Pittsburgh Travel Hackers

Arches and Canyonlands on Points


Picture this: you’re flying home from a spring break trip to a mountain National Park. You knew there’d be snow, but you were not expecting 3 feet! You’re sad about your trip being over, so of course you start yammering to your husband about where to go over spring break next year. He loves that. Your family really wants to get to Yosemite National Park, but you check a web-cam to see that they also got more snow than ever before. You enjoyed your snowy vacay, but are looking for less snow-shoe and more hiking boot. You google “best national park to visit in March,” which is when next year’s break is, and find a cool chart that tells you to go to Arches National Park.  And you can get all of this info while 35,000 feet in the air because you have unlimited internet credits on your Southwest Business Premier card! 


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Anyway, that’s more or less how we arrived at our plans for our latest family adventure. Our family is on a big National Park kick, and I’m loving it. We spent the week tiring ourselves out with hiking and marveling at landscapes unlike anything we’ve ever seen. We felt weirdly patriotic on our travels – the US has so much beauty to explore and we were thankful to be able to do it – and do it for very minimal cost because of points and miles. So, let’s get into it!

Hotels
Immediately upon our return from 2023 spring break, I got super excited and booked our Moab hotel for 2024. I had a big stash of IHG points after having opened the IHG Premier card with no big plans for those points. I don’t recommend opening an IHG Premier card and then having nothing to do with the points, by the way. Or maybe I do, because it worked out for us. I opened it thinking it would come in handy for a different trip we were planning, but then that trip went in a different direction. I went ahead and booked a two queen, one pull-out couch suite at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites in Moab. This room would fit all five of us, had free breakfast, was one of the closest hotels to the Arches entrance, and had a decent looking pool. All told, this hotel cost 100,000 IHG points for four nights because with the IHG Premier card you get a perk where when booking with points you can get four nights for the cost of three.


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We typically are booking two rooms these days with two teens and a tween in our family, so as the trip approached, what seemed like an excellent idea 320 days ago began to feel like the worst idea I ever had. Would be at each other’s throats? Would we be able to escape the stench of hiking boots? It was going to be 50 degrees – would the pool even be relevant? I truly thought that after one night all together I’d be asking the hotel manager if there were any other rooms available to book. I’m happy to report that all of my worries – while I still think very valid – ended up not being much of a concern. The room was big enough that we didn’t feel too cramped. There was a great little cabinet that kept contained the stinkiest boots. The free breakfast was entirely adequate for our needs. The pool was warm! It was perfect after a long day of hiking. This basic Holiday Inn was a little workhorse for us and ended up being  a great place to stay. 

There are so many chain hotels in Moab that are bookable with points. I even noticed right before our trip that there were several options in the Choice portfolio, one of which looked like a brand new property. A cool thing about Choice is that they are a transfer partner of Citi, and points from Citi transfer to them at a rate of 1:2. So, I could have booked us into a nearly identical property for 60,000 Citi points if I wanted. We have not stayed with Choice on points yet, but it is in the back of my mind as a program to not overlook. One pitfall is that you can only book with points 100 day prior to your stay – but in this case, there was availability even the week before. Another option many have loved is the Hyatt Place Moab. This was once an even better deal when it was in Hyatt’s Category 4 and could be booked with a free Category 1-4 certificate. Alas, it moved up to Category 5, and for our dates was at peak pricing of 23,000 points per night. It would have cost 92,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt, vs 100,000 pre-existing IHG points I had no clear use for. This was a no-brainer, since we value our Chase points so much and the Hyatt Place Moab didn’t have anything the Holiday Inn didn’t seem to have. I mention this Hyatt Place, though, because Hyatt is still one of the few hotel programs following an award chart. Even though for us, this time the better deal was the Holiday Inn, at another time, the Hyatt might win out as the other programs points redemptions fluctuate with the cash price or demand for the hotel. 

