When I first booked Hermitage Bay, we decided on three nights for a couple of reasons. Two nights was too short to enjoy the stay. By the time we had got there and spent the first night, we’d be planning our exit. Five nights using Hilton points is a sweet spot because of the fifth night free on award stays, but we felt that was too long given our other travels this summer and current work requirements. Three seemed to be the perfect number because it would allow us to relax enough without being away too long. It also is the minimum number of nights required to have Hermitage Bay include airport pick-up and drop-off at no additional charge which is a nice bonus.

The idea for this trip occurred when I saw that the resort had opened a bunch of standard award nights back in February for the next year (minus August-October when they are closed annually for renovations). Once I had figured out that the last weekend in May/first weekend in June made sense timing-wise (and also that it was available to book using points) for our anniversary, I looked into flights from Atlanta to Antigua. I found that Delta only flew to and from Antigua once a week on Saturdays that time of year. I also saw that American had two flights a day through Miami that could connect us to Atlanta.

The Saturday Delta flight to Antigua was over 30k SkyMiles in Main Cabin (although of course we could upgrade to Comfort Plus with my status) so I looked at the American flights. Initially, I booked American both ways using American miles as nothing was available using Alaska or BA miles which can sometimes be available for fewer miles depending on the route. The good thing about booking using American miles is that there is no cancellation or change fee if your plans change. I looked at Friday-Monday and Saturday-Tuesday flights (as both three-night windows were available at the resort) and I booked Saturday-Tuesday as it was slightly cheaper overall (17k + 31k per person vs. 8k + 44k per person). The sweet spot there would have been Friday-Tuesday, but we didn’t want to commit to four nights away. I also booked these using one-way awards to allow for some flexibility if our plans changed.

About a month later (after we returned from Bali), I happened to check the Delta flight again through partners and saw that it was now available using Virgin Atlantic miles for 17,500 miles per person. Obviously, given the option of a nonstop flight or a connection through Miami for around the same amount of miles, it made sense to cancel the outbound AA flight and switch to Delta booked via Virgin. I was also able to put our SkyMiles numbers in the reservation so that our elite benefits would apply including Comfort Plus seats at booking and a place on the upgrade list. We already had some Virgin miles in my wife’s account as I had taken advantage of a recent American Express transfer bonus. In addition, the American return flights dropped about 3k per person a few weeks before the trip, and I was able to rebook those and get some miles refunded.

Our outbound Delta flight was fairly uneventful. We first visited the Amex Centurion Lounge at Atlanta airport for breakfast as we were flying out of Concourse E. It was definitely less crowded than the last time I was there. We didn’t get the First Class upgrades, but the Comfort Plus seats were fine. Just snacks and drinks were served, but we were saving ourselves for the all-inclusive food at Hermitage Bay anyway. Antigua now has a web-based form you can fill out starting around 72 hours before arrival, so a paper immigration form is no longer required. Delta had not been updated on this as they still passed around the paper form. We had the QR code from the website ready to go so we didn’t bother with the paper forms. Interestingly, the crew on the flight was doing a turn so they had a long 10-hour day flying to and from Antigua without a break.

We arrived about 30 minutes later than scheduled, but as promised, a person affiliated with the resort was waiting for us before immigration and handed us fast track cards so that we could go through the crew/diplomatic line which saved a bunch of time. We didn’t check bags on our outbound flight (thank goodness for travel-sized sunscreen) so we caught the Hermitage Bay rep a bit by surprise when we got out through customs very quickly. They called our driver and he drove around to pick us up outside.

The ride to Hermitage Bay took about 40 minutes at 3pm with the last 10 minutes or so on a very bumpy, unpaved road. There was A/C plus cold water bottles waiting for us in the SUV.

On our return day, I was getting a bit anxious as the weather in Miami looked pretty bad with storms all over the place. Our flight was delayed about 40 minutes so we at least got to hang out at the resort a bit longer. We originally had about a 2.5 hour connection at Miami so my plan had been to visit the American Airlines Flagship Lounge for dinner during the connection as my current BA Gold status gives us access. I wrongly assumed our Atlanta flight would end up getting delayed around the same amount of time as the flight from Antigua.

Our ride back to the airport was also provided by the resort and was fine. We actually seemed to arrive at a very quiet time for the airport as we got through exit immigration and security very quickly. We checked our bags this time as my wife had found several conch shells around the resort. These are explicitly required to be placed in checked bags by Antigua or they will be removed.

We spent a bit of time in the Executive Lounge at the airport and I’ll have a review of this lounge in a later part of the trip report. It looked like the weather in Miami was starting to improve a bit, although our inbound aircraft was late arriving from there so our overall 40-minute delay held in place.

The flight to Miami in Main Cabin Extra seats (thanks to my BA Gold status) was pleasant enough although it would be nice if American had free Wi-Fi like Delta has had for years now. A drink and snack was offered and of course, we didn’t bother with the buy on board menu because we planned to eat in the lounge at Miami. On arrival, we got through Global Entry quickly and then our problems began.

We stood at the assigned luggage carousel and waited for the bags from our flight. And waited. And waited. Finally, they started coming out. We had priority tags due to my One World Emerald status so they’ll come out quickly right? Wrong. I think our bags were two of the last ones out, about 40 minutes after we arrived at the carousel. By this time, it’s about 8:00pm and our flight to Atlanta is still showing an on-time departure of 9:04pm. I knew we had a 45 minute cut-off for re-checking our bags. We walked through customs quickly and looked for the area where we could re-check our bags for the Atlanta flight. The line for re-checking bags was very long and there seemed to be no priority lane. We made a quick decision to just take our bags through security and take our chances with the conchs and other shells packed in those bags.

We ended up walking a long way to find a security checkpoint with TSA pre-check as the lines at the other checkpoints were very long. We went through the checkpoint and of course, our bags were flagged for secondary screening. If you have plastic baggies full of small shells that show up on x-ray in Miami, that’s obviously going to be flagged. We had a very nice TSA employee who looked through the bags fairly quickly and got us on our way. By now, it was about 8:40pm and boarding for our flight would be closing in about 14 minutes. We walked really fast through almost the whole D Concourse to our gate. In fact, I ran ahead of my wife so that I could get there quickly and let them know we were going to make it. I got there with five minutes to spare and we were the last ones to board.

Of course, there was no overhead space for our bags so we gate-checked them to Atlanta. I figured it would be much quicker to get our bags in Atlanta than it had been in Miami. I figured wrong. Our flight to Atlanta was fine (again we were seated in Main Cabin Extra) and landed on time. One nice thing was landing in Concourse T and avoiding a ride on the plane train. We found the baggage carousel at the end of the North terminal and waited for our bags. And waited. And waited. Finally, they started coming out about 30 minutes after arrival. I expected ours to be some of the first bags out as they were the last ones loaded. I was wrong. Ours were two of the last bags again. We finally were able to grab an Uber about an hour after we landed and got home at almost 1am with nothing but a couple of bags of pretzels to sustain us for the last 12 hours (oh and a bag of trail mix I had thankfully grabbed from the minibar at Hermitage Bay).

Despite our troubles on the return trip (mostly due to Miami and Atlanta baggage handling), we had a good time in Antigua and it was worth going even for a short trip. We will definitely try and avoid international to domestic connections at Miami in the future. I’ll have a couple of posts about the resort coming up next.

Up Next: Hermitage Bay – Suite, Resort and Activities

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.