When putting together our stats for February 2021, I mentioned that I had no clue how we’d do budget-wise in March as it would depend on how much we’d be spending on accommodation.
At that point we didn’t have anything booked for much of the month of March. If we ended up booking paid stays, we’d likely go over budget. If we booked a lot of stays using hotel points, we’d likely stay well under budget.
In the end, we spent most of March in hotels using points and free night certificates. Did this mean we did indeed end up staying under budget, or did we somehow overspend so much that we ended the month over budget? Read on to find out that along with all our other stats for last month.
Miles Driven
March began with 152,951 miles on the clock of our Toyota Corolla, while by the end of the month the odometer said we were at 154,859 miles. That means we drove 1,908 miles in March.
I’d predicted that we’d drive anything from 850-1,050 miles last month, so I was way off with that prediction. Shae and I made quite a few day trips further afield in March, so all that mileage added up to far more than I was anticipating.
Looking ahead to our total mileage in April, I think we’re going to be racking up the miles on our car. We’re taking a couple of longer day trips before leaving New Mexico next week and we’ll then be spending the rest of the month in Arizona. With all the driving around we’ll be doing, I can picture us driving 2,750 miles or more.
Money Spent
If you’re new to our monthly stats, we’re doing our 50 state road trip on a budget of $100 per day. That has to cover accommodation, gas, activities, pet fees, food and drink, etc. With 31 days in March, that means our budget for last month was $3,100.
By the end of the month we’d spent $2,532.02 which means we were $567.98 under budget which is a fantastic result. The main reason our overall spending was so low is because 24 of the 31 days of the month were spent in hotels we paid for using points or free night certificates. As a result, we only spent $377.02 on accommodation and another $150 for hotel pet fees.
We didn’t end up under budget as much as I would’ve expected though considering how low our accommodation spending was. Part of that is due to how much we spent on food and drink – between grocery spend and eating out we spent almost $1,000.
Truffles also took up a reasonable part of our budget. In addition to the $150 for hotel pet fees, we spent almost $150 on her due to food and grooming.
Here’s a chart which provides a breakdown of our spending in different categories…
…while here’s a chart showing our spend for the year so far.
Looking ahead to our April 2021 spending, it’ll be touch and go as to whether or not we stay under budget. Our accommodation costs and pet fees are due to be around $1,250 which is about 40% of our budget for next month. Provided we don’t eat out a ton, we’ll hopefully stay close to our budget.
Accommodation Cost
We stayed in four different places in March – here’s a breakdown of what they all cost.
March 1-8: Airbnb in Los Alamos, NM. We stayed a total of two weeks there, with the first week being included on our February stats. It cost $61.56 per night including fees, although we paid for it with discounted Airbnb gift cards which reduced its cost to $53.86 per night.
March 8-20: TownePlace Suites Albuquerque Airport, NM (here’s our review). This was booked using points and was cheaper than normal as it was on Marriott’s PointSaver list when we booked it.
Marriott also offers every 5th night free when booking award stays, so with our reservation lasting 12 nights that means both the 5th and 10th nights were free. As a result, the total came to 83,000 Marriott Bonvoy points for the entire stay, or an average of 6,916.67 points per night.
March 20-27: TownePlace Suites Carlsbad, NM (here’s our review). The cash price for this hotel was very high, so we used some of our Marriott free night certificates to pay for all seven nights. Our cost was therefore, in theory, free. However, the certificates were received from our Marriott credit cards which have annual fees of something like $89-$120 (the fees vary based on the different types of Marriott cards we have).
That means the hotel effectively cost about $100 per night (cash rates were double that), with those annual fees accounted for on past monthly budget blog posts.
March 27-31: Hampton Inn Deming, NM (here’s our review). This stay was paid for using points and cost a very reasonable 10,000 points per night. Similar to Marriott, Hilton offers every 5th night free on award stays, although with Hilton you need at least Silver status to take advantage of that benefit (you can get Silver status with their no annual fee credit card).
