{"id":5501,"date":"2013-11-05T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T20:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/verygoodpoints\/?p=5501"},"modified":"2014-02-24T12:57:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T17:57:43","slug":"last-minute-alaska-dont-break-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/first2board.com\/verygoodpoints\/2013\/11\/05\/last-minute-alaska-dont-break-bank\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Minute Alaska – Don’t Break The Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a cancelled business trip and some rearranged November travel, I had a gaping hole in my calendar and a lot of vacation time to schedule. \u00a0While I was in Dallas this past weekend, I stopped by the Dallas Travel and Adventure show. \u00a0I met a few people from the airlines and a lot of people from various visitors bureaus. \u00a0While listening to the woman from Alaska speak, I was suddenly inspired.<\/p>\n

After the show I headed straight to the airport. As I sat in the airport I decided to check out what award flights looked like for Alaska. \u00a0I quickly found a round-trip ticket in US Airways First Class for 50,000 points and $8 in taxes. \u00a0Since I’m a US Airways Chairman, I could book the flight and if I decided not to go just redeposit the miles at no cost. \u00a0 The low-cost mile award ticket was only available for \u00a0November 13th \u00a0departure with a return on November 20th. \u00a0That worked perfectly and I would use 6 of my 7 remaining vacation days.<\/p>\n

Next I looked at hotel options. \u00a0I have 2 Hilton Be My Guest Certificates that will expire on November 30th this year, so I looked for Hilton options in Anchorage and Fairbanks. There were no Hilton’s in Fairbanks, so I used the certificates for 2 nights at the Anchorage Hilton. \u00a0On Saturday I’ll take the train from Anchorage to Fairbanks. The train fair is $69 using a winter special promo. \u00a0The winter train only runs on Saturdays – a northbound route and on Sundays – a Southbound route.<\/p>\n

Once in Fairbanks I’ll stay at the Spring Hill Suites by Marriott. I had 31,000 Marriott points left over in my account, so I booked 2 nights on points for a total of 30,000 points and 1 night with cash for $80.50. \u00a0 While in Fairbanks, my primary goal is to see and hopefully photograph the Northern Lights. I will likely take at least one tour, and those range between $150- 300. \u00a0 The other nights I plan to do some independent Northern Light spotting. \u00a0At many of the hotels they will set wake-up calls for prime viewing times – 11pm to 2am (varies based on weather and conditions outside.)<\/p>\n

On the last day I will fly back from Fairbanks to Anchorage on Alaskan Airlines. Originally I had planed to use 7,500 miles for a one-way ticket. In the process of trying to figure out what type of miles to transfer to Alaskan Airlines, they came out with a special $79 one-way fare deal. \u00a0Spending $84 (which included taxes) was a better option than transfer points.<\/p>\n

So here’s what I’ve spent so far<\/p>\n