One more thing to add in the hotel bucket. We ended up flying in and out of Denver, which I’ll explain below, and decided to stop over somewhere in the middle of Colorado. After considering using some 85,000 point Marriott certificates on a night in Breckenridge or Vail, we ended up doing the unthinkable and booking through credit card travel portals in Glenwood Springs! This also worked out really nicely, though  – we got two rooms in the Hotel Colorado, right across from the Glenwood Hotsprings Resort. I had a $300 travel discount with my Capital One Venture X to use in their portal, and Tom found a room at the same hotel in the Chase travel portal for 16,600 points. We decided a night to spread out between two rooms was worth it to us. The hotel gets mid reviews, but we loved it! We like creepy historic hotels, and this one couldn’t get any creepier more historic, with pictures of Teddy Roosevelt staring down at us from every angle. Seriously, though, the building was lovely, the beds were comfortable, the host told us something about the hot water taking 10 minutes to warm up, but none of us found this to be the case. We also loved the town of Glenwood Springs; it had some great restaurants and shops and was beautifully nestled in the mountains along the Colorado River. The best part, of course, was the hot spring pool. We all felt like it was a welcome reset after getting in late the night before and being in the car for a few hours. 

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Flights
After our exciting push towards achieving two Southwest Companion Passes last year, we were very keen on using them! There is a small airport 90 minutes from Moab in Grand Junction; however there is no Southwest service to that small regional airport. American Airlines and United are options if you wanted to explore flying into a much closer airport. I initially thought we’d fly into Salt Lake City, since it is a little bit closer at 4-4.5 hours away. As I tracked flights and prices, they were just a lot higher with no nonstop options out of Pittsburgh. In the end, we got our nonstop, round trip flights to Denver for 64,296 points plus 2 free companions added. We found the 5.5 hour drive through the Colorado mountains and ski towns to be beautiful. This was again, another gamble that turned out ok, as I-70 through central Colorado in late March runs the risk of giving you a blizzard. Fortunately, we had a clear, easy drive, and we got to find our first ever troll.

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I always remind people to periodically check the price of your flights, whether booked with cash or points. Southwest has great customer-friendly policies and will refund you the difference in points or a flight credit if you call, which is what I did to save 27,000 points this time (or you can cancel and rebook online on your own). Most other airlines don’t have as simple a policy – the only other that comes to mind that is somewhat similar is American’s. 

Of course this long drive meant we needed a rental car. We’ve used a number of different methods for car rentals in the past few years. This time we found the best fare directly with Hertz. We usually start with Autoslash and then check the travel portals we have access to with our various travel credit cards. We’ve had some great success with the US Bank portal and have even erased a couple car rentals through the points Tom has With his US Bank Altitude Reserve card. This time around, I had a little discount with my employee ID, plus the use of President’s Circle with Hertz from my Venture X. Some of the perks of this include the ability to choose any vehicle in the President’s Circle section, no additional driver fee for Tom to drive, and expedited vehicle pick-up (it was very fast, and if I had thought to check in online would have been even faster). We got a minivan for six days for $430. This was the biggest single expense of the trip. 

The National Parks
Moab is just minutes from the entrance to Arches National Park, 35 minutes to the Islands in the Sky District of Canyonlands National Park, and about 90 minutes to the Needles District of Canyonlands. You could spend weeks in this area and still have places left to explore. I’ll end by giving a brief description of some of the hikes we did for those who want some first-hand recommendations and not just points info! But truly, I don’t think you can go wrong with any outdoor activities in this region, it is truly spectacular.

Keep in mind to always check the National Parks website for the park you are visiting. There were no entry permits needed the week we were there, but from April 1-Oct 31, at Arches you need to purchase a timed entry on the park website. These cost $2 and should not be confused with entry fees to the park, which can be purchased at the gate – $30 for a vehicle, or the $80 annual pass which would get you entry to all the National Parks for a year. We took notice that there were no rangers at the gate before 7am when we entered for sunrises, or after 5pm. I really don’t suggest not financially supporting our national parks, but it seems entirely possible that one could sneak in without timed entry or paying any fees, if they had a conscience that could withstand that guilt. 

Grandstaff Canyon
There are many hikes and natural areas protected by the Bureau of Land Management in the Area, and this, along with Corona Arch and Fishers Towers were all on my list of non-national park places to check out. Leaving Moab towards Arches, if you turn right at the light just before the bridge over the Colorado River you can follow this road along the river for a few miles and come to the Grandstaff trail-head. This was a beautiful out and back, 4 mile round trip trail along the bottom of the canyon. It takes you out to Morning Glory Natural Bridge, after winding along making several stream crossings and a few little rock scrambles. I’d categorize this trail as mostly easy with a few moderate sections. There were very few people along the trail, and this ended up being a lovely intro to the beautiful landscapes of the area. 


