Celebrating New Year’s Eve in Times Square usually means freezing your backside off and not being able to use a bathroom for 7+ hours. Shae and I were incredibly fortunate to have an altogether much more amazing experience in Times Square for New Year’s Eve 2023/24, enjoying a four course dinner, open bar, champagne toast, DJ, other entertainment and more.
Even better, it didn’t cost us any money as we were able to use airline miles to do this!
Here’s more about this fantastic time at Charlie Palmer Steak we booked through United Card Events.
Quick Rewind To 2006
At the end of 2006, Shae and I flew from the UK (where we lived at the time) to New York to ring in the New Year in Times Square with friends. Back then we had very little money, so we’d bought cheap economy flights and stayed in a hostel with our friends.
We’d done a little research ahead of time and learned that if you want to see the ball drop, you have to show up at some point in the afternoon and enter a pen; the earlier you arrive, the closer you’ll be to the ball drop.
The thing is, once you’ve entered a pen, you can’t leave and reenter. There are no restrooms in the pen, so we stopped eating and drinking at 2pm and arrived at about 5pm. (Side note: some people apparently wear adult diapers (nappies for fellow Brits) to handle the lack of restrooms.) While we weren’t very close, we could see the ball in the distance and waited patiently for midnight to arrive.
It was a very long 7 hours, but even longer for me! I’d gotten sick in the day or two leading up to New Year’s Eve, so standing outside in the freezing cold for so long was even less enjoyable. I ended up making it to about 11pm and simply couldn’t take it anymore. I therefore bailed and headed back to our hostel to shiver under my blanket while Shae and the rest of our friends stuck around until a few minutes after midnight and then headed back.
We used to have some photos from New Year’s Eve, but that was in the early days of smartphones and so the photo below is all I could find from that 2007/08 trip on Facebook.
Booking Our New Year’s Eve Party Through United Card Events
Shae and I had discussed visiting New York City for Thanksgiving or New Year’s Eve this past year, but ultimately decided against it for various reasons. That’s until I received an email from United Airlines.
I have a United credit card which has no annual fee. I rarely use it, but it’s handy to keep around as it gives me access to improved flight award availability. In November I received an email from United Card Events with the subject line “You’re invited to an exclusive New Year’s party in NYC”. These types of opportunities from airline and hotel loyalty programs are usually auctions using your points that end up requiring that you redeem an absurd number of points or miles, but I opened the email anyway just to check.
I’m glad I did!
It turned out that rather than being an auction, it was an event at Charlie Palmer Steak in Times Square which was available on a first-come, first-served basis for which you paid a fixed number of miles. There were two redemption options – a Gold ticket for just the party itself, with the other being a Platinum ticket which included a four course dinner with wine pairing beforehand.
Here’s what the packages included and their costs when redeeming United MileagePlus miles:
The Gold ticket experience seemed great as it included a champagne toast, hors d’oeuvres, an open bar and even more for only 15,000 miles per person. For only 10,000 additional miles though, we could also include a four course dinner with wine pairing.
25,000 miles could potentially save you a decent amount of money on flights, but this was the type of experience that we’d never pay cash for as it would be prohibitively expensive. I figured Shae would be up for doing this, but I double checked with her (she said yes), so I immediately booked two tickets for the event.
Shae’s mom and stepdad were due to be joining us in Cape May, NJ for Christmas and we knew they love New York City too. Although they were due to head back home to Virginia on December 28, we figured they might want to stick around in New Jersey for an extra few days, so we gave them a call to see if they were interested. They were, so I quickly jumped back online to book an additional couple of tickets before they sold out and was pleased that it was still possible.
Where We Stayed In New York City For New Year’s Eve
That meant the four of us needed somewhere to stay in New York City for the night which also needed to be pet-friendly as we’d have Truffles with us. As you might expect, hotel room rates in NYC for NYE don’t come cheap, but this didn’t cost us any cash either.
That’s because we were able to book a stay at the Thompson Gild Hall in lower Manhattan using World of Hyatt points. I have Globalist status with Hyatt and had a suite upgrade award due to expire a couple of months later, so I booked a standard room for 23,000 points and upgraded to a one bedroom suite using that suite upgrade award.
We gave Shae’s mom and stepdad the bedroom, while we slept on the sofa bed in the living room. It was the most spacious and comfortable sofa bed I’ve ever slept on, so we got a great night’s sleep (the open bar at the New Year’s Eve party probably helped with that too!) I wrote a review of our stay over on Frequent Miler, so you can read a review of that here.
Getting To Times Square On New Year’s Eve
United Card Events did a great job with communication ahead of the event. In addition to finding out if we wanted a vegetarian or pescatarian (fish) option instead of meat, they also shared some important information about actually getting to the event.
Due to security in Times Square on December 31, if you want to gain access to hotels or restaurants in blockaded areas you need a printed document showing why you need to be able to get through. They also shared the following details:
The only point of entry for this event will be via the corner of 42nd Street and 6th Avenue. Guests will not be allowed to cross Broadway and 7th Avenue once the streets have closed.
A representative from Charlie Palmer will be waiting on the corner holding a United MileagePlus Visa Cardmember directional sign and will guide you to the restaurant. Each individual guest must show their printed access pass to security to enter.
The closest subway station to Thompson Gild Hall in lower Manhattan had a straight shot to Times Square, but we took a slightly different route as this would’ve put us at 7th Avenue which would be blocked off. When getting to where we through we needed to cross, we were told that by the police officers there that we needed to go up to 45th St. We did that and waited in line to get through, only to be told we couldn’t enter there unless our hotel or restaurant was on 45th St. They therefore directed us down to 39th St, so we trucked it back in that direction, but found that we could cross the street at 41st St.
