Weekend Escape to London 🇬🇧
A weekend in London during October offers beautiful autumn colors, fewer crowds, and seasonal charm. Enjoying Hyde Park's fall foliage, explore iconic landmarks like Westminster Abbey, savoring a Sunday roast at a pub and catching a West End show for the perfect cultural experience.
Karen reached out to me about a week ago - checking to see if I can pull some magic for a weekend trip out to London for this October. Her husband and her wanted to enjoy the British Capital for a long autumn weekend and had some Chase Ultimate Rewards points and Marriott Points to spare.
After a short intake - I surveyed the options and noted that the best weekend for the two is probably Oct 18-21, 2024. They agreed. They could leave on Friday evening and would take the following Monday off - returning to NYC on Monday evening. It was perfect.
Living in NYC, the couple had options of flying out of Newark, LaGuardia (think a Toronto connection) or JFK. This meant that flying time would be somewhere in the ~6 hour up in the air. The couple knew they were fine sitting in coach and didn't want to invest major $ in business class across a fairly short international flight (in comparison to a trop to Asia where their miles would have worked harder for their worth).
Realistically, Karen had two choices to make using her Chase points - transfer to United or transfer to Virgin Atlantic. Here's what I found her:
Instead - using her Chase Ultimate Rewards points and transferring them out to Virgin Atlantic - they were able to score the following outbound itinerary:
Returning with United - I found the couple a fairly cheaper option (than Delta) to Newark:
The quick math (per person):
Cash: $836
Points: 44,100 + $352.41 in Taxes and Fees
Honestly, this wasn't the best deal out there - as I value Ultimate Rewards points at $0.0205 per point (the better value for them would have been using cash than a ticket that valued at $904.05 through points).
At that point (no pun intended), I went back to Karen and we talked more about whether she's aiming for status with Delta (meaning: better spend cash and attain more MQD for Delta Status) but the answer was no. This would've been the last travel for the year.
After 10 more minutes of thinking and showing her the value of using her Delta points instead of her Ultimate Reward points - Karen decided to use her Delta points (which she, rightfully so, values less than Chase) and clean her stash.
UpNonStop values Delta points at $0.012 per point so when I run the quick math - she would be paying a value of $997.21 for this ticket, per person. But Karen knew that Delta points get devalued constantly and instead of racking them up - it's better to burn them quickly too.
Accommodation
Requirements here simple - they needed a hotel in the city center (or its vicinity) that would be 4-stars and above quality, without breaking their (Marriott Points) bank.
Well, that weekend is a pricey one - and so staying under 50,000 Marriott points per night meant that we would need to sacrifice on the distance, but not the quality.
For 45,000 Marriott points a night (Vs. $313USD in Cash) the couple chose the Inhabit Queen's Gardens by Design Hotels. This did not represent the best value for Marriott Points as UpNonStop values them at $0.085 cents per point which would mean they are paying for a value of $382..
But the goal of this trip was to spend the least amount in cash on the travel (flights + hotels) and enjoy everything that London had to offer.
60 hours in London
Knowing the couple had limited time on the ground - I gave them my high-level recommendations for London first-timers (or old-timers who can't remember much of London and want to see it fresh again) 👇🏻
