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My oldest son is plugging away at his junior year of high school. We’ve visited two prospective colleges so far, and we’d like to visit a handful more before he starts his college applications next summer. After visiting a small liberal arts college about an hour away from us, my son decided he likes the feel of a smaller school better than a larger school. With that in mind, we’ve selected a few more smaller schools to visit before the end of this school year.
Visiting colleges can take a lot of time and money. In the Facebook group “Paying for College 101”, some parents talk about shelling out big bucks for these trips. Thankfully, my family won’t be spending a lot of cash for this process.
Hyatt Points to the Rescue
My son and I are planning to visit four colleges after the holidays. They are all in Texas, so flights are not necessary. However, Texas is huge, and we can’t visit them on a day trip. So, we’re planning a four-day road trip to see all of them.
Lucky for us, there are Hyatt hotels nearby. Hyatt is my favorite hotel chain. My husband and I both have the World of Hyatt credit card and we also transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt when we need more points.
Not only do we have several Hyatts nearby our destinations, but I found a few Hyatt Place locations that only cost 5000 points per night. Score! The location near Austin runs over $200 a night, so staying for 5000 points is a good deal. We are splurging on two rooms for my family of five to maintain our sanity.
IHG Points for Future Visits
There is one more college we may visit. It’s in Arkansas and is a 5-6 hour drive. We will need to plan a separate trip for this one, as it’s in the other direction from where we’re going.
The town doesn’t have any Hyatts, but it does have a few IHG choices. We have a small stash of IHG points we could use for this visit or future trips.
Bottom Line
College is expensive enough without adding in costly trips before applying. We will save money wherever we can. Having a stash of miles and points to offset the cost is a wonderful thing.
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Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
My daughter attended University of Arkansas and we loved using 5k points per night to stay at the Hyatt in Rogers! Yes, it’s a 17 minute drive to Fayetteville, but it’s only 5k per night and often that hotel can run $300 a night on big weekends! Plus, it’s in between the University and Crystal Bridges in Bentonville which is really cool to explore!
@Sarah That’s a great find!
We used miles and points for college visits and now we use them to visit our son at his college in Atlanta! We just went for parents weekend using Southwest companion pass to fly both ways and 2 free Hyatt nights that were due to expire in the next few months.
@Anonymous I’m glad you’re making good use out of your companion pass and free Hyatt nights!