That means the five nights spent at this hotel at the end of March cost 40,000 points or an average of 8,000 points per night.
Hotel Points Earned
Shae and I earned a reasonable number of points in March. 40,000 of the Hilton Honors points we earned came from two credit card referrals of 20,000 points each, while 13,000 of the World of Hyatt points were transferred in from one of Shae’s accounts which earns Chase Ultimate Rewards.
Here’s a breakdown of what we earned:
- IHG Rewards – 25
- Hilton Honors – 41,425
- Marriott Bonvoy – 5,544
- World of Hyatt – 23,220
- Radisson Rewards – 0
- Choice Privileges – 0
- Wyndham Rewards – 0
- Hotels.com Rewards Credits – 0
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 258
- Capital One – 1,602
Hotel Points Redeemed
We redeemed a ton of points in March; some were for stays last month with a large chunk being for stays not only in April and May but October too. The October stay is for the International Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque and so we wanted to book that now as hotels will likely sell out soon.
Here’s a list of all the points we redeemed in March:
- IHG Rewards – 45,000
- Hilton Honors – 80,000
- Marriott Bonvoy – 83,000
- World of Hyatt – 190,000
- Radisson Rewards – 247,500
- Choice Privileges – 0
- Wyndham Rewards – 0
- Hotels.com Rewards Credits – 0
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 13,000
- Capital One – 0
Total Hotel Points Balances
Although we earned a reasonable number of points last month, we redeemed far more points for future stays. That means we ended March with much lower points balances, although we still have a healthy total overall.
- IHG Rewards – 431,494
- Hilton Honors – 758,494
- Marriott Bonvoy – 647,969
- World of Hyatt – 11,922
- Radisson Rewards – 30,342
- Choice Privileges – 38,645
- Wyndham Rewards – 120,577
- Hotels.com Rewards Credits – 10
- Chase Ultimate Rewards – 507,852
- Capital One – 73,322
Here’s all of that information in a table in case that makes it easier for you to digest the numbers:
Hotel Free Night Certificates
We’ve had a couple of changes in our total number of hotel free night certificates from last month. One of our IHG cards renewed and so we have an extra certificate for them, while we redeemed a week’s worth of Marriott certificates for that stay in Carlsbad, NM.
- IHG (up to 40,000 points per night) – 5
- Hilton (any property worldwide) – 3
- Marriott (up to 35,000 points per night) – 2
- Marriott (up to 40,000 points per night) – 2
- Hyatt (category 1-4) – 4
- Hyatt (category 1-7) – 2
Walking
I got a lot more exercise in March than at any point in the past year as I went on several 6-10 mile hikes, along with several other shorter hikes and long walks.
I don’t have a Fitbit and so didn’t track all of my activity in that way, but I think it’s safe to say that I walked at least two miles per day on average which is what I’d been aiming for.
Blog Stats
Our blog stats in terms of page views were better in March compared to February. Part of that is due to there being three extra days in March compared to February, but the average number of daily page views was higher even when accounting for that.
- Number of blog posts published – 11
- Page views – 31,180
When comparing our page views for March 2021 to March 2020, the difference is striking. As it started to become clear in early March 2020 that COVID was going to become a serious thing in the US, our website traffic started dropping, with it getting even worse when everything started getting locked down. In comparison, our website traffic steadily increased over the course of March 2021, so here’s a chart showing the difference, with page views up almost 150% year-on-year:
Final Thoughts
Overall, our stats for March 2021 were very good. We stayed well under budget and our website traffic increased both month-on-month and year-on-year.
Our total hotel points balances suffered a fairly big drop due to all the award bookings we made for upcoming stays, but at least that means our upcoming accommodation costs should also be lower.
Tracy Nicole says
This is so cool. Thank you for sharing numbers.
stephen says
Thanks, I’m glad it was interesting 🙂