Maui Mileage Run – The Hotel

Sorry for the break in the story.  Work and shoveling snow got in the way.  Anyway, back to our tale of going D.C. to Maui for a long weekend mileage run on Alaska.  I got a deal on the Marriott at Wailea and I’ll explain how the hotel was and how I scored that deal.

For those of you who are not familiar with Maui, almost all the resort hotels are located along a single strip of coast in South Maui.  This makes it easy to compare hotels as they all offer pretty much the same view and access to beaches.  Once I had the airfare dates locked down, I started to see what bargains that I could find for the two nights we would have in Maui.  The average price that I was finding was around $400/night which is too much in my book.  I searched the major chains, Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, and Starwood for the best deal.  Admittedly, I did not spend time on boutique hotels as they are typically higher priced and I did not search for three stars no-name hotels as they simply don’t offer the experience we wanted even though they are cheaper.

Here is a tip for you when looking around.  If you find a hotel that has construction going on, book it.  We have done this several times and find that the inconvenience is very minor, but the rate saving is huge.  In this case, I was able to get a regular room for only $199/ night!

Changing subjects slightly here.  We would need a rental car to get around.  The rates were all in hundreds of dollars for three days.  I know it does not get a lot of coverage at BoardingArea.com, but those Hertz points that I have been collecting really came in handy.  I was able to cash some in so that we only had to pay for the taxes.  The normal quote from Hertz for a mid-sized car for three days was $400, I got it for only $19!

Now, I admit that I often have trouble using Hertz Rewards points, but occasionally they come through for me and they saved me a bunch this time.  Remember: collect every point in every program as you never know when you might be able to use them.

So back to the hotel.  We got in about 1030 and headed straight to the hotel after collecting our bags.  Getting there about noon, we decided to go ahead and try to check in early.  The desk clerk welcomed me as a Marriott Platinum and said that they had reserved a special upgrade for me, but we would have to wait.  We were happy to enjoy the pleasant weather and had no problem spending the time getting a bite to eat in the shopping center next to the Marriott.   They called by 2 and showed us to our room and boy were they right that this was a special upgrade.  The room looked directly out over the infinity pool and then to the Honolua Bay beyond.  Check out these picture below and see what I mean about a great view.

The room itself was nice enough with a great lanai to have breakfast on.   It came with a mini-fridge and coffee maker which are always important things to us.

More on things to do and see tomorrow.