My extremely packed travel schedule continues, after just 3 days at home. My last trip was to Mexico in November, and my previous trip was to the United States in October… and this time I’m combining these 2 destinations for another trip that’ll seem very repetitive if you’re among the many who followed my previous ones (because it is).
I’m continuing our new good habit of sharing content about our trips here. I’ve also slightly tweaked and improved this intro post template recently. So please let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to know about our trips. This will be the last time I ask for it, I promise.
And of course, this is in addition to my daily stories on my personal Instagram account, as with all my many trips.
Here’s the intro to my (other) trip to Mexico and the United States, specifically the reason, the context, the itinerary, and the booking. The tips and logistics, reviews, and experiences will follow soon.
Reason for my trip to Mexico and the United States
I’m sharing why I’m doing this trip, to get straight to the point right at the beginning, as in all our posts.
Here are the 3 main reasons:
- Continue my reviews of nice Marriott Bonvoy hotels
- Continue the JetBlue challenge to get a lot of points
- Continue to attend the Vans Warped Tour music festival
Here are more details about each.
Continue my reviews of nice Marriott Bonvoy hotels
As mentioned in the reason for my trip to Tulum and Cancún last week, I have 2 other nice Marriott Bonvoy hotels offering me a free stay. Both are nice luxury resorts in Puerto Vallarta, on the Pacific coast. I’ve never been, but I loved my trips to Guadalajara in the same State (Jalisco).
Returning from Mexico to Canada and going back to Mexico again after 3 days isn’t the most efficient, obviously. But it was to allow my girlfriend to join me for at least part of the trip (she doesn’t like flying alone and I’m a really nice guy). And to allow me to go to the festival.
Continue the JetBlue challenge to get a lot of points
I also need to continue the JetBlue challenge to get 350,000 points of the more lucrative type. Maybe 725,000 points, actually; I’ll share a post with a major update on that next week. There’s no way around going to the US for this.
I was actually supposed to leave again as soon as I got back to Canada to do more JetBlue flights, but with the chaos of the US government shutdown that the TV news interviewed me about, I decided to postpone them to December. So I’ll only do Orlando as my 17th destination on the way to Mexico.
Continue to attend the Vans Warped Tour music festival
I’m a big fan of punk rock/pop-punk/emo/alternative music, so in June, I already went to the first of the 3 special festivals for the 30th anniversary of the iconic Warped Tour. But it was so enjoyable (just like my weekend at the When We Were Young festival in October) that I decided to go again for the last weekend tomorrow. Warped Tour doesn’t come to Canada anymore, and I just won’t deprive myself honestly.
I needed to go to Orlando for JetBlue anyway. This, along with the other 9 JetBlue flights I could do to go to places I was already going, helped me say yes to yet another flight challenge. Speaking of, I just officially received my million Turkish Airlines points yesterday!!!
Context of my trip to Mexico and the United States
I’m sharing a bit more detail about my situation, so you can learn a bit more about how we plan our trips if you’re interested.
Due to having so little time between my trips, I honestly have little to say about the context. I’ve already said pretty much everything in my introduction posts to my last trips.
For the part about my free hotels, I explained it in my trip to Mexico post. For the part about my love of music, I explained it in my trip to the United States (October) post.
For the part about the JetBlue challenge, it’s all somewhat similar to that US trip and my other trip to the United States (September). These are very special mileage run trips that I wanted to do throughout all my planned trips, because I’m someone who is very excessive in life.
As mentioned, I was honestly going to do a bit more JetBlue flights this week, but the chaos of the US government shutdown convinced me to push that to December to make sure I can maximize those travel days in pure mileage run mode, as intensely as possible, with 2 or 3 flights per day.
Normally, I absolutely love when my flights are canceled. It gives me a free luxury hotel and thousands of free hotel points to get more free hotels for later. Thanks to credit card flight delay insurance.
But since I’ve spent a lot of time traveling, I didn’t want to spend 2 more days traveling to ultimately do no additional JetBlue destinations if the flights are canceled and my itinerary is messed up.
