$5000 four night stay in Cancun, Mexico for FREE

I’m going to keep this short and simple. At the start of this year, I had a goal of being able to book a long Christmas stay in Cancun all using points and that finally came true.

The Property

I wanted a place quiet and secluded away from the crowds of people and noisy kids and one place fit the bill. The Andaz Mayakoba Resort Riviera Maya!

Given that it is peak season and holiday goers will be eyeing such resorts (NOT all-inclusive), the nightly price is about $939 which translates to $5,037 including all charges for four nights.

However, I wouldn’t be the credit traveler if I didn’t find a way to get the room for points instead of cash.

Booking

While the cash rate for any and every Hyatt partner property can change, the point redemption scale remains fixed and for this category 6 hotel, it was 25,000 Points/Night for a total of 100,000 Points for four nights.

I checked availability for a King Bedroom for the four nights and once found what I was looking for, went ahead and transferred 100,000 UR points into my Hyatt account before proceeding to book the stay.

Point Redemption Value

Best way to calculate the value I received for redeeming each Chase point:

[(Dollar Amount)*100]/Points Used

= $5,039*100/100,000 ~ 5 CPP (cent per point)

This outright beat the average 2 CPP value as well as the default 1.5X redemption rate I get from my Chase Sapphire Reserve card.

Earning The Points

I utilized the Chase Freedom‘s quarterly goals (for the 5X) as best I could, put any dining/travel expenses on my Reserve card (for the 3X) and miscellaneous expenses on my Freedom Unlimited Card (for the 1.5X).

Additionally, for any and all shopping I did this year, I used the Chase store to earn upto 10X points on places like Columbia, Macys, Groupon, etc…

YMMV

Do take this example with a grain of salt as your mileage may vary depending on how you maximize the earning and value of your points.

While it most certainly is going to take a while to earn back 100,000 UR points, I know for a fact those points were well earned (from normal daily purchases) and well spent (with the four day free stay). If it’s some consolation, I am expecting a few more points to come in soon so the “free” travel can continue!