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Delicate Arch in Arches
This hike is a must. I knew we had to do it, but I wasn’t prepared for how impressive it actually was – even with swarms of other people to look at it with. This is another moderate hike, simply because it is mostly uphill. There aren’t any rock scrambles or sketchy parts, and the out and back loop is about 3 miles. Definitely leave plenty of time to do it though, because once you get up to see it, you may lose track of time taking it all in and taking all of your pictures. The hike itself is kind of boring – which added to my “is this even worth it” attitude. You definitely need your sunscreen, hat, and water for this hike, and if you don’t like kind of feeling like you are in a line at Disney World, you probably want to hit the trail before 9am, and before 8am on a weekend. 


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Sunrise at the Windows in Arches
If you’re looking for a great spot for a sunrise, I really enjoyed the view at the Windows. It’s a very short, <0.5 mile trail to the arches, and If you veer right on the trail and go up towards Turret Arch, you will have a view of both “windows” and the sun coming up through them. You could also veer left and watch the sunrise over the horizon from one of the windows – really you can’t go wrong from this point. The light from the morning sun on the surrounding rock formations is gorgeous, and you might even see the moon still hanging out through one of the arches. 


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Devil’s Garden in Arches
This was our second choice big hike in Arches. We originally tried our luck with permits in the Fiery Furnace, which is a maze-like area of fins and dead-ends. Seventy-five permits are available per day, and go on sale on the park website 7 days ahead of a date at 8am MST. I logged in (make sure to have recreation.gov account made ahead of time) promptly at 10am EST, and found it to be like trying to get Taylor Swift tickets, or, sorry for another Disney reference, a Rise of the Resistance boarding group circa 2022. Anyway, after getting over our disappointment here, we chose Devil’s Garden primitive trail and went right at the fork in the trail. This was an amazing 7.8 mile loop with crazy rock scrambles that I didn’t think I could do, some leaps, and some little climbs. I’d classify it as a more strenuous hike because of some of the climbing and crawling, plus the distance. But, we all did it! We went towards the right at the fork in the trail, thinking it would be satisfying to save the arches for the second half of the trail, and I think this was definitely the way to do it. I also would highly recommend downloading an off-line map from Alltrails, and if you’re savvy, linking it to your Garmin watch if you have one. There were many places where we had to wander around trying to figure out where the trail went, especially during the first half, and I wish we had a better map than the paper NPS one in my pocket. But, we made it, and the views and landscape were just nonstop amazing. I highly recommend this trail, and I think if I could do it, most reasonably active people can too. There was one area where my adult-onset fear of heights kicked in, but it was brief.

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The Needles – Chesler Park Viewpoint
This was my favorite hike of our whole trip. The drive to the Needles Visitor Center, which is one of the three “districts” of Canyonlands National Park, was about 90 minutes, but I highly recommend it if you have the time. This part of Canyonlands was much less busy, and the landscape somehow looked both similar to what we had seen in Arches but also completely different. This trail wound along rock ledges and open areas with views of “the needles,” spires of sandstone, all around. We chose this 5.8 mile out and back for time, but this trail also links up to a longer 10.5 mile loop. Overall it took us around 3.5 hours with our stops for lunch and all of our oooh-ing and aaah-ing. There was a short but steep upwards climb to start and to end at the viewpoint, but overall I’d classify this trail as moderate. Be prepared for rapid weather changes – it was a beautiful, sunny day, but then suddenly was snowing, then hailing. All fun, though!


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Islands in the Sky – Grandview Point at sunset
For our last evening, we drove 35 minutes from Moab over the the Islands in the Sky district of Canyonlands. This area is mostly up on a mesa with amazing views all around of the surrounding canyons and La Sal mountains. The Grandview Point area is what you might imagine, and the two mile out and back trail along a gorgeous ridge was a beautiful spot to end our time and watch the sunset. Over on this side of the park there is also an opportunity to stop at Mesa Arch, which also has amazing views. 

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This whole trip was 10/10 for me, highly recommend coming to this area, whether you are an avid outdoors person or just like to stop for views. We can’t wait for our next visit to Utah, possibly to Zion, and this is entirely within reach because of points and miles.