My Winter Trip to Asia and Hawaii: A $3250 Stay at Le Meridien Phuket with Points

In December, I took a two week trip away from the cold! I started in New York and stopped in Hawaii for a week en route to Asia, breaking my time between two islands: Maui and Kauai. After Hawaii, it was off for a quick stop in Singapore, 5 days in Phuket and two days in Tokyo. This was my first ever trip to Asia and we had a great time! I flew Business Class most of the way, stayed at the top notch hotels Andaz Maui Wailea, Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort and the Conrad Tokyo.

Trip Report Index

• Planning with Miles and Points

• The Andaz Maui at Wailea

• Restaurants at the Andaz Maui at Wailea

• Maui’s Haleakala, Ho’okipa and the Road to Hana

• The Grand Hyatt Kauai

• Wamea Canyon, Wailua River and Na Pali Coast in Kauai

• A Day in Singapore

• Redeeming Barclaycard Arrival Miles To Fly Singapore to Phuket

• A $3250 Stay at Le Meridien Phuket with Points

From Singapore, our next stop was Phuket for a relaxing five night vacation on the beach. We stayed at Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort, an impressive resort on a completely private beach in Phuket. It had everything we needed right on site – beach, drinks, plenty of restaurants, pool. We were glad to have it as our base for our first visit to Southeast Asia. Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort turned out to be one of the finest resorts in the area with room prices to match. The per night cost was $650 a night and spending five nights there would bring the bill to $3250!

How We Paid for Our Stay

Of course, $3250 for a five night vacation is well out of our price range for what we’d like to spend while traveling. However, we got a truly amazing deal by using Starwood Preferred Guest points as this particular property offers great value. As Le Meridien Phuket is a Category 4 Starwood hotel, the cost in points is 10,000 points a night. In addition, using Starwood points has an extra perk where you receive a fifth night free when using points for award stays. This means that our $3250 five night hotel stay in Phuket only cost us 40,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. As we had three people, we did have to pay a surcharge of $100 per night for the additional guest, but that included breakfast buffet and a third bed so we were fine with that.

Earning 40,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points was pretty easy. The  Star­wood Pre­ferred Guest® Credit Card from Amer­i­can Express comes with a 25,000 point sign-up bonus after meeting the minimum spending requirement. I’ve had the personal card for 10 years at this point so I am always earning and collecting those points – and saving them for deals like this one!

I haven’t traveled around southeast Asia much, but I’d have to say, Starwood points seem particularly valuable there. Though there are many options for relatively inexpensive accommodations, the high end ones are still very pricey especially at the end of December when we went.

The Rooms

After we checked in, we were taken to our room. We were upgraded to an ocean view room over the pool. As we had three people, an extra bed was placed in the room for us and we still had plenty of space. Our room had a small balcony, from which we could see the beach and the ocean at once. It was a nice little place to sit and enjoy the night air.

The Beach

The beach, of course, is the main attraction on a relaxing vacation and that’s where we headed immediately.  The hotel has a completely private beach only accessible to hotel guests. It’s perfect for all day lounging with coconut drink in hand. One thing to mention is that, although the hotel was extremely busy the last few days of December, the beach area never felt crowded. There is truly plenty of space there.

As I mentioned, the beach is definitely perfect for lounging around. It’s a very “relaxing vacation” beach rather than a “party” beach. There are more beaches in Patong, about a 20 minute drive, that are more crowded and have more of a rowdy atmosphere. That’s not what we were looking for however so we were happy to sit on our beach and enjoy the calm waters.

The other exciting part is a baby elephant that will come out a few times a day and walk around on the beach. Definitely a very “Thailand feel” experience!

And, of course, no beach vacation is complete without a sunset or two…

The Pools

We’re more beach people so didn’t spend too much time by the pools themselves. Most hotel guests were actually out by the beach so anyone who wanted to venture over to the pool pretty much had it to himself.

Restaurants

Le Meridien featured a very nice breakfast buffet that we had every morning with a table by the pool.

The resort has a number of on-site restaurants offering different types of food from parts of Asia. We are big fans of Thai food so definitely enjoyed our meals, which were extremely reasonably priced by Western standards. There was also a pricier nightly theme buffet with performance option that we actually never ended up going to. We also liked that most of the restaurants had outdoor (as well as an indoor option) seating so we could enjoy the sunset or view by the pool as we dined.

Summary

• We had an amazing relaxing vacation in Thailand and Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort had everything we needed – a private beach, pools, sunsets and great food.
• As we visited at the end of December and it was high tourist season, nightly rates were $650 a night for the hotel.
• We were able to pay for the entire $3250 stay with 40,000 Starwood points getting the fifth night free that we earned through the Star­wood Pre­ferred Guest® Credit Card from Amer­i­can Express.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do receive a commission for some approved credit card applications through the site. I always include the best offer I can find regardless of commission. As always, thank you very much for your support!)