I spent a lot of time going to Florida as a kid. As a Jew from New Jersey, many of my relatives made the “Jewish Migration” from the northeast to South Florida, and I would (generally) love my visits down there.
As I grew up, I became less in love with Florida, but always managed to have fun whenever I went. That’s why I knew I had to hop on this amazing deal I found at The Ritz-Carlton in Key Biscayne.
I was first alerted to the deal by an e-mail from extremehoteldeals.com. I definitely recommend singing up for their newsletter – while most deals will likely be unavailable simply because of location, a few pop-up, like this one, which are incredible.
The original deal was $49/night (before fees) for an Ocean View, 1 Bedroom Residential Suite, so I booked the first dates I found available, which were in mid-June. After fees and taxes, this came $261.03 for 3 nights. I was in heaven. I even made sure to book on The Ritz-Carlton website directly, thinking there was a better chance they would honor this deal than a website like booking.com (which, in my experience, almost never honors these mistaken hotel fares).
But my dreams were short lived. A few days after I booked this deal, I got an e-mail from hotel itself, saying that they had to charge me full price for the room. Being a lawyer, I fought them on it. In fact, I had a back-and-forth with one worker for around a month, and finally got him to give me less nice, but still great deal – instead of what I originally booked, I was offered 3 nights (over the same dates) in an Onceanfront View Guestroom at a rate of $674.61 after taxes. The actual rate for room (according to the hotel’s website) is $1,974.11 for the same dates. So, although I am paying much more than I had anticipated and am losing a suite, I am still getting an incredible deal.
Even with my deal, I was still feeling too cheap to pay it. Miami can be fun, but Key Biscayne is a little slower and it’s in June, when weather down there is far from ideal. But not wanting to give up on my hard work of securing a great price, I reached out to an overworked friend of mine, easily convincing him of his need for a weekend away. He agreed to split the cost with me, making my total damage $337.30 for 3 nights on an ocean-view room in The Ritz-Carlton in Miami.
I’ll be sure to update you after my stay to let you know how it was!
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