Your Next Vacation, Paid For With Points

Frugal Traveler All those points you’ve been saving have a purpose: a stay at a fabulous resort in the Caribbean or another warm-weather destination. No sooner did the Times Square Ball drop than I embarked upon my own New Year’s ritual: plotting my escape from cold, gray New York. Would I beach-hop on the sunny shores of St. Barts?

Post up within prime Instagram range of St. Lucia’s massive Pitons? Plop down at a tony resort in Turks and Caicos? One glance at Google Hotel Search was all it took for my breezy island fantasies to collapse.

Running roughly from Christmas to Easter, high season in the Caribbean and other warm-weather winter destinations means sky-high rates, especially over holiday weekends, February school vacation and spring break. My favorite workaround: points. Anyone who’s ever been down the rabbit hole of loyalty programs and sign-up bonuses has an opinion about points. Some people stockpile them for flights or cabin upgrades.

Others aim for as many free nights as possible at plain, serviceable accommodations. As a hotel obsessive, I tend to embrace yet another strategy: splurging with points in order to stay somewhere sumptuous, even if it’s just for a few nights. That’s how I planned our Presidents’ Day weekend getaway to Andaz Mayakoba, in eastern Mexico — a resort my husband and I already know and love, having vacationed there in late 2018 with our (then) 6-month-old son. The secluded Hyatt property, tucked on the coast between Cancún and Tulum, has a range of room types bookable using World of Hyatt points, from standard rooms (25,000 points a night) to suites (40,000 and up).

Hyatt, like several other major hotel chains, also offers a happy-medium, called Points + Cash, if you remain wary of blowing too many points at once. I tapped that option in order to book a suite, shaving $826. 70 off our three-night stay without sacrificing other comforts — enough room to spread out with our toddler, and a patio to enjoy, margarita in-hand, once said toddler falls asleep at 7 p. m.

And because Hyatt will roll out peak and off-peak points pricing starting in March — already in place at Marriott and Hilton — the very suite I booked will soon be even more expensive (in points) during high season. For sunseekers as desperate as I am for a wintertime infusion of vitamin D, here are some other luxurious warm-weather getaways that you can book on points — in some cases, without spending a dollar. Perched on Zihuatanejo’s Playa La Ropa on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, Thompson Zihuatanejo is a modern jungle retreat with rooms and villas of varying sizes, two adults-only pools (and another that’s family-friendly), two oceanfront restaurants and monthly half-moon beach parties.