Originally Posted by
FamilyGuy54321
Hi guys. Sorry I am new to this site, so if I wrote something wrong, please let me know. Thanks
I have a family of 5 which kids ages 3 (at time of travel), 6, 9 and want to take them for them away for Christmas break from school. I usually can never do it because it is extremely expensive during holiday season.
I have accumulated 450,000 Chase points over the years and wanted to know what is the best way to utilize them for travel in December (preferably ranging from Dec 20 - Jan 5ish) Can be for 7 or more days if possible. Prefer places like Aruba, Mexico or Dominican Republic unless there are other nice places anyone can recommended a nice family resort.
All inclusive would be a plus if possible. I looked into Hyatt in Aruba and Mexico, but not sure what's the best way to utilize the points for air and hotel.
Air is extremely expensive at those date ranges.
Traveling from NY (can be JFK, LGA, Newark)
Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Thank you.
Welcome to Flyer Talk!
As others have noted peak season is, well, peak season. Award booking sites can be good for a new user. I would personally try my hand at finding a few 'deals' first. Your baseline should be $0.015 per point as that is what you would be able to redeem chase points for directly on the UR portal if you have the CSR. If you don't have the CSR I would consider getting it to gain better value for just this trip ($450 anual fee -$300 travel credit is only $150)
United is going to be the easiest award engine to use for an inexperienced user (of the chase transfer partners). Still you will likely have trouble finding 5. Consider booking 2 and 3 or even 1 and 4 individuals separately. In my family since I maintain UA status I regularly book a paid ticket for myself and award tickets for others.
Another good option is to book a package through a provider like Orbitz or Expedia. You can book a flight & hotel or flight, hotel, & car for a discount vs purchasing separately. You could book 1 or 2 people on a package such as this and book the remaining 3 or 4 with UR points via the portal or transfer partners.
By using google flights or kayak to try and find lower flight prices around your desired dates of travel you can narrow your search parameters and save a good bit of time on the chase or united portals (both only allow for a single origin and destination per search). With Google Flights you can search for dates into a region
https://www.google.com/flights/#flt=/m/02_286.r/m/0261m.2019-12-21*r/m/0261m./m/02_286.2019-12-31;c:USD;e:1;ls:1w;px:3,2;sd:1;t:e Like this example.
I did a couple of brief UR portal searches for hotels in the Dominican, Puerto Rico, and Cancun. Depending on your wants/needs there are quite a few available as of now.
You are in a good place for inexpensive airfare leaving from NYC and being flexible on airport. 450K points is a very good start and with some luck and searching could be enough to get a trip booked all on it's own.