At this point we could see Charlie Palmer Steak off to the left and the NYPD officers let us through when showing them our restaurant pass. The email from United Card Events had mentioned there being a representative standing on the corner, but we hadn’t seen them and so we just headed into the restaurant.
As we arrived, we couldn’t believe how close we were to the ball drop – it was atop a building only half a block away. We’d assumed they’d show the ball drop on a TV screen inside as the emails about the event hadn’t mentioned anything different.
It turned out that it would be so much better than that though. When checking in, they let us know that about 10 minutes before midnight everyone heads into the street outside to watch the ball drop. Seeing as the street is blocked off, we wouldn’t be having to push our way through the masses – the only other people around would be those staying at hotels on that street or at similar events at other restaurants on that block. Discovering this was incredible and meant we enjoyed the night even more knowing that we’d get the full ball drop experience when we hadn’t expected that to be the case.
Four Course Dinner With Wine Pairing At Charlie Palmer Steak
The four of us had redeemed 25,000 United miles per person to also include a four course dinner with wine pairing beforehand. As it turns out, it was a five course meal as it was four courses plus dessert.
There were about 10 tables (I didn’t count) seating up to 8 people per table.
Shae and I plus her mom and stepdad were all at the same table, joined by two other couples – one from Massachusetts and one from New Jersey.
The menus listing what we’d be eating whetted our appetites.
Things kicked off with the servers offering a glass of champagne.
The head of United credit cards – Bob Daly – welcomed us and then handed us over to Charlie Palmer – the restauranteur behind Charlie Palmer Steak. He let us know some details about our first course and the first paired wine…
…and then we got to tuck in. The first course was hamachi crudo which is raw yellowtail. It was served with Marcona almonds, finger limes and shaved fennel and was absolutely delicious. In fact, I think this might’ve been my favorite dish of the night – I could’ve happily eaten an entire bowl of this.
Neither Shae nor I are typically fans of white wine – we both prefer reds. That said, the sauvignon blanc that was served with it was lovely.
The second course was seared diver scallop which was served with savoy cabbage, caviar and beurre rouge, accompanied by a glass of 2018 Petite Arvine – another tasty white.
The third course was lobster ravioli, served with white truffle, lobster bisque and ricotta. The wine paired with this was a 2021 pinot noir.
That was followed up by my second favorite dish of the night – prime beef filet mignon and braised short rib, served with bone marrow crust, sauce Périgord and celery root. The filet mignon in particular was ridiculously tender, while the 2015 cabernet sauvignon was probably my favorite wine of the night (although the pinot noir was a close second).
As if all that food wasn’t enough, it was followed with a slice of chocolate hazelnut cake. This was surprisingly light and so it was a great way to end the meal.
The meal overall was excellent. Each dish was delicious, the wines were excellent and the service was fantastic too. That was just the start of the fun though – there was lots more enjoyment to come.
Hors D’oeuvres & Open Bar
If you only wanted to redeem 15,000 United miles for the event rather than 25,000 miles, you could forgo the four course dinner and wine pairing. While I’d personally choose to do that meal again if attending for New Year’s Eve in a future year, if you preferred to redeem fewer miles you’ll still have plenty of food and drink available.
There were heavy hors d’oeuvres available which were great quality and there was lots of it available. The restaurant employees were consistently keeping it refilled throughout the night, so no one needed to be hungry.
Despite having such a filling meal, I did try some of the hors d’oeuvres later in the evening. Y’know, for research purposes 😉
Later on in the evening some small bite-size dessert options were brought out. There were multiple plates placed in various spots in the event space, so it’s not like everyone descended on one plate, clearing it out instantly.
One of the best features of the night though was the open bar. There were several bartenders, so the line to get a drink wasn’t bad, especially because people weren’t having to take time to pay for their drinks. The open bar wasn’t cheap drinks like Bud Light, house wine, etc. – proper cocktails, premium liquor, etc. were available for free.
New Year’s Eve Party
Throughout the night there was entertainment going on in the main event space (the four course meal was in a smaller ballroom off to the side). There was a DJ, juggler, dancing, photo booth and more.
There was even a Zoltar-style fortune teller machine, except the fortune teller was an actual person. She played the part perfectly – we had to watch for quite a while to tell if she was real of fake!
There were all kinds of New Year’s Eve party favors scattered around for people to wear, from hats to light-up glasses to light-up headbands and more.
With so many people dancing, it could get quite warm inside at times. Charlie Palmer Steak has an outdoor seating area you can escape to if you need to cool down a little.
The Countdown To Midnight
At about 11:45pm, some of the servers came around with trays of champagne flutes. If it was too cold outside for you, you could grab your coat from their coat check, but we just headed out in what we were wearing to watch the ball drop.
This was the best part of the night as it was completely unexpected. As I mentioned earlier, we’d wanted to attend this event at Charlie Palmer Steak as it seemed like a fantastic way to ring in the new year and enjoy the energy of being in New York without having to spend 7+ hours in the cold. Being able to step outside the restaurant just before midnight and have this be our view was wonderful.
It went from 11:45pm to 11:59pm very quickly, so we almost missed the fact that the ball started moving downwards on its countdown. We realized in time though and I was able to record the end of 2023 and the start of 2024.
Final Thoughts
What a way to ring in the New Year! Great food, great wine, great entertainment, great company and the opportunity to watch the iconic ball drop in Times Square.
Apparently United Card Events runs this event every year – one of the couples at our table had attended every year for the last few years. We’re planning on celebrating New Year’s Eve in Hawaii at the end of 2024 to mark the end of our 7 year, 50 state road trip, but Shae and I have both said to each other that we’d love to return to New York on December 31 in a future year in order to experience this again – it was that enjoyable.
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