Valentine’s weekend road trip

This past weekend, we decided to go on a spontaneous and last minute road trip to Northern California to visit some family and friends that live in the area. 

We didn’t give each other physical gifts for Valentine's Day.  We decided a while ago that buying gifts for each other didn’t really benefit our financial future.  We show our love in other ways.

Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t splurge every once in a while, as long as you can afford it.  In fact, we did some splurging this weekend (in moderation of course).

Before our road trip, we went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant.  Dinner came out to be $52.44 after taxes and tip.  This was a lot more than we usually spend on food, considering we mostly eat in for lunch and dinner.   We’ve never been big “foodies” and generally are just happy to eat anything nutritious and healthy. 

Chips and freshly prepared guacamole! 

Of course I did make sure to book the reservation through OpenTable to earn some extra dining points.

We have friends and family in Sunnyvale, San Francisco and Oakland. This past 3 day weekend allowed us to spend some meaningful time with them.  Since this was the long weekend (no work Monday) with Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day, a lot of the hotels in San Francisco and Oakland had expensive rates.   We decided to use some Club Carlson points to book 2 free nights at the Country Inn and Suites Sunnyvale for 38,000 points per night.  

The normal price of this hotel was $99 a night, so we saved $198 by booking our stay with points.  We got a value of 0.0026 cents per Club Carlson point.

Our drive from Southern California to Sunnyvale took about 6.5 hours.  Luckily there wasn’t any traffic. 

Our San Diego trip

Me and my wife spent part of this last weekend in San Diego, CA.

One of my best friends from graduate school invited us out to dinner and bar hopping in downtown San Diego for her birthday.  Since we live about 2 hours away, we thought it would be great to stay overnight and spend the next day by the beach.

Since I’m always trying to burn our Club Carlson points, I was happy to discover a Country Inn & Suites in San Diego.  Club Carlson points can be redeemed for hotel stays at Radisson Blu, Radisson, Park Plaza, Park Inn, and Country Inn & Suites.


I first logged into my Club Carlson account and saw that I still had a healthy balance of Club Carlson points.  

Then I proceeded to book a one-night stay at the Country Inn & Suites for 38,000 points and $0.  

3 free nights in Atlanta

We have been looking forward to visiting Atlanta, Georgia for some time.  We love marine life and are anxious to visit the Georgia Aquarium - currently the world’s largest aquarium.  Opened in 2005, the aquarium houses 120,000 animals, representing 500 species, in 8.5 million US gallons (32,000 m³) of marine and fresh water. 

Whale shark in the open ocean

We are especially excited to see the whale sharks on display.  They are the largest fish on earth, measuring up to 40 feet long.  The Georgia Aquarium is the only aquarium outside of Asia that houses whale sharks.  It also offers the only opportunity in the world where you can SCUBA dive with these gentle giants (which I intend on doing!).

Of course there are plenty of other things to do and see in Atlanta, but we are definitely most excited to see the aquarium.

How are we going to get to Atlanta, Georgia and the Georgia Aquarium for free?

Club Carlson Gold points to the rescue

Last week the wife and I found us stranded at Dallas (DFW) airport with a 12-hour layover (6pm to 6am).  The airport lounges close for the night so sleeping in an airport lounge wasn’t an option for us.  The idea of sleeping in the airport didn’t appeal to us either. 

We collect different types of points that allow for free hotel stays including Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citibank ThankYou Points, SPG Starpoints, and Club Carlson Gold points.   

Right now we are saving our Ultimate Reward points for an international trip to Asia later this year, and we redeemed most of our Citibank ThankYou points to pay for our honeymoon (more on that trip another time). 

The choice came down to a Starwood property versus a Club Carlson property.