Our First Points Redemption & Review Of The Carolina Inn, Chapel Hill, NC
We found ourselves with a random teacher workday long weekend at the end of March and I was dying to go somewhere after being cooped up all winter. The porblem is that we had two big trips planned for the year and nothing left in the vacation budget! But fortunately we had just started travel hacking with points and miles at the end of 2024 AND I remembered recently learning that the gorgeous Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, NC is a Hyatt property…which means easy and reasonable points redemption thanks to Hyatts fixed points charts.
A quick search on World of Hyatt and I was quickly transfering points from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card to Hyatt and booking a room at the Carolina Inn for one night FOR FREE.
At the time of our visit and this post, The Carolina Inn is a Category 4 Hyatt property and will cost 12K-18K points to stay here, we used 15K points for a Sunday night stay at the very end of March. Because it is a Category 4, you can also use a free night certificate to stay here. It is unique in part due to its location on the campus of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill. It was established in 1924 and was donated to UNC in 1935 and is known for it’s historical beauty.
Both the grounds and the hotel itself are lovely. In the spring when we were visiting, there were tulips blooming everywhere, it was something to see! The lobby is gorgeous and has self-serve flavored water…something my kids consider to be the sign of a good place to stay.
The great decor extends to the hallways, they didn’t waste any opportunity to cultivate the space in this hotel. Pictures of past guests, some famous, some not so much, and interesting art hang on the walls. There was so much to look at, we sent the girls aroudn the hotel with our phone and had them do a scavanger hunt and text us pictures of things while we enjoyed our morning coffee.
Our room was reallly beautiful and comfortable. The two queen bed room was not large but was spacious enough of our family of four not small people. I loved the color scheme, rich taupy browns and pale blues. It felt really nice. I also loved the Nespresso machine in the room and there was also a mini fridge included. The hotel was quiet. I never heard other guests. Perhaps during busier times (not a Sunday night) you would hear more but we did not.
The other thing great about the Carolina Inn is that it is very walkable. We parked our car and did not use it again until we left. You can walk to Franklin Street easily where there are many restaurants and shops and we also walked all around campus and let our girls get an idea of what UNC Chapel Hills campus is like. There is also an arboretum on campus that we got to explore and had we planned more, there is a planetereum on campus, it could be something to do wtih kids also.
We would absolutely recommend the Carolina Inn as a wonderful place to stay and as a great points redemption. Points made it possible for us to get away as a family when and where we otherwise would have not!