Christmas 2019 - A sunny trip to Punta Cana for less than $400
“If you look far ahead, you can find diamonds in the rough for holiday vacations. In my case, my flight and hotel for two cost me $350 that retail for over $5K, perfect to shake the winter blues off! ”
I will be continuing my Summer Trip 2019 reviews with the Bodrum EDITION and my experience in Chernobyl and Ukraine, but I wanted to update readers on my plan for Christmas travel.
The Problem
As you may know, using miles to fly from Toronto during the Christmas season isn’t easy, especially when looking for a sunshine destination (Editors note: this is especially pertinent on a miserable day like today). Cash tickets to leisure destinations are at their peak, which means that award tickets are hard to come by. Although WestJet dollars are a good option, I didn’t have a lot of WJ$ available to me last year.
That being said, I have hundreds of thousands of Aeroplan miles, but the problem with Aeroplan is that even if you do find a good option in the Caribean or Florida, Aeroplan taxes can quickly make a “free” trip cost hundreds of dollars. For example, for two people to fly to Orlando, taxes come out to almost $400 on top of the 50K miles with over $130 of that is the “carrier surcharge”.
Almost 400 dollars for a “free flight”
The Solution
There are ways to get around this charge though. Star Alliance partner United Airlines has almost the same access to Air Canada flights as Aeroplan does and they don’t pass on carrier surcharges. In fact, this same flight to Orlando for two people would cost only $140, with no BS “carrier surcharge” passed on.
Same flights, for only $140
The United MileagePlus program provides significant value to Canadians in 2019, as you can book Air Canada flights without the insane taxes. The drawback to this is that you can only book tickets using United MileagePlus 330 days from the flight, unlike Aeroplan miles which allow you to book flights 365 days before the flight. That meant that I had to wait until mid-February to find Christmas flights. What I ended up finding was flights to Punta Cana, via Ottawa, on Air Canada, for 70K United MileagePlus miles plus $350, not terrible for two people. The reason the taxes are so expensive is that the Dominican Republic charges almost $120 in taxes for flights departing the country, something to note if you’re looking for a vacation there.
Most of the taxes are mandatory departure tax
For comparison, Air Canada offers the same flights for 80K Aeroplan miles plus $492, so with United I saved almost $150 and 10K points.
More miles and significantly more money - the story of most Aeroplan redemptions.
All in all, that’s not bad for flights that retail for $1700, and they’re the cheapest Air Canada flights on those days!
That being said, because this booking was done so far in advance, it was subject to schedule changes. As Air Canada was significantly affected by the Max 737 groundings, the schedule changed during the summer, which I wasn’t made aware of by United. When I did find out, it was an absolute nightmare to change my flights, which I’ll cover in a future blog post.
The hotel
Looks stunning
Naturally, the flights that I was looking for, I wanted to make sure there would be hotels that could be covered by points. The Dominican Republic has several Marriott hotels, but The Westin Puntacana Resort & Club was the one that stood out. As I booked this before the Peak and Off-Peak pricing, this Category 5 hotel was only 140K Marriott Bonvoy points (Which I acquired using the Marriott Bonvoy Amex) for 5 nights. During the Christmas period, this hotel retails for $3245 USD ($4300 CAD), which is a redemption of almost 2.5US cents per point (over 3CAD cents per point), a fantastic deal.
Not bad for a Category 5
While I was looking at this booking, I noticed that they are blocking award space for Christmas time right now, as the base rooms, traditional king, which I am booked into, are available but not bookable on points, clearly another case of being Bonvoyed. Instead, they’re offering rooms for 105K plus $700US.
That being said, after the Christmas break, there is availability at several levels, including points saver nights throughout February, which could be a good option for a long weekend away. Outside the holiday period, 5 nights at the Westin Puntacana Resort & Club are around 1500 USD ($2000 CAD), so it still offers value at over 1 cent per point.
Lot’s of cheap award options for a few nights away!
The Point
If you look far ahead, you can find diamonds in the rough for holiday vacations. In my case, my flight and hotel for two cost me $350 that retail for over $5K, perfect to shake the winter blues off!
