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In what seems like an annual tradition, I plan a trip with family in California every summer. We typically stay at one of my favorite Hyatt hotels and spend a couple of nights in another city within a couple hours of San Francisco.

Last year, we explored Monterrey, California. This year it was Wine Country.

How I Booked: A California Adventure

Flights

There wasn’t a ton of flights on this trip. It was a simple round-trip from Columbus to San Francisco. I don’t normally like to use points for domestic US flights. I typically don’t see good value for those flights. If that’s how you want to use your points, then by all means do!

Flights were cheap when we booked. We used $300 a person to book Columbus to Dallas to San Francisco. The return was San Francisco to Phoenix to Columbus. All flights were on American Airlines and in economy. I put these purchases on my Chase Sapphire Reserve for the 3X points. Most importantly, I value the travel insurance protections the card offered for delayed or cancelled flights.

Delays happened on every single one of these flights. We were delayed leaving Columbus due to a faulty bag counter on the plane. Basically, the airline had no idea how many bags were on the plane and needed to hand count all the bags. This was about an hour delay.

Then from DFW-SFO the A/C went out on the plane. The plane had to be taken out of service and a new one found. This delay was about three hours. We checked one bag. It took over an hour to get that one bag.

Leaving San Francisco, our flight to Phoenix was delayed two hours. This would have made us possibly miss our connecting flight home. We preferred to arrive the same day since we had a birthday party the next day. We ended up changing to another flight to Dallas while we were eating breakfast. We landed in Columbus about thirty minutes after our originally scheduled flight.

These flights were all on your normal AA planes. Nothing special about them. I won’t be reviewing these flights.

Hotels

I stayed at a couple different hotels on this trip. Some were better than others.

Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country

The first was the Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country. This hotel gets mixed reviews. I cannot recommend this hotel. We wanted to stay at the Andaz Napa, but there weren’t any points nights available.

First, all the public spaces were dirty. Cigarette butts, trash, and empty beer bottles were found in the same places for the entire two nights of my stay. It’s like the exterior of the hotel was never cleaned.

Second, staff was rude. The morning of our arrival, I was able to secure a room upgrade due to my Hyatt Globalist status. This took us from a standard room to a suite. I communicated with staff throughout our delays to ensure our room wasn’t given away. When we finally arrived just before 10PM, our room was in fact given away. It is not so much that we didn’t get the suite upgrade, but it was more the way staff spoke. She was downright rude. I was able to get into a suite the next night by asking the front desk manager the next morning. When we checked out, there was a different front desk agent who was also rude.

The one shining part about this hotel was the breakfast staff. There was only two people working. One chef and one waitress. The waitress was absolutely amazing. While breakfast was a buffet, but she constantly dealing with everyone coming in and out looking for food. Our coffee cups were never empty.

We used cash to book this hotel and split the cost. It priced just under $300. This is a World of Hyatt Category 4 hotel. You can use a Category 1 – 4 free night award that you get with the Chase World of Hyatt credit card. If using points, it’s reasonable.

Alila Ventana Big Sur

Alila Ventana Big Sur is one of my favorite Hyatt hotels. It is a luxury all-inclusive located in the Big Sur area of California. My first stay was in May 2021. With my second stay, the hotel gets better.

Food is great. Staff goes out of their way to make a stay special. It is pricy though. Cash nights started at $1,200 a night. Luckily, I was able to find four nights using points.

I didn’t actually use this many points for my stay. I booked at 30,000 World of Hyatt points per night prior to a devaluation. We booked this hotel about 10 months prior to arriving.

Grand Hyatt at SFO

Like Ventana, this was my second stay at the Grand Hyatt at SFO. The first time the hotel wasn’t completely open. This time the hotel was busy and most of the amenities were open.  

One of the biggest benefits of this hotel is connected to San Francisco Airport. You can easily access the airport via the AirTran. The hotel is great. Staff was wonderful and welcoming. It’s the perfect hotel for an overnight connection or an early morning flight.

This was another hotel we used cash at. It was $300 a night which we split. If you wanted to use points, it would be an okay use of points.

How I Booked: A California Adventure Bottom Line

The flights on this trip were nothing special. That’s okay. This trip was about the experience. The family member I was traveling with previously lived in the San Francisco area. It was awesome to see some of her favorite places from years ago. The highlight was Ventana. It was such a great experience.

While I don’t plan on reviewing the flights, I do plan on reviewing all the hotels. Be on the lookout for those reviews!

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These opinions in this article are the author’s not those of a bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.