There are a lot of different ways that miles and points have helped my family and I travel. I know that I’m not the only one, since many others have shared their experiences as well. I do enjoy reading about (and TAKING!) elaborate trips around the world, but to me one of the true joys of miles and points is making “random” trips much more feasible. Oh – a play we wanted to see is in Chicago this weekend? Let’s go! Time to visit more counties? Let’s book 5 random hotels in the middle of nowhere (on points).
Another Random Trip
Last week I decided to book another random trip to Utah to watch my alma mater (the University of Cincinnati) play a sportsball game. If you’re a REAL DEVOTED reader of PWaC, you might recall that I took a similar trip back in March, when my alma mater played @ Utah Valley University in Orem in the basketball NIT.
My son is out at college in Utah so it was a nice double purpose trip. We had great seats right behind the UC bench and I even got the pleasure of being booed by 6,000+ people in an arena when they showed me (and my red UC t-shirt) on the jumbotron :-). Unfortunately the game’s result was not as great (for my side) but it was still an epic trip made possible nearly entirely by miles and points
Miles And Points Trip For Football in September?
My son is home for the summer but planning on heading back out to Utah in the fall. Reviewing the calendar for September, I saw that UC is planning on playing out at BYU at the end of September. I floated the idea of another trip to my son and he said that sounded fun. (Except he wouldn’t be rooting for Cincinnati). That’s fine with me – I can handle some competition. I think it should be a pretty good game. UC is ranked a bit higher in the preseason polls, but it’s a home game for BYU. I guess that’s why they play the games!
Taking the Trip Thanks To Miles And Points
And the trip is done for “free”, mostly due to miles and points
- A cheap Southwest flight on points using the 40% off sale they had a few weeks ago
- 9K web saver award on American to fly back
- 3 nights at the Hyatt Place Provo
- Rental car using cash but I have Autoslash ready to save the day
Using hotel points when there are large sporting events can be a great use of your points, as we’ve talked about many times here on the site. The cash cost for the 3 nights is $812.50
It’s 8,000 points a night (24,000 points total), netting a cool 3.39 cents per point in value. This hotel USED to be a Category 1 hotel at 5,000 points / night, which would have made this even more of a screaming deal!
The Bottom Line
While miles and points are great for big and fancy trips, I also love them for small random trips. The kinds of trips that you would probably never take without the ability to get so much of it for “free” using miles and points. I’m heading out on a trip that I wouldn’t have believed was in my budget, if you had talked to me before I started getting into miles and points.
What are some of your favorite trips you’ve taken thanks to miles and points? Leave them in the comments below
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
“Last week I decided to book another random trip to Utah to watch my alma mater (the University of Cincinnati) play a sportsball game” Sportsball game? What in the heck?
Sportsball is a somewhat (mild) derogatory term toward sports, mostly by people who aren’t into sports. I do enjoy (most) sports but I use it here just as a generic catch-all term for sports
See also https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/sportsball/