Winter in New Orleans

By Ramon

Ramon is the creator of Travelling Companion. He focuses on flight review, hotel reviews, and helping stretch your travel dollars, miles, and points further. ​​

Winter in New Orleans Trip Report
Winter in New Orleans Trip Overview
AA E175 Main Cabin Extra DCA-MSY Review
AC Hotel New Orleans Bourbon/French Quarter Review
Active in New Orleans
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Introduction
​We headed to new Orleans in January 2 for our first trip of 2018 to escape the cold in Washington D.C. and celebrate my birthday. Little did we know that the temperatures would only climb above fifty degrees for one day during our time in New Orleans. New Orleans proved to be a city with a diverse of set of influences including French, Spanish, Southern, and Caribbean and truly is a unique city within the United States.

St. Louis Cathedral

Booking Flights
Because this was a special occasion we booked this flight in June about seven months before we actually took the flight. While this may seem really early this is actually one of the best ways to get flight deals. It also provides the opportunity (with some luck) to utilize a schedule change to your advantage. In this case that is exactly what happened when the itinerary we originally booked changed by one hour on the leg returning from New Orleans. We were able to reschedule the inbound to leave at 11:40 am instead of our original flight time 3:30 pm. In this particular case that allowed us to spend more of the day in New Orleans. The flights cost about $245 and we credited the flight to our AAdvantage accounts which earned us 1,938 elite qualifying miles, 202 elite qualifying dollars, 505 base miles, along with 202 bonus miles because of our American Airlines Gold status. 

Booking Hotel
For this stay in New Orleans we booked the AC New Orleans Bourbon/French Quarter which is part of the Marriott Group of hotels. We originally planned to stay at the Q&C Hotel Bar New Orleans, however, Christina received a special promotion offering a fast track to Marriott Gold elite status for two years with just 11 paid nights instead of the normal 50 nights. We re-booked a few weeks out at the prepaid rate of $193 for the first night at $108 for the last two nights.