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Even though getting to Colombia was relatively cheap and straightforward, the country also offers some amazing “travel hacking” opportunities besides the up-and-coming tourist highlights…

Hotel Night: Aloft Bogota Airport

At the beginning of the year, I wrote about the Starwood Preferred Guest Best Rate Guarantee policy. When I am travel hacking, I am definitely looking for BRGs with SPG. It was quite easy to find a ridiculously cheap rate for a weekend night. I didn’t really want to move far after arriving on a 11-hour fueled by copious amounts of Spanish wine…

Foreign visitors don’t pay taxes in Colombia when staying on a “package rate”, which is why many hotels in Colombia only offer breakfast-included rates. So, for $53, I received a hotel night, a stay credit for elite status qualification, as well as 2,400 Starpoints, which I value at £50 or so. I’m perfectly happy to receive a 100+% rebate for an actual required stay (not a mattress run) whilst picking up a stay credit.

 

Hotel Nights: Sheraton Bogota

After a single night at the Aloft, I hopped over to the nearby Sheraton for a two-night stay. Whilst not quite the most extreme travel hack (for that, I should have booked one night at the Sheraton and went back to the Aloft for my final night), I found a great BRG rate that was only valid for a 2-night stay.

But ultimately I didn’t want to bother with changing hotels, leaving me free to wander around Bogota’s city centre for a day. Unfortunately I had spent too much time looking for SPG Best Rate Guarantees, instead of researching that it is currently rainy season in Bogota, with downpours reminding me of Blighty…

My favourite thing about the Sheraton? The Club lounge had Hawaiian pizza for breakfast! (amongst the usual breakfast items) Cue the loss of respect from my readers…

And in an SPG Fail, I placed the “Make a Green Choice” sign on my door, in order to skip housekeeping and earn 500 bonus points. Housekeeping paid no attention and cleaned my room anyhow. But then when my stay didn’t post correctly SPG corporate added the 500 bonus points.

So I ended up earning nearly 3,500 points, which works out to about £70 of value (or a rebate of approximately 60%). And yet another SPG stay credit to keep me on track for the 25 stays I will need to renew Platinum status… and free pizza!

Domestic Flight: Bogota to Cartagena

When booking domestic flights within South America, you need to be aware of the fact that there are usually two prices: one for foreigners and one for locals. I’m only aware of Argentina sometimes being strict about ensuring that you have a local identity card when checking in for a domestic flight on a “locals fare”.

If you use ITA Matrix or an international Online Travel Agency such as Expedia, you will be shown the “foreigners fare” by default. But there’s nothing stopping you going to the airline’s website, changing your settings from the UK to Colombia (or wherever) and booking your flight that way…

As a result, my one way flight from Bogota to Cartagena cost me:

The only downside to booking my flight this way was that I didn’t earn any Avios or Tier Points due to the fare code. Perhaps I should have also checked Avianca Airlines to maybe earn a handful of miles from Lifemiles or another Star Alliance partner, but for £28 (including checked baggage and emergency exit row due to my status with BA) it doesn’t really matter…

Hotel Nights: Hyatt Regency Cartagena

Most of this travel hacking was done for one fundamental purpose – to get me to Cartagena to try out the new Hyatt Regency hotel, which opened in late 2016 reasonably near to the UNESCO-listed old city.

I am a massive fan of the Hyatt chain and having re-qualified for Diamond, now Globalist, I had four suite upgrade certificates waiting to be used.

Since this hotel is currently assigned to award category 2, I booked a two-week stay on a Points + Cash basis, paying 4,000 points + $55 per night. I called Hyatt to apply two of my Suite Upgrade certificates, and was duly confirmed into a 78 sq. m. suite. that would otherwise have cost about $300 per night.

I highly recommend this hotel and I can’t imagine that it will remain a Category 2 hotel for long. The Club lounge offers such amazingly tasty Colombian and international food during evening “happy hour” that I rarely ventured outside for food. Yet, because the hotel is quite new and still building up a loyal client base, I was often one of just a handful of guests using the lounge or the 3-level pool area.

Two weeks in the Caribbean in a suite at a Hyatt offering great lounge food – all for 4,000 points + $55 per night. Bliss…

And of course 14 elite qualifying nights will come in quite handy as I make my way towards to the 60 nights I will need to re-qualify as a Globalist for 2018. Unfortunately I wasn’t lucky enough to have Hyatt start their double-point promotion in March; although on a Points + Cash rate, I wouldn’t have earned all that many extra points anyhow.

Last Minute Travel Companion: Avianca Lifemiles : Barcelona to Bogota to Cartagena

What does a travel hacker do when the missus announces “hey, I’ve finished my work project, can I join you in Colombia?” Well, he looks at his Award Wallet account to decide which miles he has and then figures out which is the best for the flights required.

Luckily I had some Lifemiles, and Colombia’s Avianca airlines was the obvious choice for getting to Cartagena, Colombia with minimum aggravation (the way most people do it)…

35,000 miles in Economy for a one-way ticket is obviously more than the 32,000 Avios I spent for Iberia Business Class. (although I suppose a like-for-like comparison would include my positioning to Madrid and from Bogota to Cartagena – and the fact that I only had to pay $44 in taxes)

But beggars can’t be choosers when deciding to take an intercontinental flight on two days advance notice. The flight from Barcelona to Bogota was on a brand-new 787 plane, which she really enjoyed trying out…

 

Alas, eventually it was time to return to Europe and naturally I had some more travel hacking to do…