The thing is I want to do the missing destinations intensely, to minimize my time away, due to what I’ll explain in the update. That doesn’t work when there are thousands of disrupted flights per day, as was the case all week. It’ll be in December.
Itinerary of my trip to Mexico and the United States
I’m sharing the general itinerary of my trip, so you can follow me.
Here’s my itinerary on a map.
A pretty logical itinerary this time. That’s precisely because I’m only doing one JetBlue destination. The December trip itinerary will be even more illogical as a result, though.
I’m obviously really looking forward to the 2 full days of non-stop music. And I’m treating the week in Mexico as a work retreat opportunity. So I’ll be visiting a bit obviously, but I’ll mainly be working to catch up from my rare vacation week I just took. The resorts look great and I’m excited about it.
The superb JW Marriott Cancun Resort & Spa last week reminded me that what I dislike about resorts, apart from the idea of spending 7 whole days there without leaving (which is disgusting to me personally), is mainly when they are not luxurious. The luxurious ones are much better.
Here are the cities I’ll visit during my trip (so connections are excluded):
- New York, New York 🇺🇸
- 1 night
- To catch a JetBlue flight
- Orlando, Florida 🇺🇸
- 2 nights
- To go to the festival
- Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 🇲🇽
- 4 nights
- To review 2 free hotels
- And to visit the city for the 1st time
- Guadalajara, Mexico 🇲🇽
- 3 nights
- To catch a free flight
- And to return to such a cool city
Here are more details about each.
New York
It’s really just to take my flight tomorrow morning. I won’t be visiting (I’ve already visited several times). I technically don’t even have time to sleep, sadly. What a nightmare.
I’ll still take the time to enjoy a pizza slice at 1.5 USD this time again, like the 5 other times I passed through there during the JetBlue challenge.
Orlando
I won’t be visiting here either (I’ve already been several times).
I land a few hours before the festival. It ends Sunday night after 2 full days of concerts, and then I leave very early Monday morning.
Puerto Vallarta
I’ve never visited this very touristy resort city on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It’s very popular with many Canadians, hence the hotels’ interest in getting exposure on Flytrippers.
I won’t be visiting that much as mentioned, but I’ll still obviously take the time to visit downtown and the famous Zona Romántica that a friend in the LGBT community recommended (it’s apparently cool for everyone).
Guadalajara
Last fall, I loved my trip to Guadalajara, a city with so much to offer. It’s wild that such a unique urban destination that’s so close is so underrated. I went on a free trip offered by Flair, the Canadian ULCC that first made this a popular place. Now Air Canada, WestJet, and Air Transat have (or will soon launch) routes to GDL!
I even went back a few weeks later, but that was because I had to take AeroMéxico for the SAS challenge, and Guadalajara happened to be the cheapest destination from Chicago, where I was a speaker at a travel rewards event. I’m quite happy to go back there and eat some birria.
Booking transportation for my trip to Mexico and the United States
I’m sharing the details of how I planned my trip, so you can learn about transportation, as it’s obviously always the aspect to design a trip around (except maybe if you get complimentary hotel stays).
Here’s the transportation during my trip:
- Train: Montreal–New York
- Amtrak
- Flight: New York-JFK–Orlando
- JetBlue
- Flights: Orlando–Houston–Puerto Vallarta
- United
- Flight: Puerto Vallarta–Guadalajara
- Volaris
- Flight: Guadalajara–Toronto
- Flair
- Train: Toronto–Montreal
- VIA Rail
Here are more details about each.
Train: Montreal–New York (Amtrak)
I’ve taken this endless 11-hour train several times. Every time, I tell myself I’ll never do it again, because it’s so terribly long.
And yet, here I am on board right now.
The view along the route is really beautiful, and it’s really more comfortable than a plane. I have plenty of space to work on my computer.
But it’s long.
It cost 79 USD.
