July 4th Weekend Trip: Maine and Acadia National Park with Miles and Points
Over July 4th weekend, we decided to take a 5 day trip to Maine and visit Acadia National Park. My trips lately have tended to focus on the more exotic destinations such as Europe, Brazil, Asia and the Caribbean. But I did hear Acadia National Park and the Maine coast are beautiful and it would be nice to take a more low-key relaxed vacation and enjoy some nice scenery in the great Northeast outdoors.
Planning the trip presented a few challenges I had to tackle. The first is that Maine doesn’t have an abundance of travel options nor does it have many options for hotels with points. The other challenge was that I only started seriously working on the vacation plan less than two weeks before going. By then, some of the low-priced hotels were sold out. Given we wanted to visit a few locations and explore, having a car with us for the trip was definitely necessary. Then again, a 9.5 hour drive from New York during one of the busiest summer travel weekends is not exactly our idea of a leisurely getaway. We decided to take the train up to Maine, rent a car for a few days, stay in a few different cities, including a few nights in Acadia, and then fly back.
With a slightly complex plan, the key here was not having many points, but having the right points for the trip. July 4th is a big travel weekend for Northeast weekend trips and travel and accommodations for Maine do not yield a ton of options. Fortunately, with a good use of Barclaycard Arrival miles, Citi ThankYou points, a small stash of Ultimate Rewards points and some Hilton HHonors points, we were able to plan a trip for under $200 total out of pocket that would have otherwise cost $1700.
Costs Summary
| Activity | What It Costs | What We Paid |
|---|---|---|
| Train from New York to Boston connecting to bus to Portland, Maine | $150 * 2 | 4,000 Ultimate Rewards Points * 2 |
| Car rental from Portland, Maine for 4 days | $181 | $181 |
| Flight from Portland, Maine to NYC on JetBlue | $190 * 2 | 28,500 Citi ThankYou points |
| 1 night Embassy Suites Portland Maine | $259 | 50,000 Hilton HHonors points including breakfast |
| 2 nights Holiday Inn Bar Harbor Regency (Acadia National Park) | $235 a night | 47,000 Barclaycard Arrival miles |
| 1 night Holiday Inn in Bangor, Maine | $119 a night | 5,000 IHG Rewards Club points |
In terms of taking care of the cost, the most useful points were Barclaycard Arrival miles covering $470 in hotel costs for Acadia National Park. Being a fairly small and uncompetitive destination, there aren’t many accommodations in Acadia National Park nor are there many chain hotels where I can use points. For example, Hilton, Marriott, Starwood and Hyatt do not have any properties there. My new Citi ThankYou points also came in handy paying for the flights back to New York as did Ultimate Rewards points for the train to Portland.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Acadia National Park is located on the eastern side of Maine stretching into the ocean. It’s about a 5 hour drive from Boston, a 9.5 hour drive from New York or a 3 hour drive from Portland, Maine. Portland, Maine is a relatively small city with nice waterfront scenery and where we decided to start our trip. After considering the options, we settled on train to Portland, car rental to tour the Maine coast and then a flight back from Portland to New York.
Train
By far, the cheapest way to travel up and down the Northeast is to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak Guest Rewards. Any Northeast route (except the Acela routes, which have their own pricing and cost 8,000 points) will only cost 4,000 points each way in economy. This includes connections. Without points, our tickets to Portland would cost $150 each way, but using 4,000 Ultimate Rewards points per ticket is probably cheaper than gas at this point. We chose the train going there leaving Thursday morning and arriving in Portland in the afternoon, just in time for dinner and July 4th festivities. When starting a 5 day vacation, we’re in no rush to get anywhere and a train is even welcome over an early morning flight.
Car Rental
There are so many car rental options, it’s hard to know which one is the best. Both FrequentMiler and MillionMileSecrets each investigated and compared the cost and convenience of different car rental options. After their respective investigations, their data consistently seemed to support that going through Ultimate Rewards typically gives the lowest and most hassle-free rate for car rentals. I went to the travel options through Ultimate Rewards and received a car rental rate through Hertz for $181.00 or 18,100 Ultimate Rewards points. I took the option to pay $181. While I could have used points for the rental, I believe redeeming Ultimate Rewards points at just 1 cent each would be highly suboptimal considering they can be transferred to United Airlines, British Airlines or Hyatt for much better value.
