Phangan to Samui

By the time you're reading this, we should be on a ferry en route back to Koh Samui for a two six night stay before we head to Krabi for the rest of our Thailand Adventure.

Originally, my father was going to have us only stay at Koh Phangan before heading to Krabi. But then he decided to use some of the Hilton HHonors points he had been hoarding from various credit card signups and get us 2 FREE nights at the Conrad Koh Samui for 50,000 Hilton points/night (vs. cash price of $850+ USD/night).

So as of last week, we were scheduled to arrive to Koh Samui on Friday, February 22nd and then fly out from Koh Samui (USM) to Krabi (KBV) on Sunday, February 24th on a short 55 minute flight.

But then earlier this week, Hilton came out with an announcement that they were going to re-price their hotels for Free Night Point Redemptions, and my father decided to burn his remaining HHonors points now before the redemption rates increased (like dumping Icelandic krona before the currency crashed and devalued).

Through March 28, 2013, you can still book Hilton hotels under the current point redemption rates.  So a top tier property like the Conrad Koh Samui (currently Category 7) is still "just" 50,000 Hilton points/night.  But starting on March 29th, the same hotel will become a newly created Category 10, and the new rate will be a whopping 80,000-90,000 points/night!!!

And also, because my father is a Hilton HHonors elite member, he gets access to GLON awards which is basically 6 nights at a 25% point discount (basically paying for 4.5 nights). So instead of the normal 300,000 HHonors Points (50k x 6), we're paying 225,000 points (or about 37,500 points/night).

But now our confirmed flight for Feb 24th is an unconfirmed waitlist/standby for Feb 28th (crossing fingers!).  My father's hopeful that we'll clear the waitlist on a fully booked flight. But I'm preparing for a 2 hour ferry ride to the mainland and a 3 hour drive to Krabi, because history dictates that my father has crappy luck with waitlists (see: UPenn undergrad and Harvard MBA applications).

But for now, we'll enjoy our week here in Koh Samui.  I'm not exactly sure what my parents and I will do for 6 nights here since I'm not much of a party girl (yet), but I'm sure we'll find a way to indulge another week in the Thai islands at a really nice hotel.