Five Nights In New York City for $45!

We were finally able to take that long-overdue trip to New York City! If you recall, we first booked this trip for last April during Spring Break but had to reschedule. Well, happy to report we finally made it to NYC to see the new Michael Jackson musical on Broadway! I have a BFA in Musical Theater and would often take the train from Philly (where I went to college) to NYC to audition for shows, so it was super fun to introduce our kiddos to the wonderful world of Broadway shows.

Take a peek at our trip on my Instagram account (check out the “NYC” highlight) and read on to see how we travel-hacked New York City for $45!

New York City Budget Breakdown

• (2) Flights from BNA to LGA on Southwest Airlines: 18,388 points + $11.20 taxes/fees.
• (2) Southwest Companion Pass: 0 points + $11.20 taxes/fees.
• (5) Nights at Thompson Central Park New York: 125,000 Hyatt points + $0 taxes/fees.
• (2) Flights from LGA to BNA on Southwest Airlines: 29,970 points + $11.20 taxes/fees.
• (1) Southwest Companion Pass: 0 points + $11.20 taxes/fees.

Total Cash Cost: $44.80

Flights To/From New York City

Once again, we chose Southwest Airlines for our trip because Southwest operates several daily 2.5-hour nonstop flights between Nashville (BNA) and LaGuardia Airport (LGA) in New York City. The Southwest Companion Pass deal is just too good to pass up. Our kids fly with us for (almost) free on every Southwest flight we take. Click here to learn how to earn a Southwest Companion Pass.

Our flights back home were actually cancelled due to a storm, so we ended up having to stay in NYC for 5 nights instead of 3. No problem though, especially when traveling on points and miles. Southwest’s customer service is great – I always find that the agents are friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. As soon as I got the notification of the cancellation, I called Southwest and chatted with an agent and we worked together to get us all rebooked on the next flight out, which was 2 days later. This was done at no additional cost, of course.

By the way, be sure to bookmark the new Airline Customer Service Dashboard from the U.S. Department of Transportation. This dashboard lists airlines’ committments in the event of delayed or cancelled flights. It’s an easy way to quickly see if you’re entitled to any kind of compensation due to this inconvenience.

Lodging In New York City

Fortunately, there are countless hotels in NYC that you can book with points, but because Hyatt is consistently the hotel brand that offers the most value for my points, it’s my go-to hotel chain. We chose to stay at the Thompson Central Park property because it was just steps away from the Neil Simon Theater, which is where MJ is playing. Standard rates at this hotel start at around $500 per night. The points rate ranges from 21,000-29,000 points per night. If you stay during the off-peak nights, this one credit card welcome offer would cover 3 nights at this property!

As soon as our flights were rebooked, I opened up the Hyatt app on my phone to see if the hotel still had award availability. Luckily, they did, so I simply transferred more points to my Hyatt account and booked an additional 2 nights through the app! We were able to stay in the same rooms and just had to get our room keys reprogrammed for the additional nights. Easy peasy.

Now we had 2 extra days to enjoy in the city – I can think of worse places to be stranded!