I won’t pretend I chose the train out of environmental conscience. You know, we don’t bullshit you.
I would’ve flown if the price had been remotely reasonable. With my relatively last-minute changes when I decided to no longer do a JetBlue run, the flights to New York were obviously very expensive since it’s a business destination (and not a leisure destination).
So I’m taking the train. One of the rare upsides of my ADD is that it makes me forget how terribly slow it is, at least enough for me to rebook it and save money.
Flight: New York-JFK–Orlando (JetBlue)
When I decided to do the JetBlue challenge, it was because I was going to be able to do 10 of the destinations with my already planned trips!
Well, I was counting on doing 2 destinations with Orlando (one outbound and one return), but ultimately the dates didn’t work for my free hotels afterwards, so I’ll just do Orlando. Better than nothing.
Since I made this change at the last minute when I saw the chaos of the shutdown, the cash flights were very expensive (204 USD instead of 94 USD). The basic economy fare class is excluded from the promo.
JetBlue charges much more at the last minute, regardless of the destination.
So I redeemed Avios points! Only 8,500 points. You can get 60,000 of them with the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card‘s record-high welcome bonus, until November 25! And there’s a 30% transfer bonus from RBC Avion points to British Airways Avios points that just started (details in our roundup post of travel rewards updates tomorrow).
You can immediately transfer the 1st part of the welcome bonus since you get it after the 1st purchase. That’s 35,000 points. That will become 45,500 points, for a total of at least 70,500 points with the complete bonus!!! That’s enough for a 12-hour flight in the world’s best business class.
I shared my testimonial of my Montreal–Doha flight on Qatar Airways, which costs 70,000 Avios points.
Okay, sorry, I’m getting off topic; flights in luxurious business class are so exciting.
Here, instead of paying 204 USD in cash, I paid 8,500 Avios points and 4.5 USD in taxes.
That still gave me a value of 3.3¢/pt per Avios point, so that’s very good (280 CAD saved with 8,500 points). It’s so sad that so many travelers waste precious RBC Avion points at 1¢/pt (3 times less value for the same amount of points) by not transferring them.
I’ve now taken 16 JetBlue flights in recent months (I’ll talk about it again in the promo update I’ll share with you next week).
It’s honestly a very good experience for economy class.
Flights: Orlando–Houston–Puerto Vallarta (United)
Flytrippers tells you often: it’s so simple to save on flights. You just need to be flexible. Not just on dates! Be flexible on something else at least, to try the 31 tips to save one by one; almost always, some will work.
In this case, I paid more than I normally would have. It’s because my free hotels had very fixed dates (peak US Thanksgiving dates are approaching).
Booking your hotels before your flights is obviously always to be avoided! That’s why it was even one of the first tips shared by Flytrippers 8 years ago. So basic.
When the hotels are free, it’s a bit different, of course.
I had to be in Puerto Vallarta on Monday evening. I wanted to attend the festival until Sunday evening. So I had no flexibility.
There were certainly ways to save with the usual tips (self-transfer, for example). But none of them got me there on time, because Vallarta doesn’t have that many flight connections, as a small city.
I would normally have applied these tips and taken my time, because I’m never in a rush (that’s the key). But this context was quite particular (and fortunately quite rare for me).
So in short, the cheapest flight was on United for 269 CAD for the relatively short Orlando–Puerto Vallarta route (no direct flights exist).
Luckily, I had a 150 CAD travel credit on United that was expiring on December 31, and that I won’t need to fit elsewhere anymore. I got this travel credit thanks to a credit card tip that I’m hesitant to write about publicly; I’ll get back to you after thinking about it more!
My Marriott Bonvoy Titanium elite status gives me United Silver elite status automatically, so I’ll get the extra legroom seats for free. It really does make a huge difference, given how terrible the legroom is in economy class.
I’ve already taken 59 flights with United, it’s the airline I’ve taken the most apart from Air Canada. I like them quite a bit, as you can deduce.
