One of the highlights of European travel is the chance to stay in a historic building. All of the major hotel brands have properties that are located in restored convents, monasteries, palaces, etc, and there are a lot of possibilities outside of the chains.
The Paradores are hotels that are owned and run by the Spanish government and are located in historic buildings. If you believe that having the full weight of the Spanish crown behind a hotel brand creates some opportunities for amazing properties, you are correct.
I like to travel in places that my points and miles won't take me. If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve, you can use Ultimate rewards at a value of 1.5 cents per point to pay for anything that is bookable through the Chase Travel portal.
The Spanish Paradores are a good example.
The Paradores were founded by the Spanish King Alfonso XIII in order to promote tourism in Spain and also to use historic heritage buildings. There are now ninety-seven Paradors in the country and the first one opened in vila in 1928. Hotels are located in palaces, forts, monasteries, and castles, and are still state-owned.
Many of the Paradores are located in beautiful buildings, but they are also located in wonderful locations like hilltops and cliff-edges, which are usually in or near the center of historic districts. Most of the time, they have excellent restaurants that are meant to highlight the regional cuisine of the province they are in.
While we were in Spain last month, I wanted to take my wife to a Parador, but I ended up staying in Arcos de la Frontera, a white town in the south of the country. Most Paradores have a reasonable cash cost. Breakfast for two was just over $150 a night. I try not to use cash for travel and this is where Ultimate rewards comes in. It's 10,131 Ultimate rewards points.
Nick will point out that it doesn't mean that you're getting 1.5cpp in value when you redeem Ultimate rewards at 1.5cpp. In the US, you will often find that properties in the portal are more expensive than using an online travel agency or booking directly. When you redeem your points for hotels, you end up paying a higher price than you need, which makes the actual value of those points less than the redeemed value.
It is not uncommon to see the price in the portal almost mirror the book direct price. The prices on the Paradores website seem to be more or less the same as they are on the Chase Travel portal.
The Chase Portal had all of the available room types, including the superior room that has a cliff-edge balcony. Booking just lodging, lodging + breakfast or lodging + breakast/dinner is the same option for all Paradores. The price of the room with full breakfast was 10,131UR, an almost exact 1.5 cent per point value compared to the cash price.
The castle is located in Jaén and is just north of the city of Granada. The Parador has rooms that overlook the mountains. We couldn't fit it into our itinerary so I wanted to stay here. The price of Parador de Jaén is different between the website and the portal.
The Paradores site is a good place to start.
Paradores are often more expensive on weekends because of domestic tourism, so I picked a random Wednesday night at the end of June. The cost for bed and breakfast for 2 in a standard room is €160.00, or $171.50 at current exchange rates. Now, let’s go to the UR Portal. First, I’ll open up the hotel booking engine by selecting hotels in the landing page sidebar:
The Parador de Jaén was one of the results that came up after I entered the province name.
I found the same options as I did on the Parador site, and a cash price 50 cents more than the best available rate from the hotel. I can redeem a total of 11,432 Ultimate rewards points. It's a balcony room. There is a castle.
I'metic-ing again by cashing out Ultimate rewards instead of transferring to partners. Think about it with me. It is possible that every Parador in Spain became bookable via Hyatt. I could book the same room in the same castle using 8,000-11,000 Hyatt points. Everyone would be talking about transferring their UltimateRewards to Hyatt to take advantage of what would appear to be a steal on a set of properties.
This is no different.
I am a big fan of people using points and miles to travel the way they want, even if it isn't the "best" redemption. It would be a shame to miss out on the Paradores experience because they aren't an official transfer partner of the convertible currency.
If you are going to Europe, make sure to check out the Paradores. You should not sleep on the Chase portal if you want to stay at great independent properties and keep cash in your pocket. In places that aren't served by the usual chains, there's a lot of impressive hotels that can be booked. A lot of magic for a small amount of points.
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