We watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on TV every year while we’re making turkey, stuffing and everything else for our Thanksgiving meal and this year we decided, why not see it in person? I’ve always heard that New York at Christmas time is beautiful and with so many cultural and educational sights, we knew we’d have no trouble filling out a full week in the city.

New York City is very expensive and we have a limited travel budget. We knew how to get the hotel and flights for free (read on for the details!) but what about food and activities? We strategized and were able to turn what would have been a $15k trip into an adventure that fit comfortably into our travel budget, coming in at just under $2,500 for the entire trip - including flights, accommodations, food, activities and souvenirs!

The main priority for me was finding a hotel close to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade route. In order to get front row spots for the parade, you need to save your spot by 5:00am so that meant that we needed to be as close to the route as possible.

Fortunately, there are two Hyatt hotels about a block away from the parade route - the Park Hyatt New York and the Thompson Central Park New York. When looking at the parade map to the right, both hotels are very close to letter “D” where the parade turns from 59th Street (in front of Central Park) onto 6th Avenue.
At the time of booking, the Park Hyatt was a category 8 hotel and charged 45k points per night during peak travel times. The Thompson was a category 6 and charged 29k points per night. Hyatt updates their award chart annually so check Hyatt directly for current point prices.

We opted for the Thompson for the lower point price but you will get a larger room at the Park Hyatt (roughly 200 extra square feet). We loved staying at the Thompson and would chose it again for our next trip. The location was fantastic - close to the parade route, a subway station, several walkable attractions (Central Park, 5th Ave, etc) and many great restaurant choices. The room was on the small side at 300 sq. ft. but it was well designed with plenty of storage and a large sofa for sprawling on. The downside was that we had double size beds but this is the same at the Park Hyatt and seems pretty standard for New York hotels. The dining area was very nice but also casual enough to be comfortable with kids and they have a great burger restaurant just off of the lobby that the kids loved and came in clutch after a long day exploring the city and an early morning (parade day!) on the horizon.

Food

Food can be one of our largest out of pocket expenses on a trip. Our kids eat adult size portions now and will usually snack through the day so we’re usually trying to balance full bellies with experience dining. To help mitigate food costs, we used a couple of strategies:

Guest of Honor Award

Restaurant Credits

We also had two credit cards with restaurant credits that we put to use on this trip. The larger credit was the $150 dining credit available on the Chase Sapphire Reserve for the July-December timeframe. A second $150 credit is available January-June.

To use the $150 credit, you’ll need to log in to your Open Table account and add your Chase Sapphire Reserve to the account. You do not need to reserve a table or preregister but you will need to chose a restaurant on the Open Table Sapphire Reserve Open Tables list. The list is somewhat limited but if you’re in a larger city you should be able to find a restaurant to fit your needs. We chose SAPPEiSAN and were very happy with our choice. SAPPEiSAN is a neighborhood Thai restaurant with a great atmosphere and delicious food. Our meal with four entrees and an appetizer came to just under $150. We charged the bill to the card and received a statement credit the next day.

We also had a $50 dining credit to use on my AmEx Gold card. To use this benefit, you’ll need to first log into your AmEx account and activate the credit. Then dine at a restaurant listed on Resy to activate the credit. You do not need to make a reservation first - just charge your bill to your AmEx Gold. We were close to Rockefeller Center so we chose Yama Ramen which was delicious! We all got bowls of steamy ramen and my 10 year old declared it one of the best meals he’s ever eaten! Yama Ramen also had a solid sushi roll happy hour that we did not take advantage of but it looked delicious! Just like the Chase credit, the AmEx credit posted a few days after we dined.

Snacks

We discovered a fantastic grocery store called Morton Williams just around the corner from our hotel that was surprisingly large and well stocked. Our room featured a mini-fridge so we picked up some drinks for the room and fruit, granola bars and other snacks for our days exploring the city. These snacks saved the day multiple times during high energy days visiting attractions.

The ability to pull out a granola bar, jerky or piece of fruit while we were on the subway or anywhere a snack wasn’t readily available was a great way to restore energy and make sure the places we chose to dine were experiences we wanted to enjoy rather than choices made from hunger desperation. Morton Williams is a full fledged two-level grocery store complete with salad bar, deli counter, bakery, etc. so if you wanted to save on food costs and pack a lunch to enjoy while in the city, that would absolutely be doable.

The Thanksgiving Meal

We wanted to enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving meal on our trip so we made reservations at Copinette in September. Thanksgiving reservations fill up early in New York and need to be made well in advance. There are many lists available of restaurants offering Prix Fixe Menus or à la carte so you’ll have plenty of choices but we enjoyed Copinette and would recommend it.

We were traveling with friends so we needed a reservation for 8 people and one person in our group is vegetarian so we needed a delicious veggie or fish option. We also had four kids in our party and Copinette offered a reduced price kid-friendly menu (traditional turkey, hamburger or chicken nuggets). In addition to meeting these needs, Copinette also gets great reviews and is a neighborhood restaurant so it seemed like it was exactly what we were looking for. It exceeded all of our expectations and we all enjoyed a meal to remember!

Activities & Attractions

There is SO MUCH to see in New York that it was difficult to choose but we knew our kids wanted to see most of the main tourist attractions, so we made sure we visited many of those. I used several money-saving strategies that I’ll outline below. We planned for full days and definitely maximized our time in the city!

