t have time to do that due to a full day Grand Canyon tour, however, if that is something that interests you it is offered. I would give this property 3 out of 5 stars and really the only downside were the thin walls. They do have larger units that you can also book on points and all of those details are available on Hyatt’s website.

1 full day Grand Canyon Tour booked through Viator with Arizona Tour and Travel-$300 total for 2 people. 100% recommend this trip! The driver picked us up at the hotel in a large van with 3 other couples on board. He was very knowledgeable about the area, and we loved the scenic drive up to Flagstaff and then over to the Grand Canyon. It is just over 2 hours, and we did make stops to stretch our legs. The tour included entrance fees into the park. This was our first trip, and this made things so simple! It took out the guess work of where to park, what parts of the canyon to visit, etc. We started with the South Rim, then went over to Grand Canyon Village for food and shopping and ended on the east side at the Watchtower. Then we drove onto the Navajo reservation and stopped at the trading post for Navajo eats and to admire all of the beautiful, hand made products before making the 2-hour drive to Sedona. The scenery alone was worth the drive, and this is a must do and see if you are in the area!

3 days at the Bellagio in Las Vegas-71k points. We booked the Bellagio through Hyatt on points in May of 2023. At that time, MGM and Hyatt had an ongoing partnership and the MGM hotels were booked based on the Hyatt points chart. The cash price for these three nights would have been $1500 due to the events taking place in the area that weekend, instead we paid 21k points for 2 nights and 29k points for Saturday night. We were in a king renovated spa room that overlooked the pool area. It was nicely appointed with a large marble bathroom, king bed, motorized window coverings, and it was a quiet part of the hotel away from the craziness of the casino floor. Unfortunately, Hyatt and MGM ended their relationship in 2023 so this redemption is no longer available. MGM now partners with Marriott and will be bookable using Marriott points sometime in 2024. Marriott’s award chart is variable unlike Hyatt’s set point chart, so point prices will now vary depending on how many bookings are at the hotel. It is likely that if this would have been last year and we would have booked this package through Marriott, we would have paid double the points due to the events in the area. Hyatt is one of the most lucrative point redemption programs, allowing you to get much more bang for your buck! We will discuss this in future postings.

United flights home Las Vegas to Pittsburgh via Chicago connection-$400 total for 2 people. I chose to pay cash for the flight because the point redemption was not a great value. We took carry-on bags only, so we did not have to pay baggage fees. (Southwest bags fly free another reason I tend to favor them over other airlines; however, cash and points flights were still outrageously expense).

The total cash value for plane tickets, hotels, car, tickets, and tour for this trip would have been $3500. Thanks to points, we paid $1000 cash for the football tickets, tour tickets, car and plane tickets home. Travel hacking isn’t always completely free, remember you still have to pay for food and activities in a lot of cases, but it does allow you to enjoy more of those things when your able to cover costs of travel and rooms with points. Given this was the first trip I booked flights and hotels using points, I was satisfied with the value I was able to get.

How did I do on this trip? What was your first travel hacked trip?

Next up, we’ll take a look at how I accumulated points over my first year of travel hacking!