family ski trip

Our family loves to ski. We try to go together once a year. We usually have to fly. We have skied some amazing resorts. Our favorite is Beaver Creek. We used Hyatt points to stay there two years in a row and we loved it. Talk about being spoiled ——ski valet is the best thing ever.

However, as the boys have turned to men, we have decided to give up the ski valet (it’s just so many points to stay here during peak season and 2 rooms!) and get more space for us. Our family has skied Keystone quite a bit. We like the proximity to the Denver airport. The food is significantly cheaper than at Beaver Creek and other ski resorts we have been to.

This year we are heading back to Keystone. Here are the details of the trip I booked:

Hotels:

We are flying into Denver late so we need a hotel for our late night arrival. I used a free night certificate from our Chase Marriott card. This saves us $239.20. We are flying home early from Denver so we need to stay another night near the airport. Thankfully we had another Marriott free night certificate that we used to save $225.

I booked a King Suite at the Hyatt Place Keystone. I was able to get 4 nights for $1500. I never could find a point option for the suite. I could have booked two rooms but with all the planned trips this year, we decided to pay for the suite. I will use my Hyatt card and we will get 9 points per dollar. We have stayed here numerous times. It is a short walk to the ski lifts. There is a great ski rental place beside the hotel that we like that saves us $$. Great food options for the evening that are affordable for a family of 4. I rarely pay for hotel rooms but we know we like this hotel and it will be worth $1500.

Flights:

I booked our flights to Denver as soon as Southwest released our dates. These tickets were more points than I was expecting. However, thanks to my husband’s companion pass we only need to pay for 3 with points. I booked them thinking they would go down in price and I would rebook better times. That has not happened so I am glad I booked these when I did. We aren’t even flying direct to Denver on the way there but it is $5.60 a ticket. If I had booked these tickets with cash it would have been $1775 to fly us to Denver and back.

Car:

We rented our car from Costco Travel. Thanks to price drops, I have rebooked it a couple of times already. It will cost $350, but when I first booked it, the car was almost $700.

Ski Passes

I buy Epic passes every year. We don’t get to ski often so I usually buy the day passes. We buy these before Labor Day each year. We have to guess how many days we want to ski that far in advance but it really saves us a lot of money. I know we won’t go during the holidays so I can save money by not including those dates.

Our 4-days restricted passes cost us $313 each. If I were to buy 4-day passes at Keystone for the same date would be $909 a person. $1,252 vs $3636 for ski lift tickets is a significant savings.

The total costs for our skit trip will be less than $3500 for 6-night hotels, flights, rental car and lift tickets.