Why I'm visiting Chicago instead of New York

-
I was going to go to New York for a weekend – the weekend of January 29-31  – this weekend. I had gotten sick and ended up not going anywhere for New Year’s, so I thought I’d treat myself later. I found a great deal, $116.88 a night, in Midtown, a neighborhood I usually stay in. It was going to be an estimated $275.24 for the two nights with taxes and fees.

In my free time, I plan travel trips, whether or not I take them. It’s a great exercise for me to research new and old places to go as well as estimate the prices for big trips.

I was on goggle flights, playing around with dates and locations, and saw a ticket for $81 to Chicago for the weekend I was planning to go to New York. Now, the ticket was on Spirit Air, an airline I have never taken. I took a step back and thought about whether or not I should rethink my plans.

The Amtrak deal
If I had completely committed to go to New York, I could have purchased a round trip saver ticket on Amtrak for $78. With advanced planning, $78 is the lowest fare for Philadelphia to New York. (Though, just before I published this entry, Amtrak was running a Valentines Day special of $39 one way from Philadelphia to New York).

With that, I made up my mind to go to Chicago. I ended up spending a little more than $81, as to not take a day off and to eek in sometime at the weekly Happy Hour that I frequent since I will be breaking #DryJanuary tonight. I ended up paying $51.98 on Southwest for my flight to Midway and $43.09 to Spirit for my trip home. (I checked on Wednesday for pricing on Amtrak to NYC; there are no saver tickets, only value ticket and the total round trip is now $110).

Hyatt Centric: The Loop
Meanwhile, I was cleaning out my e-mails earlier in my planning process – work, personal, spam and old ones – and only just discovered an e-mail from Hyatt dated May 29, 2015, letting me know that my “account will be closed and all points forfeited if there's no activity by March 31, 2016.” I thought that I should at least keep this account open and booked a room for my arrival night at the Hyatt Centric The Loop Chicago. I paid in advance and confirmed the room for $103.59 inclusive of taxes.

Never fear, I am a Starwood boy through and through. I love the W and Luxury Collection brands and there are usually a Sheraton, Westin or a Four Points close by for work travel. I found another deal on the site, The Tremont Chicago Hotel at Magnificent Mile for the estimated total of $93.99.


To compare apples to apples, I will assume that all transportation costs in the respective cities would cancel each other out and should not factor in the price comparison.



 NYC CHI
Trolley: $2.25 ($1.80 for token)
Trolley and train to Airport:
$8.00 ($6.50 in advance) +
$2.25 ($1.80 for token)
Amtrak: $78.00
Southwest, PHL to MDW:
$51.98
Spirit Air, ORD to PHL: 
$43.09
New York hotel, 2 nights: $275.24
Hyatt Centric - Loop, 1 night:
$103.59
Tremont, 1 night:
$93.99
Trolley: $2.25 ($1.80 for token)
Trolley and train from Airport:
$8.00 ($6.50 in advance) +
$2.25 ($1.80 for token)
Cost for NYC: $357.74
Cost for CHI:
$313.15
                                        
The Tremont
So it may take me more time to get from Center City Philadelphia to the Loop than it would to get to Midtown, I think that it's all worth it to visit another one of America's great cities. Also, the weather is comparable between the two cities from weather.com.


 NYC CHI
Friday: 41°F high, 24°F low 36°F high, 36°F low
Saturday: 40°F high, 31°F low46°F high, 37°F low
Sunday: 45°F high, 35°F low46°F high, 36°F low

Actually I think that I make out with the weather, too.

All in all, this little exercise shows that it's worth checking out the possibilities. You never know when ten days in Mexico can be more affordable than a week in Texas, for example.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The day we lost Pluto

-
or (And your little dog, Goofy, too!) It’s official, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), founded in 1919, has defined (I never had that much time in my life to define something -- most of my identify and define tests were given in the time frame of 40 minutes, slackers.) what a planet is: A planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. According to this definition, Pluto has been demoted from a planet to a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite. Pluto is a dwarf planet by the above definition and is ...
Read more

Isaac

-
On "Confessions on a Dance Floor," there's a song Isaac , which I have fallen in love with. There's a great Yemenite chant intermingled in the song, which is translated into "if all of the doors of all of the generous peoples' homes are closed to you, the gates of heaven will always be open." Of course, it's controversial. Some rabbis has called her blasphemous (Madonna blasphemous?) since they believed the song to be about a 15th century Kabbalist, Isaac Lurier. It is forbidden to invoke his name in order to make a profit. Madonna's response is that she named the song after the cantor, Yitzhak (Isaac in English) Sinwani, for lack of a better name. (Seriously, who cares, Madge is R.C. and she's known for blasphemy. Didn't she really give JPII a heartattack that finally did him in in April?) Madonna's lyrics are: Staring up into the heavens In this hell that binds your hands Will you sacrifice your comfort Make your way in a foreign la...
Read more

Braciole

-
While I had time off during the Christmas break, I spent it working on a braciole recipe for the slow cooker.   In Italian American cuisine, braciole (the word is commonly pronounced /ˌbrä-zhəl/ from the Sicilian dialect) is the name given to thin slices of meat, usually beef, that are prepared as a roulade, a meat slice rolled around a filling then browned and braised. When I first had braciole, they were small individual servings, like the German Rouladen.  However in my search for a slow cooker version, I discovered recipes that made a large roulade versus the individual portions.  If Giada can do it, then so can I. The effort that goes into crafting the individual braciole is intense. Therefore, I was excited that most of the recipes called for a big roast sized braciole.  Cutting down the directions to a comfortable level of simplicity makes for a delicious meal without the hours of toil and let's the cook enjoy the food. I played with these two recipes, Bo...
Read more