And Houston is one of my favorite United hubs to transit at, because the Amex Centurion Lounge there is one of the best. By the way, in 2021, I transited there in November, and there was a special chef station with excellent meat for Thanksgiving; unfortunately, this time my layover is in the morning…
I hope my flight will be delayed or canceled, like the last time I flew through Houston, actually. I was able to go spend a nice free night at the luxurious Hotel ICON, Autograph Collection, eat great free premium meals at the POST food hall that I had loved during my real trip to Houston, and watch the US election results with Americans.
Oh, and I also earned thousands of free Marriott Bonvoy points for future free nights! Long live flight delay insurance!
Flight: Puerto Vallarta–Guadalajara (Volaris)
I had to go to Guadalajara for the reason explained in the next section. It’s very close, in the same State.
With a flight at 725 MXN, it wasn’t worth taking the bus between the 2 cities.
It’s worth mentioning one of the craziest ratios between airfare and taxes I’ve ever seen in my life! Fare of 6 MXN, but taxes of 555 MXN!
That was the basic economy fare without a full-size carry-on. My 725 MXN price I paid includes my full-size carry-on, which isn’t that bad of an extra.
I already took 2 Volaris flights last year, and it was a very good ultra low-cost carrier (ULCC).
Volaris has an impressive network between Mexico and the US. It would be so awesome for them to come to Canada!
Flight: Guadalajara–Toronto (Flair)
Last year, the only Canadian ULCC, Flair, invited me on their inaugural flight to Guadalajara. I had a credit card conference in the United States right after, so I couldn’t use the return flight they were offering.
Fortunately, they kindly offered to give it to me later, and finally, I have an opportunity to use it.
So the flight is free, but it’s not particularly expensive on many dates either, sometimes as low as 139 CAD in this direction and 227 CAD in the other (with the Canadian taxes that are always higher).
I’ve now taken 7 Flair flights, and I have absolutely only positive things to say!
I strongly recommend this airline that helps all Canadian travelers travel for less. Yes, all. Even if you don’t fly them! Because they force the other more expensive airlines to lower their prices, too… but if you do fly them, they’ll be able to grow and lower prices even more!
Flair announced a few exciting new Canadian destinations for next summer. Stay tuned, as Flytrippers might have something interesting about that…
Train: Toronto–Montreal (VIA Rail)
Once again, the flights were now too expensive. I thought about doing a JetBlue run after too, but flight prices for US Thanksgiving (their busiest travel days of the year) made me eliminate that option. An intense December trip it will be.
So I’m taking the train, which costs 80 CAD.
I’ve taken VIA Rail extremely often (when I worked as a management consultant before co-founding Flytrippers, I did Montreal–Québec City very very often). I also took this specific route a few times… every time flights were too pricey.
I love the experience. I don’t love the terrible reliability, but it’s not that bad when you manage your expectations, knowing what will happen.
You just need to be aware in advance that your train will be delayed. Spoiler alert: it will be. It’s not a question of if it will be delayed, it’s a question of how much it will be delayed.
Booking accommodations for my trip to Mexico and the United States
I’m sharing the details of where I’ll be staying during my trip, so you can learn about the other important aspect of the travel budget.
Here’s the accommodation during my trip:
- New York
- To be determined
- Orlando
- Puerto Vallarta
- W Punta de Mita (Marriott)
- Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa (Marriott)
- Guadalajara
- To be determined
Here are more details about each (after an unusual trip where everything was booked in advance because my girlfriend wanted it that way, I’m back to my normal 😂).
New York
I’ll be arriving in New York City soon. And I’m hesitating. If I go to one of my usual transit hostels in New York, I’ll only have about 4 hours to sleep because my JetBlue flight is very early. That’s terrible. Is it even worth booking something at that point?
I’m seriously considering just not sleeping. It’s no different than not sleeping on economy class night flights. I did 2 of those in October. Didn’t sleep at all, as always. It’s the same thing. I’m too old for that, but I survived, so…
The Vans Warped Tour takes me back to my teenage years, so maybe I can stay up for 12 hours for the festival even without sleeping, like when I was younger.