Flight
For the return, we decided we’d drive back to Portland and take a flight home on Monday afternoon. I found some decently priced direct flights to New York on JetBlue and was able to use Citi ThankYou points to book them. These are fairly easy to earn as the Citi ThankYou card I have earns 5 points per dollar at drugstores, supermarket and gas stations and each point is worth 1.33 cents towards airfare through the Citi ThankYou Travel Center. A train again would have been technically cheaper in terms of points, but the psychology of vacations makes people anxious to get home faster after several days away. Plus, on our last day, we really want to optimize our time and would rather spend an extra few hours strolling along the waterfront in Portland rather than repeating a train ride we would take a few days earlier.
Where We’re Staying: The Hotels
Portland, Maine
Hilton and Marriott actually both have a few nice properties on the waterfront in Portland, but by the time I started planning my trip, they were all sold out for July 4. We ended up going with Embassy Suites in Portland, Maine closer to the airport, just a few miles from the city. This would actually be quite convenient anyway as we’d have to pick up our rental car at the airport once we got into Portland. Embassy Suites is a new hotel and #2 on TripAdvisor.
As a Hilton HHonors Gold member, we get free breakfast included with our stay. Because I burned all my Hilton points for stays at Conrad Singapore, Conrad Tokyo and Conrad Koh Samui in December before the Hilton HHonors devaluation, I didn’t have many left. I could have transferred points from Virgin Atlantic at 2 Hilton points for every Virgin Atlantic point, but given my last minute planning, I wasn’t sure they’d make it to my Hilton account in time. I still have 3 Hilton rewards night certificates from the Hilton HHonors Reserve card, but I’d rather save those for more high-end properties. I knew my good friend Jeff had lots of Hilton HHonors points and I also knew he was collecting Starwood points for a weeklong trip at Westin Grand Cayman so I traded with him.
Acadia National Park
My new Barclaycard Arrival points saved me from a potentially expensive stay in Acadia National Park. These points are almost completely unrestricted and can be used for any travel expensive you pay for with your Barclaycard World MasterCard. Bar Harbor doesn’t have a ton of hotels and I could not find any where I could even use other points at a decent rate. The Holiday Inn Bar Harbor is right on the ocean and costs $229 a night or 35,000 IHG Rewards Club points, of which I have very few. IHG Rewards Club points can be bought at 0.7 cents each, but then the hotel would cost $245 a night. Either way, this is exactly why I got the Barclaycard Arrival card. For those times when I can’t use points or miles, Barclaycard Arrival miles will just cover my travel expense. When I got the card in April, I wrote a full review of the Barclaycard Arrival and how I plan to use it. I have a feeling it will continue to be very useful to me in my travels.
Last night: Bangor, Maine
I got very lucky with the hotel in Bangor, Maine. The Holiday Inn there came up on the IHG Rewards Club Point Breaks list and the hotel was bookable for just 5,000 IHG Rewards club points a night. These 5,000 points can be bought for just $35 using the Cash and Points trick. Our plan was to fly back to NYC on July 8 from Portland. Portland is about a 3.5 hour drive from Acadia National Park. Staying in Bangor rather than Acadia the last night allowed us to break up the drive, take advantage of a great hotel deal and spend a bit more time in Portland along the waterfront before our flight.
Check out the rest of my trip report series as I write about various parts of the trip:
- July 4th Weekend Trip: Maine and Acadia National Park with Miles and Points
- Portland, Maine and Embassy Suites Portland Airport
- Adventures in Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor
- Holiday Inn Bar Harbor Regency Resort at Acadia National Park
As you are reading this, I am in Maine enjoying my vacation. Expect a full trip report when I return. What did everyone else do for the holiday?
Looks like a great trip, I’ve tried to get there several times but gave up due to the lack of obvious flights – this looks like a great way to work around that, will have to get up and visit there soon!
And you’ll also have the additional benefit of my hindsight for how it could have been improved! :) But it really is beautiful up here and I certainly recommend it.
Awesome write up and Im glad the HH worked out for you!
Being from Boston we have thought of going up there for years. I was there once long ago with friends but wanted to go back with family so this trip report has rekindled thoughts of doing same! Thanks for writing–looks like I’ll need to get that Barclays A card now!
Great choice for a vacation!
we are currently at Acadia , it’s a great park