Originally Posted by
arnel
I'm contemplating a 7 or 8 night stay with my wife in NOLA in late February (the week before Mardi Gras). I have a cat 1-4 cert from a travel package that I got pre-merger. It looks like I can use that to stay at the AC hotel or a Courtyard. Not a fan of Moxy, and the Residence Inns are a little far from the French Quarter. Are any of the cat 5 options worth the 60,000 points to upgrade? Renaissance, Marriott, Sheraton, Saint, Le Meridien, W, Westin? I also see the RC at cat 6, but I don't think I can cobble together another 120,000 points soon enough. This would be our first trip to New Orleans.
Mardi Gras is March 5, but the parade season kicks into high gear starting on Friday Feb 22. If your dates include that weekend, you should definitely plan to catch some, and for that, I think the best spots to watch are along St Charles, uptown of the expressway (less crowded, more trees and less pavement, more locals and fewer tourists). I'm mentioning that because for those areas, you may find the warehouse district hotels more convenient than the ones on Canal St or in the Quarter.
2019 Mardi Gras Parade Schedule | Mardi Gras New Orleans