Okay, it’s probably a bad idea. To be continued.
Orlando
As often happens, I’ll be staying in a completely different hotel from the one I initially booked. It should often be like that for you too, if you like to save!!! If you always end up in the 1st hotel you booked, it’s guaranteed you’re paying too much.
The Wingate by Wyndham Orlando International Airport hotel looks like a typical midscale hotel. My criterion was price (with cleanliness always; so I always eliminate the lowest-rated hotels personally). I’ll spend zero time there; it’s 100% just to sleep.
The Wyndham chain has 25 different brands, mostly in the low-end segment. But Wingate is midscale. I’ve never tried the Wingate brand at all.
I had booked a Marriott hotel several months ago, as you should always do as soon as you think about going somewhere (especially during an event, like a festival that attracts 150,000 people). It’s fully refundable!
I then used the tip of always regularly rechecking if there are better new options. Prices fluctuate often, as I explained to you for my hotel for the previous festival, by the way.
I’m a free agent now (it’s kind of liberating), because I’ve already requalified for my Marriott Bonvoy elite status (Titanium) thanks to the doubled nights promo in winter (the earliest in the year I’ve requalified in my life).
So I used the Hotwire opaque deals tip and found this hotel even cheaper yesterday. The price was good, and with the flights I ended up booking, it suits me better to be at the airport.
That’s because I arrive Saturday morning just before the 1st day of the festival (I need to quickly drop off my backpacks at the hotel) and because I leave at 7 AM Monday morning (I want to be able to sleep a bit more by being close).
For several years, I’ve had almost only Marriott stays (among the chains, I mean; I sometimes do boutique hotels and hostels), because of how addictive the VIP treatment from elite status is.
This year, I did a few Hilton, IHG, and Radisson hotels. And now I’ll do my 1st Wyndham since 2022.
Puerto Vallarta
I’m really looking forward to visiting the 2 resorts, because it’ll be perfect for a work retreat.
The W Punta de Mita hotel is a luxurious 5-star hotel that looks really sublime, located a bit outside of Puerto Vallarta.
The W brand is one of Marriott’s luxury brands. It’s very distinctive and particular. I have limited experience, having only stayed in one W hotel in my life. I’m really looking forward to trying one of the brand’s most popular properties.
The decor of this resort looks more nature-focused than typical resorts, so I think I’ll like it quite a bit better.
The Marriott Puerto Vallarta Resort & Spa is another luxurious resort that has just undergone renovation and is situated closer to the city, in the marina area.
The flagship brand of the Marriott chain is a premium brand that I really like, especially in newer (or renovated) hotels. I’ve tried 14 different ones, so I have a pretty good sample size.
They also include a sea turtle experience and a spa center experience, so I’m really looking forward to it. And it’s close enough to easily visit the city itself.
Guadalajara
I don’t know yet where I’ll be staying in Guadalajara. Typical for me.
I had tried 3 Marriotts during my 2 trips to the city in 2024:
- The Westin Guadalajara
- Hotel Guadalajara Country Club by HNF (an Aloft being renovated)
- AC Hotel Guadalajara Expo
I like variety, so I’m tempted to try something different, especially since I don’t need Marriott nights for my elite status for once. More to come.
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Summary
I’m on a trip to Mexico and the United States, again. It’s a short 10-day trip that’s quite repetitive, to review 2 nice Marriott Bonvoy hotels, to slowly chip away at my JetBlue flights challenge, and to attend another edition of the Vans Warped Tour music festival.
What would you like to know about my trip to Mexico and the United States? Tell us in the comments below.
See the flight deals we spot: Cheap flights
Discover free travel with rewards: Travel rewards
Explore awesome destinations: Travel inspiration
Learn pro tricks: Travel tips
Featured image: W hotel, JetBlue plane, Warped Tour (photo credit: Andrew D’Amours/Flytrippers)
