Where: Between Clearwater and St. Pete Beach (about 20 miles from the Tampa Airport), FLORIDA Gulf Coast
When: Memorial Day Weekend, May 2014
Who: 2 adults & 2 kids
Cost: We used 40,000 Hilton Hhonors points per night. At the time of our stay, rooms were going for $300+ per night (because of the holiday weekend). I have seen them for much, much cheaper though, and I wouldn’t use points if I got a great paid rate.
When we were planning our Memorial Day weekend getaway, we wanted to find a beachfront hotel in a location where we could swim in the ocean in May (and use our Hilton points). We were also looking for an easy, short, direct flight from Philadelphia (using our Southwest points). The DoubleTree Beach Resort by Hilton Hotel Tampa Bay – North Redington Beach fit the bill.
We are Hilton Gold members, and because of this we were upgraded to an oceanfront room on the 4th floor. I was really hoping that this would happen, but wasn’t sure that it would because of the holiday weekend. Having the balcony facing the beach was key, and I am really glad that we were fortunate enough to get the upgrade. We were also given 2 breakfast vouchers per day (full buffet), which was a value of $15.95 per person, per day. We got Hilton Gold status because it is one of the benefits of having the Citi Hilton Reserve Credit Card.
All of the staff members that we encountered were very friendly and helpful, from the front desk staff to the waitstaff in the restaurant.
Some of the special touches & good things to know:
The room was fine. Nothing fancy. A bit rundown, but not in a dirty way. Just in an older beach hotel kind of way. I knew this going into it (after reading reviews online), so I was not surprised. We had 2 Queen beds, which is still adequate for our family of 4. The room also had a mini-refrigerator, free WiFi, a 40-inch TV, and a coffeemaker. The balcony with oceanview was my favorite part. There were 2 chairs and a small table on the balcony.
I meant to take some photos before the kids started throwing their stuff all over the room, but I missed that opportunity.
The very best thing about this hotel is the location. First of all, it is directly on the beach. And not only any beach, but a gorgeous stretch of beautiful white sand on the Gulf Coast of Florida. You can walk out of the hotel and be on the beach in about 10 seconds, which is exactly what we wanted. It is very easy to get to from the Tampa airport, which is a very easy 2 hour flight for us.
North Redington Beach is quiet compared to Clearwater and St. Pete beaches (which are also a short drive away). The area is mostly condos. There is a beach/surf shop kind of a place across the street, and also a little sandwich shop (get lunch there & bring it back instead of eating at the hotel restaurant). Everything else is a drive. There are some really great places to eat a very short drive away.
We really enjoyed our stay at the DoubleTree Beach Resort Tampa Bay – North Redington Beach. We would recommend it, especially with kids. There were tons of kids there the weekend that we were there, so I would not consider it to be a romantic destination (at least not during Memorial Day weekend!), but a family-friendly destination. I think it’s a good value for using Hilton points when the rates are really high (I would not pay those high rates).
We have been crazy lucky enough to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando about a million times. One year in the not so distant past, we even had annual passes (and we live in Pennsylvania, so that’s some pretty hardcore Disney devotion). One of the ways that we have made this work for us is by staying for free in our Disney hotels using our Miles & Points. Many of the hotels have been off-property, and we are totally fine with that, often preferring to trade proximity to the parks for lots of extra space. That is a whole debate in itself though. I will show you how to use Miles & Points for both on-property and off-property Disney hotels to make them free. The following are places we have stayed & points we have used.
The Swan & Dolphin are 2 adjacent hotels that are located right in the heart of Walt Disney World, but they are operated by Starwood and not Disney. This is great for you because it means you can use your SPG points to stay at this hotel for almost free (you usually still have to pay a resort fee). At the time of this writing, The Swan and The Dolphin are each 10,000 points per night, with the additional benefit of the 5th night free when using points. 40,000 SPG points for 5 nights at a Disney “on-property” hotel is a fabulous deal. You can even call the reservations department to ask if they have any suites or larger rooms available. If so, they will often let you use extra points (like 11,500 vs 10,000) to book one of the larger rooms. We have stayed at both of these hotels a couple of times, and will be reviewing them in another post (But a little hint: Thumbs Up!).
