Dallas Centurion Lounge and FTU Advanced in Washington, DC this Weekend
This weekend is FTU Advanced in Washington, DC. FTU stands for Frequent Traveler University and the Advanced means that we will cover more advanced miles and points topics than a basic event. And for good measure, the DC stands of District of Columbia. Now that that is all cleared up, I wanted to see if anyone else was going to FTU Advanced this weekend. Here are this weekend’s speakers:
- Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY Travel
- Gary Leff, View from the Wing
- Ben Schlappig, One Mile at a Time
- Greg Davis-Kean, Frequent Miler
- Stefan Krasowski, Rapid Travel Chai
- Matthew Klint, Live and Let’s Fly
- Scott Mackenzie, Travel Codex
- Daraius Dubash, Million Mile Secrets
- Summer Hull, Mommy Points
- Ed Pizzarello, Pizza in Motion
- Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity
- Matthew Kepnes, Nomadic Matt
- Randy Petersen, Godfather of Frequent Flyer Miles and founder of online communities Milepoint & Flyertalk
If you read my blog, I’m sure you will recognize most of the other Boarding Area bloggers who will be speaking. One speaker you might not be as familiar with is Chris Guillebeau; he has been to every country in the world and wrote a book called the $100 Start Up, which was the motivating factor for me to start my blog. It will be great to hear Chris speak again. More important that listening to the presentations, I really enjoy interacting with the other attendees. Everyone has so much travel knowledge that you will definitely learn something new from everyone you speak to. Learn more about FTU Advanced here.
I am staying at the host hotel, Hyatt Regency Crystal City, on Friday and Saturday night, and then moving down the street to the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel for Sunday night. I will be wearing my famous / infamous Travel with Grant t-shirt all weekend, so if you see me, come say hello. For the record, I have several TWG shirts, so I will not be wearing the same shirt the entire weekend, in case you were thinking that.
In other news, I will be flying American Airlines Friday morning from Orange County (SNA) through Dallas (DFW) to Reagan National (DCA). I have a connection in Dallas from 1-2:30PM, so I am hoping to get a nice massage in the Centurion Lounge. I have read great things about this Centurion Lounge from Lucky, Gary, Summer, and pretty much anyone who has ever been there. I have already visited the Centurion Lounge in Las Vegas and San Francisco, but I hear this one is the best. If anyone is in Dallas tomorrow afternoon, let’s meet up in the Centurion Lounge for massages and lunch, my treat :)
Massage Chair @ Centurion Lounge (OneMileAtATime.net)
There will be no American Airlines reviews, Centurion Lounge reviews, Hyatt Regency reviews, or Sheraton reviews from me, but I hope everyone has a great weekend.
I missed out on Advanced tickets (boo!) but will be going to FTU so I hope to meet some new awesome people there. I’m probably following everyone on the FTU blogger list – including Chris Guillebeau!
Should be a fun weekend and if anyone wants suggestions on things to do in DC I might be able to help being a “local” (Local, of course, being relative; no one is really from DC, haha. I originally hail from sunny SoCal). :)
Sounds great Kris, if this is your first event, you will have a great time. Do you know of any good restaurants within walking distance of the host hotel? I am staying until Monday afternoon and going on a Capitol Building tour Monday morning :)
You’re very metro accessible so consider going beyond walking distance from the hotel. The ‘best’ food near the hotel is Jaleo, but bear in mind it’s a pretty barren area.
Assuming we take the metro, what restaurants do you recommend that are easily accessible to various Metro stops? Thanks for your help Gary!
I actually think the wine wall makes the SFO Centurion lounge the best, though if DFW would bring back the original brisket then it would be back in the running…
Haha, I feel like the SFO Lounge is a bit too small. I’m not much of a wine drinker, so I don’t appreciate the wine as much as you do. Cya tomorrow Gary!
DFW is bigger (the biggest) but not much bigger. It’s also gotten busier over time as well as people have learned about it. They have a spa and 2 showers and that takes up a chunk of the difference in space. But DFW has more nooks, crannies, areas than SFO so it has that going for it. But there is some actual very good wine on the wall, much better than I would have expected them to serve!
Thanks for the Centurion Lounge intel. I *only* have 1.5 hours between landing and taking off, so it might not be worth it to travel from gate to lounge back to gate. There are several Admirals Clubs throughout DFW, so I might just find a close by lounge and hang out there. I’ll figure it out tomorrow…
How do we get our own TWG shirts?!
Or better yet, how can we travel with Grant?!?
I am on AA flights 1316 and 2237 tomorrow. If you buy a seat for those flights, you can travel with me. Heads up, I’m just gunna watch TV on my laptop and read my Kiplinger magazines the entire flights. I would save your money :)
Uhh break into my hotel room and steal a shirt from my suitcase? When I originally bought the shirts from Vista Print, they were around $14 each. I just checked and it seems like Vista Print raised the prices to around $20 a shirt. No one would pay $20 for shirt, would they? This is what the front of the shirt looks like:
Cant wait! I think I will be checking out Church Key http://www.churchkeydc.com/
I am a beer guy and sounds like they have 555 different beers to try, but its about 15 minutes from the hotel. UBER time!
Maybe a local knows of a better place to visit?
That sounds awesome, I have 555 choice of what I want to drink. I’m in!
There are a huge number of options right around Church Key. One of the hottest restaurants in town is Le Diplomat, a few blocks up 14th St. from Church Key. Right across from Le Diplomat is Etto, excellent pizza. Further up the same street are Doi Moi, Estadio and Pearl Dive Oyster Bar, all good. Another block or two up are more casual places Ted’s Bulletin and Matchbox Pizza, both very popular. Walk the block and if you are there in a somewhat off hour you’ll be able to get in most anywhere. Peak hours on a Saturday, forget it.
Thank you for the restaurant run down. Sounds like there are many good places to eat around there.
Only been to Dallas once. I won’t lie the most exciting thing I discovered was that they have potbellys there (lived in Chicago for 7 years before moving to irvine …. Lived off that stuff. Best franchise sandwich shop hands down…)
I’ve never been to Potbelly’s, so I’ll try to check it out next time I see one.