4th of July
With the long holiday weekend ahead, my husband and I decided to seize the chance for a quick getaway just for us! As a fan of traveling on points, I embraced the challenge of planning a fun weekend escape without spending much money. The Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort in New Mexico has been on my radar. I must say, I adore Hyatt points. They allow me to transfer points from my Chase Sapphire card directly to Hyatt. This way, I feel I'm truly getting the most out of my points when I book rooms. For instance, I secured a 3-night stay from July 4th to 7th using Hyatt points, which totaled 39,000 points. Booking the same room without points would have cost $1,045. Also when you book Hyatt rooms with points they waive resort fees. (All this really adds up).
To get to the resort we flew into Albuquerque. We flew Southwest on points. Southwest has a companion pass you can earn when you earn 135,000 Southwest rapid rewards a year or fly 100 paid flights. Last year we both got companion passes the points way. Now anytime my husband books a flight on Southwest I can fly with him for just the taxes. It can be a paid (real money) or points flight.
We decided to rent a car because we knew we wanted to explore. I almost always book my cars through Costco Travel. The car ended up being $160 for the trip. I was actually ok with this but last month CLEAR had a sign-up offer if you got a CLEAR membership you get a $100 travel rebate. My American Express Platinum offers CLEAR free and I still get the $100 rebate. We used the rebate to get $100 off our rental car for the trip.
When we first arrived at the hotel my jaw dropped as we walked into the lobby.
This resort was exactly what I was looking for our quick getaway alone. They had 3 pools, hiking trails, smores at night, and the best view. My husband is not a sit-by-the-pool guy so we quickly found some things to do in the area. I had never been to New Mexico so I was excited to get out and explore. My husband loves National Parks and science.
Did you know New Mexico has a supervolcano? Not only that but it has 2!!! We took the time to visit Valles Caldera about an hour from our hotel. After being in the desert it was refreshing to go up in altitude for cooler temperatures and see green!. After visiting Valles Caldera we decided to make the drive to Los Alamos. We went to a Manhattan Project history museum and a free science museum.
Our 2nd day we wanted decided to take advantage of the great hiking. We visited the Petroglyphs National Monument and did the Piedras Marcadas Canyon trail.
We actually loved New Mexico so much we put on our list of places to potentially to retire!