You can view a snapshot of our itinerary below along with several useful maps on the tabs.

Sightseeing Passes

There are two main passes for NYC where you pay a set amount and gain discounted access to certain attractions - CityPASS and Go City. I analyzed both options to determine if the savings were real and if we’d be happy with the included options.

CityPASS comes up the most often but feels very limited to me. It includes access to the Empire State Building Observatory and the American Museum of Natural History along with three additional attractions from the following list: Top of the Rock Observation Deck, 9/11 Memorial & Museum, Ferry Access to the Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island, Circle Line Sightseeing Cruses, Intrepid Museum, Guggenheim Museum, the Edge at Hudson Yards and The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa).

The cost of the CityPASS was $154 for adults or $129 for kids and the pass was valid for 9 days. While CityPASS does provide some savings over the list price of the included attractions, these weren’t necessarily the attractions we really wanted to visit.

Go City offers a similar pass with a set number of days but a more expansive list of 106 attractions called the Explorer Pass. If you compared the Go City Explorer Pass to the CityPASS, for the same cost of $154 you’d get only 4 attractions with Go City but a much larger range of attractions to choose from.

The more interesting choice and the option that we went with was the Go City All-Inclusive Pass which costs $169 per adult or $129 per child and is valid for only one day but is good for an unlimited number of attractions.
To take full advantage of the All-Inclusive Pass, you must be willing to visit multiple attractions in one day but you can save quite a bit doing so. The extra tip for this pass is that you can scan into the Big Bus 2-Day Hop-on Hop-off Tour to activate your Big Bus ticket. Since the ticket is valid for two days, it will be valid on the day you scan in (and don’t use it because you’ll be busy hitting the more expensive attractions) and the following day (once your All-Inclusive Pass has expired). In this way you can get two days of use out of your one day All-Inclusive Pass!

We had originally planned to go on the Circle Line NYC Landmarks Cruise which would have resulted in greater savings but we’d had enough time on boats after visiting the Statue of Liberty. We switched to the High Line and Chelsea Walking Tour instead and loved it!

By buying the Go City All-Inclusive Pass and visiting several high cost attractions as well as activating our Big Bus Tour tickets to use the following day we saved $109 per adult and $124 per child. And we got to see exactly the attractions we were most interested in - not bad!

Shows

We saw two productions on this trip - the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular and MJ the Musical.

The Rockettes Christmas Spectacular was true highlight, and something repeatedly named as a trip favorite. The Rockettes perform at the Radio City Music Hall which is worth a visit all unto itself. We were rushed so we didn’t get to enjoy the space as much as I would have liked but the history, architecture and decor were remarkable and something we all enjoyed.

The production value of the Rockettes was very high and we were all impressed by their perfectly synchronized movements. We were able to find tickets on Groupon for $72 each and the seats were quite good. I recommend checking Groupon if you’re interested in attending this show.

I also wanted to see a Broadway production and had a $150 StubHub credit to use on our Chase Sapphire Reserve card. I finally found two seats to a production that fit our interests and schedule so I snagged them and paid only $24 out of pocket. My youngest son and I went to MJ the Musical while my husband and oldest son watched the UT vs. A&M football game and we were all very happy with our choices :)

A great place to find discount Broadway tickets is TodayTix if you don’t have a credit that you’re looking to take advantage of.

The Lounge

We scheduled a Lyft to LaGuardia for our flight home and reserved the XL car at no extra charge due to my complimentary Lyft Pink membership from Chase. We also applied the $10 Lyft credit to the ride making the total charge about $60. Since we each hold a Southwest Credit Card, our baggage fees were waived for one piece of checked luggage per person and since we had an expiring Upgraded Boarding credit and we expected this post-Thanksgiving flight to be crowded, we applied it at check-in so that we could board the plan early.

We had about an hour to fill before our flight departed so we headed to the Chase Sapphire Lounge for complimentary food and drinks. I also signed up for a complimentary facial but there was a bit of a wait, and I wasn’t able to take advantage of this perk before our flight departed. Too bad.

The quiet spaces to relax, fast internet, clean bathrooms and, of course, food and drinks were all very welcome amenities before we boarded our flight home. The Chase Sapphire Reserve allows the cardholder plus two guests to enter the lounge, but so far, they’ve always allow all four of us in. If questioned, we could either use my Priority Pass for one complimentary Sapphire Lounge entry per year for myself or pay the fee but so far, that has not been needed.

The Savings Breakdown

By leveraging points for our New York City trip, we saved the following:

Four Round-Trip Flights - $2,360
7 Nights at the Thompson Central Park - $7,000
Complimentary Breakfast for 7 Days - $1,680
Go City Savings - $466
Restaurant Credits - $200
StubHub Credit - $150
Waived Checked Bag Fees - $140
Waived Upgraded Boarding Fee - $190
Food Cost Saved due to Lounge Access - $100
Lyft Credit - $10

These savings total out to $12,296 and all of them (with the exception of the Go City Sightseeing Pass) are due to holding and correctly applying the benefits associated with our credit cards. Our out-of-pocket expenses for food, subway passes, shows and activities were just under $2,500 bringing the total value of this trip to $14,796!

There is absolutely no way that our family would spend nearly $15k on a trip like this but $2,500 is a doable amount that fits comfortably into our budget. And the memories that we made visiting New York City together and getting to see the Macy’s Day Parade in person will last forever!

New York City for Thanksgiving