This past weekend, we had a fun family event in South Florida to attend. I offered to bring both our kids and their boyfriends at my expense. As my brother’s family was staying at my mom’s house, that meant I needed three hotel rooms plus flights for six people.

I used SkyMiles to book my wife and I on one reservation from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale and back (so that we could get Comfort+ seats and a chance of an upgrade as a Platinum Medallion – update: no upgrade this time). I also booked my older daughter and her boyfriend on the same flight in Main Cabin using SkyMiles on a different reservation. Our flights were relatively pleasant, despite the hordes of Taylor Swift fans making their way to and from South Florida for the Eras Tour which also happened to be last weekend.

For our younger daughter, I booked her and her boyfriend on JetBlue from Washington, DC to Fort Lauderdale using most of my remaining JetBlue points from the sign-up bonus I received from the JetBlue Business Card last year. Unfortunately, the Sunday evening flight cost was prohibitive, so I had to book them a Monday morning 6:20am flight in order to get them to work on time. The only non-stop flights from DCA to FLL are on JetBlue, so we were a bit limited in our options. Thankfully, their flights also went smoothly despite the early wake-up on Monday.

Our hotel was the Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale/Plantation as it was fairly close to my mom’s house and to where our event was held. The hotel is a bit long in the tooth. I’m pretty sure it was an Amerisuites before that brand was absorbed into Hyatt Place. Everything in the room worked fine though and the breakfast was…OK. It was a typical Hyatt Place breakfast with eggs, sausages, pancakes and all the typical carbs. They even had specialty coffees available for a reasonable price.

The hotel was a category 2 and 8,000 points per night or $250+ cash per night (due to the Taylor effect) so points were used for the rooms. I even booked my kids’ rooms as Guest of Honor so I would receive a Hyatt elite night for their stay. I also received 2,000 Hyatt points credited back for our room as part of the 2k Next Stay benefit I selected for one of my Hyatt milestone awards.

Even my rental car was reasonable as I booked a three-row SUV to ferry us all around for the weekend. In the end, Hertz had the best deal at $236 all-in for three days, which these days is a bargain for the exact large SUV I needed vs. taking my chances with a possible upgrade. Bonus: I didn’t get arrested for Hertz reporting the car as stolen (Google the story if you don’t know what that’s about).

I was pleased to be able to use points and miles for a family weekend where we got together with my whole family. Not every trip is with luxury hotels or international business class seats. Sometimes, main cabin (or at least Comfort+) and a Hyatt Place will do the job.

If you have questions about this post, let me know in the comments or send me an email at emptynestermiles@gmail.com. If you are thinking about opening a new credit card, please use one of my links.