This is another great hotel near Disney World (and also near Universal Orlando) that you can get for free using your SPG points. It is also 10,000 points per night or 40,000 points for 5 nights. Although not on-property, you will get lots of space plus a kitchen. You will need a car, as it is about 10 miles from both The Magic Kingdom (some of the other Disney parks are a bit closer), and 10 miles from Universal.
When we stayed at the Sheraton Vistana Village, it was a better deal for us to use American Airlines miles to “pay” for our hotel. We had tons of AAdvantage Miles that we were not planning on using for flights, and the value was much better than using our SPG points at the time. We were also able to choose a room type, since AAdvantage uses your miles to book through a travel agency. The miles correlate to the price of the room, so you can sometimes just use more miles for a larger room type. We were able to use our miles to get a huge 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo with a full kitchen and washer/dryer.
Similar to the Sheraton Vistana Village, we were able to book this timeshare resort hotel using our AAdvantage Miles. It ended up being a very, very low amount of miles per night for the room that we booked (something like 6,000 miles). We had a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with a full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, and lanai. It was about 15-20 minutes by car from the Main Gate to Disney. Not a bad drive at all.
Marriott has several properties in the Orlando area, and this is consistently ranked as one of the best. Once again, we were able to score a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom unit with full kitchen, washer/dryer, living room, lanai. It was one of our favorite places we have ever stayed, and we have friends who just got back and loved it as well. It is close to Sea World and Aquatica (so fun), and an easy drive to Disney and Universal as well. While you will need a significant amount of points to stay at this Category 7 property, you can often get 70,000 points just by signing up for the Chase Marriott card and completing the spend requirements, which is enough for 2 nights on a regular reward (or 4 if your significant other or travel companion gets the card too).
| Nights Stay | Points Needed |
Point Savers* |
|---|---|---|
| One night | 35,000 | 30,000 |
| Two nights | 70,000 | 60,000 |
| Three nights | 105,000 | 90,000 |
| Four nights | 140,000 | 120,000 |
| Five nights | 140,000 | 120,000 |
* Some locations offer these limited-time, reduced-point offers.
You can also book some on-site, Disney-owned properties using your American Airlines miles. This is something we almost did last time we visited Orlando, but we decided to (gasp!) go to Universal Orlando for the first time instead. More on that later. Here are some tips for using miles to book Disney Properties:
Assuming you have AAdvantage Miles in your account, you should make sure you log in to get the best prices. For some reason, the price (in miles) always goes down once I log in (and I have no status of any kind on AA, as I haven’t paid for an airline flight in 10 years). For example, when I go to the website (without logging in) and put in June 7, 2014 for Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, it gave me the cost of 27,467 miles per night. After I log in, the cost is 16,500 miles per night…huge difference!
Here are some examples of some more of Disney’s own hotels that show up on the AAdvantage site, searching the random date of June 7, 2014. (TIP: since there are hundreds of hotels in the area, type “Disney’s” in the search box, and the Disney-owned hotels will pop up like this):
As you can see, the miles for each of Disney’s hotels vary widely, but so does the cost in dollars. You have to make your comparisons for your dates based on many factors. As an example, I checked the same date on the Disney reservations website for Port Orleans Riverside. The price was $205 (which included a promotion discount). The cost in miles would be about 19,000. It’s not a stellar points redemption value, but maybe you have millions of AAdvantage miles that you earned on your company’s dime? Sometimes we are points-rich and cash-poor and we just would much rather use our miles. We tend to save more money by using miles/points to stay offsite (and even more when there is a kitchen to help cut down on food costs). We have paid to stay in many on-property Disney hotels though (Wilderness Lodge, Animal Kingdom Lodge, Port Orleans French Quarter, Boardwalk, Grand Floridian). There are so many factors that go in to making the choice that is best suited to the family’s needs at the time, so it is helpful to evaluate all of your options.
There are also many, many more options for free Disney hotels using miles and points, and I will explore this further in a future post.
Have you ever used your miles and points for a free Disney hotel?
