San Jose, Costa Rica is a pleasant enough city but it pales in comparison to the many delights to be found elsewhere in the country. There are lots of hotel chains here so good opportunities to use your points but please don’t hang around the city just because there are some good Pointbreaks! Get out there and see Costa Rica!
GETTING THERE
You will need a Central American award ticket and all the major alliances have flights to SJO.
United Airlines has flights from Chicago, Houston, New York & Washington
US Airways (due to merge with AA in early 2014) has flights from Charlotte
Air Canada has flights from Toronto
Copa has flights from Guatemala City, Managua, Panama City, San Pedro Sula & Tegucigalpa.
Avianca-Taca (incl Lacsa) has flights from Bogota, Caracas, Guatemala City, Lima, Managua, Mexico City, Miami, Panama City, San Pedro Sula, San Salvador & Tegucigalpa.
American Airlines has flights from Dallas New York & Miami
Iberia has flights from Madrid
Delta has flights from Atlanta & Los Angeles
Aeromexico has flights from Mexico City
GETTING TO & FROM THE AIRPORT & AROUND TOWN
Of course taxis are always an option and once you are in town they are reasonably cheap, around $3-5 in Colones. You can also use the Alajuela bus to get from the airport to the Alajuela terminal for around $1, then use a taxi to your final destination. If you have arrived from elsewhere in Costa Rica, all bus lines will finish here. You may need to change terminals to go elsewhere in Costa Rica.
When leaving Costa Rica, be sure to save enough cash to pay the departure tax. You could use a credit card but it will post as a cash advance. Be careful with the ATMs as some of them have low maximum withdrawals of $400 so if you need more than that you have to do multiple transactions.
The duty free & shopping area in the airport as you depart have a nice variety of shops selling the usual duty free booze, cigarettes, perfumes and some nice handicrafts. There were some sales on the jewelry, buy 2 get 1 free. I was a good customer here!
WHERE TO STAY ON POINTS
As you may expect with a large capital city, San Jose is well supplied with chain hotels at reasonable prices. Unless you get a really good deal on a city hotel, I would stay near the airport for convenience.
CLUB CARLSON
Park Inn – 38,000 points
Country Inn & Suites – 9000 points
HILTON
Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton San Jose-Airport – 30-40,000 points
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Cariari San Jose – Costa Rica – 20-30,000 points
HYATT
Hyatt Place San Jose/Pinares – 8000 points
IHG
6 options including a Holiday Inn Express near the airport for 15,000 points and an Intercontinental for 30,000 points.
MARRIOTT
Courtyard San Jose Airport – 15,000 points
STARWOOD
Aloft San Jose – 7000 points
Sheraton San Jose – 7000 points
We only spend one night here at the Park Inn because there was a mistake rate posted on FlyerTalk for 5000 points. Otherwise, we would have stayed at either the HIX or Hampton Inn near the airport.
WHAT TO DO IN SAN JOSE
(Emphasis on things of interest to birders)
Visit the Ara Project at Alajuela if they haven’t moved to Punta Islita yet.
Visit parks to see Crimson-fronted Conures frolicking in the trees.
Wet parrots near the Hampton Inn
The next morning was nice and sunny so we saw dry Crimson-fronted Conures & a few pigeons near the Alajuela bus station.
