My husband and I used our personal points and passes for this trip. If you use our card referral links in this post, we may earn a points bonus to help fund our next adventure at no cost to you!

How We Stacked Points, Luxury Credit Card Perks, and our Marriott Vacation Club Membership for a multi-stop road trip involving national park entries and luxury hotel bookings. Here is exactly how we did it.

Getting There: Stacking Frontier Perks for a $16 Non-Stop Flight

Our adventure kicked off at Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), where we boarded a non-stop flight straight to Las Vegas. If you’ve looked into the Frontier GoWild! Pass, you know that it usually requires you to wait until the day before departure to book domestic seats. For a multi-stop road trip involving national park entries and luxury hotel bookings, that level of last-minute uncertainty can be stressful.

However, we completely bypassed that restriction by jumping on Frontier’s Early Booking Promotion back in April. This promotion allowed pass holders to lock in GoWild! fares months in advance, securing our non-stop flights from Philly to Vegas for just $16 per person in taxes and fees!

The Secret Weapon: Bypassing Baggage Fees
Standard budget airline hacks require you to pack everything into a tiny personal item under your seat. But because we were heading to Great Basin National Park for hiking and stargazing, we needed real gear.

By holding the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®, we automatically unlock two free checked bags (normally a $40 fee each way per bag). This credit card perk saved us an easy $80 on this flight alone and allowed us to bring our hiking gear and camera equipment without paying a single penny extra.

Night 1: Road Trip Launch at Marriott’s Grand Chateau

Before making the long drive north into the desert, we kicked off our itinerary with a transit night in Las Vegas at Marriott’s Grand Chateau. As a Marriott Vacation Club Presidential Owner, I’m always looking for creative ways to stretch our ownership portfolio.

For this trip, I took advantage of a classic MVC strategy: a close-in booking, which unlocked an effortless 30% discount on our points redemption. The Grand Chateau is the perfect launchpad for an off-grid road trip because it sits just steps off the Strip—giving you zero resort fees and a peaceful, casino-free environment to rest up before heading out into nature.

Plus, as an owner staying at the property, I didn’t have to pay a single penny for parking, which saved us a ton of money right out of the gate since Strip parking fees have gotten so expensive.

MVC Owner Tip: Don’t overlook close-in availability windows for road trip transit nights. Snagging that 30% discount and bypassing parking fees kept our portfolio healthy for our upcoming international trips!

Days 2-4: Caves, Ancient Pines, and Astrophotography

Leaving the city behind, we headed north toward Great Basin National Park for three nights of pure, uninterrupted nature. We booked a cozy, close-in Airbnb right outside the park boundaries, which served as our perfect operational base camp. Choosing an Airbnb close to the park entrance is a game-changer out here. It allowed us to tackle rugged daytime hikes and easily return to the park late at night for dark sky photography in 20 minutes without an exhausting drive.

Our first day was packed with adventure. We started by booking the Palace Tour, an incredible 90-minute ranger-guided experience where we explored the subterranean wonders of Lehman Caves. Afterward, we hiked up into the thin alpine air to witness the ancient bristlecone pines and the stunning Great Basin Glacier (pictured above!).

But the real magic happened after dark. Because Great Basin is an official International Dark Sky Park, it offers some of the most pristine night skies in the country. Standing under a pitch-black sky and watching the Milky Way stretch across the horizon with the naked eye was an unforgettable experience. To capture the memory, I set up my Canon R10 camera on a tripod at Mather Overlook and took breathtaking photos of the Milky Way, catching passing aircraft and satellites slicing through the night sky.

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Days 4-6: The Vegas Grand Finale: Luxury Suite Stacking with Premium Credits

After three days of off-grid stargazing in the desert, we headed back into the city to cap off our trip with two nights of pure luxury at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Realizing it was a peak, incredibly busy time on the Strip, we decided to book a stunning Fountain View One-Bedroom Suite overlooking the Bellagio.

Pro Road Trip Tip: Right before checking into the hotel, we returned our rental car. This simple logistical move completely eliminated daily parking fees and valet wait times, saving us even more on the tail end of our trip.

The Mind-Blowing Math: How We Paid Only $6.50 for a Luxury Suite

Instead of paying the standard retail rate, we booked using our Chase Sapphire Reserve® through the Chase EDIT Collection. The total bill for our two-night luxury stay came out to $619.50. Here is the exact stacking breakdown of how we wiped out that balance:

• The Chase EDIT Credit: We utilized a targeted $250 statement credit for a two-night EDIT Collection stay.
• The Chase Points Boost: We then used the Chase travel portal’s point boost feature to pay for the remaining value. By redeeming just 22,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points at a boosted 1.65x value, we knocked another $363 off the total.
• The Out-of-Pocket Total: This left a cash balance of just $256.50 billed to the card. Once our $250 statement credit kicked in, our grand out-of-pocket total for a world-class Vegas suite was a jaw-dropping $6.50!

Stacking Free Food & Drink Credits

The savings didn’t stop at the room rate. Because we booked through the EDIT Collection, we unlocked massive VIP dining perks that we had to track carefully to maximize:

1. $60 Daily Breakfast Credit: We received $60 breakfast credits each day ($120 total value) to fuel our mornings, making sure to head down and use them before the strict noon cutoff.
2. $100 Resort Credit: We instantly put this toward an incredible dinner at Momofuku.
3. The $150 Chase Sapphire Reserve Restaurant Credit: We headed off the Strip to the local favorite, Esther’s Kitchen, and wiped out $150 of our bill using our card’s dedicated restaurant credit.
4. The $100 American Express Platinum Resy Credit: For a fun, classic dinner, we visited Benihana and used our $100 American Express Platinum Resy credit.
5. The Amex Platinum $20 off $100 Coupon: We activated a targeted Amex Offer on our Platinum card, saving an effortless $20 on a separate $100 purchase.
6. The $10 Amex Delta Reserve Resy Credit: We also charged our drinks at Benihana ato the Delta Reserve card to trigger our monthly $10 Resy statement credit.

Carrying premium credit cards only makes sense if you know how to stack their ecosystems. By intentionally timing our car return, tracking our meal cutoffs, and combining Chase and Amex credits, we lived like royalty for virtually pennies.

Our final night wrapped up exactly how our trip began: boarding a $16 red-eye flight on Frontier Airlines back home to Philadelphia. While many travelers complain about budget airlines and the constraints of the GoWild! Pass, our experience has been completely different. Living near a major Frontier hub like PHL allows us to pivot quickly and book spontaneous, high-value routes with ease. For us, the pass has been an incredible success, and we will absolutely continue to strategically use it to hit our upcoming travel goals.

Where are you traveling next?
What is your favorite way to stack premium credit card credits and budget airline passes? Let me know in the comments below! If you found this itinerary helpful, don’t forget to save this post to your Pinterest travel board using the Pin graphic below so you can replicate our step-by-step Vegas math for your next vacation.

Let’s talk in the comments! Have you ever flown on a Frontier GoWild! pass, or are you trying to figure out if it’s worth it for your home hub? Let me know your thoughts below! While we love traditional carrier perks, we strategically choose budget routes when the prices are this unbeatable. For major multi-stop trips, we occasionally book a points-backed flight as a safety net to protect our hotel investments, but the GoWild! pass continues to be a massive win for our travel goals