The night before our flight we stayed at the Westin Atlanta Airport. We used 4,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points for the room. The only money we spent was $10 for parking. The nightly rate for the room when we stayed was $154.39.
Once we arrived at the airport, we didn't hang around the riffraff down in the terminal. We went to the lounges. We have free access to the lounges through one of the credit cards we signed up for.
This is the view of the tarmac from the lounge.
The lounge has plenty of comfortable seating, free wifi, snacks and drinks, and friendly Delta agents. The noise level is also significantly lower than the terminal.
The coffee machine made a nice cup 'o joe, and the price was right....free.
A nice view from the wing of a Delta McDonald Douglas 88. This flight from Atlanta to JFK in New York costs us a total of 50,000 Delta Skymiles plus $10.00 in taxes. The going rate for this flight at the time we booked it was $387.40 per person. So 50,000 points saved us $764.80. (2 * $387.40 - $10.00)
On the Delta flight we purchased 2 packs of M&M's (one of which never made it into the photo) and a box of "travel treats." One of our credit cards reimburses us for money spent on an airline of our choosing, so that money would have gone unused had we not purchased snacks.
We arrived at JFK at about noon, but our check-in time at the hotel wasn't until 3pm. To kill some time we decided to spend some time in an arrival lounge at JFK called The Oasis. It was by far the nicest airport lounge we saw on the trip. Come on Delta, get your act together. This lounge had a much better selection of snacks and drinks. It was less crowded and thus quieter. It even had a shower, which we didn't take advantage of on this trip, but it would certainly be nice after a long international flight.
This is where we camped out.
Nice shower facilities. There have been times in my travels when I would have killed for a shower. This, however was not one of those days.
Lots of snacks to choose from
We didn't take advantage of the spirits that were offered, but they were there for the taking.
We did take advantage of the coffee and other drinks that were offered.
Now for probably the nicest part of our trip. The Andaz 5th Avenue. This is easily the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in....and well out of our price range. We stayed here 4 nights, and at the time we booked our room 4 nights would have costs $2,637.42. For this hotel we used 88,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points and that's it. We didn't pay a dime out of pocket.
This is the view from the door as we walked into our room. That's the bathroom through those doors.
This was the part that really wowed us.
I don't know a lot about soap other than it makes me clean, but this seamed like really nice soap.
Each day they replenished a supply of chips, chocolates, and some sort of weird granola bar. All of the snacks and drinks were complimentary except for the alcohol which we passed on anyway.
This is the room itself which was more spacious that the pictures show.
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The hotel manager left us a bottle of wine when she found out it was our anniversary. We were appreciative, but didn't really take advantage of it since we don't drink. It did make a nice gift to some family members when we returned.
After we got settled into our room we head out to see the sights. The Christmas tree next to Rockefeller Center was all lit up. If I'm not mistaken there are 5 miles of lights on the tree.
Then we made our way to the Gershwin Theatre to see Wicked. Seats on the orchestra level for the night we were there were $124 each, but we only payed $20 each. We used 10,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points plus $40 to get 2 tickets to Wicked. We both really enjoyed the show. If you get a chance to see Wicked, I would definitely recommend seizing the opportunity.
We also stopped by the Love sign since it was our anniversary, visited the Apple Store, and ate lunch at The Soup Man, also known as the soup Nazi from Seinfeld. I'm guessing the changed the name to be a little more sensitive. The soup was very good, by the way. I can see why Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer went to such lengths to get the stuff.
One of the few things we paid full price for during this trip was visiting the Museum of Modern Art. It costs us $25 per person and I believe it was well worth it. I don't consider myself much of an art appreciator, but I enjoyed getting the opportunity to see some of the most iconic painting by some legendary painters.
Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Portrait of Joseph Roulin by Vincent Van Gogh
The Olive Trees by Vincent Van Gogh
Water Lilies by Claude Monet
Agapthanus by Claud Monet
The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali
Illuminated Pleasures by Salvador Dali
Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth
The detail in this painting was incredible, down to individual blades of grass and individual hairs.
Violin and Grapes by Pablo Picaso
Girl with a Mandolin by Pablo Picaso
The Sleeping Gypsy by Henri Rousseau
Gold Marilyn Monroe by Andy Warhol
Double Elvis by Andy Warhol
The rest of the Museum of Modern Art was pretty ridiculous. Stay tuned for another post about some of the most ridiculous exhibits.
The next morning we slept in and ordered room service. Normally I would never order room service, but we used 10,000 American Express Membership Rewards points to get a $100 Hyatt gift card to use for breakfast. All in our breakfast would have cost us $72....insane. It was good but not worth $72. Here are some pictures.
Toast, bacon, and apple juice.
Lemon poppy seed pancakes with orange syrup
Hash browns, roasted tomatoes, and scrambled eggs
The coffee was not pictured. That's right folks, for 2 pieces of toast, 3 pieces of bacon, 1 pancake, eggs, potatoes, tomatoes, 1 juice, and 2 coffees we were charged $72. Thank goodness we had a gift card that didn't cost us anything. We had enough left on our gift card to get coffee and donuts for ourselves the next 2 mornings.
On the other days of our trip we visited the International Center of Photography and the Metropolitan Museum of Art both for free by using our Bank of American credit and debit card for entry. Bank of America has a program called "Museums on Us" which allows cardholders to enter select museums for free on the first weekend of each month. That program saved us $24 at the International Center of Photography and $50 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We didn't take pictures at these places because they didn't allow it. I wouldn't recommend visiting the International Center of Photography. It was really small and the photos weren't that great. I would, however, recommend visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is huge, and houses artifacts from all over the world. The age of these artifacts dates from thousands of years old to a few hundred years old. You could easily spend the better part of a day in there and still not see everything.
We also spent half a day in Greenwich Village, which is the setting of Friends, visiting small shops and drinking some good coffee.
Finally, it was time for us to head back to the airport and catch a flight to go see our little buddy. We really missed him while we were away.
All in, we spent redeemed a total of 168,000 points across various loyalty programs. Our credit cards saved us a total of $3,988.61. If you add together what we spent plus the value of what we got with points our trip would have cost $4,484.37. Instead we only spent a total of $495.76 which includes everything from food to parking to filling up our car with gas to buying things we forgot to pack. On this trip we saved a lot of money and had a lot of fun spending time with one another.
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