Author Archives: Grant

About Grant

Grant is an expert in frequent flyer miles, hotel loyalty points, credit card rewards, and cash back deals. He also has a pretty cool travel blog. Find him on Twitter @travelwithgrant.

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How Do You Celebrate the Fourth of July?

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Good morning everyone, happy Fourth of July!  Ever since I was a young kid, I have always loved the Fourth of July.  I love the great food, the warm weather, the loud noises, and the beautiful fireworks.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are late in the year, but the Fourth of July is a smack dab in the middle of the year.  I have celebrated the Fourth of July all over the country and over in Europe (they don’t care much about our Independence Day), but I always love coming to Southern California to see my family.

Yesterday was a really long day of travel.  I flew from Malta to Amsterdam to Seattle to Orange County.  That was a heck of a travel day, but I know the trip was worth it to be home for the Fourth of July holiday.  I don’t have big plans, maybe go to the beach for a few hours, then over to my grandparent’s house for a BBQ and to watch the fireworks.  It’s not the most amazing Fourth of July, but I always look forward to the holiday.

So enough about me.  How do you celebrate the Fourth of July?  Do you do a big BBQ?  Do you go on a harbor cruise to watch the fireworks?  Or go out to a baseball game with your friends and family?  Please share what the Fourth of July means to you, I would love to hear.  That’s all from me, go out, have fun and be safe!

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Greetings from Malta! 3 Photos from this Beautiful Mediterranean Island

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Good afternoon everyone, greetings from Malta!  Sorry I have been missing in action lately.  I was in Athens for a few days, then in Crete for a few days, then in Malta the last week for a wedding.  I haven’t been on my computer much this trip, which is a nice change from most of my trips.  I already wrote these 2 posts about Athens (Small-Group Culinary Walking Tour and Using Uber in Athens).  I am going to do a post about Crete (Radisson Blu, fishing village, and ATV tour of the island) and then a few posts about Malta (the ATV and kayak tour we went on and some other sights we saw).  I am also going to share some of the technology that I used on this trip to make my vacation a little easier.

If you have any questions about Crete or Malta, please let me know and I can answer them in the comments.  If it is a good question, I might even write a blog post about it.  I will be back to San Francisco in a few days, so stay tuned for those posts.  Have a great 4th of July everyone!

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Minor Changes to Discover Banking Accounts Coming August 8, 2018

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Good afternoon everyone, I just got an email from Discover regarding changes to my deposit accounts.  I have 2 credit cards, 1 checking account, and 4 savings accounts with Discover (thanks to various account opening promotions), but these changes are not for Discover It Credit Card or Discover It Miles Credit Card holders, so if you only have those Discover accounts, this post is not for you.  But if you have a Discover checking, savings, money market, or IRA account, there are a few account announcements you should be aware of.  Here is the email I received from Discover, but the email only mentions which sections were changed, not what the actual changes are, so I logged into my Discover account to find all the details.

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Use Uber in Athens, Greece to Request & Pay for Local Taxis

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  This is my last post from Athens, Greece, before I head to the Radisson Blu Beach Resort in Milatos, Crete.  If you missed my post yesterday, be sure to read Heading to Athens, Greece? Book the Small-Group Culinary Walking Tour.  In today’s post, I will explain how Uber works in Athens (the only part of Greece that has Uber).  If you are not an Uber rider, join for free (thanks for using my referral link).

Technically, Uber doesn’t exist in Greece, but you can request and pay for taxis with the Uber app (the taxi drivers use the Uber app like all other Uber drivers).  The only thing that is strange is that you cannot see the total price of your Uber ride until after the ride is over.  All the taxis have a set price schedule for rides, so your rides will always be priced right.  Unfortunately, I could not use my Uber credits in Athens, so I paid for all my rides with my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card (my referral link) since I earn 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards Points on Uber and it has no foreign transaction fees.

We used the Uber app to request a ride from the Athens International Airport (ATH) to our hotel, the InterContinental Athenaeum Athens.  The Uber pickup was a bit tricky, since our ride was in a taxi and there were many taxis waiting at the airport.  Our driver told us where to meet him, but it was still very difficult to find him (he ended up finding us).  Our ride to the hotel took 45 minutes and cost 40.70 Euros ($47.43).  As of June 25, the exchange rate is 1 Euro = 1.16 US Dollars and I will use that exchange rate throughout this post.  In comparison, a shuttle van to/from the airport and the hotel would have cost 100 Euros ($116).

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Heading to Athens, Greece? Book the Small-Group Culinary Walking Tour

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Good morning from Athens, Greece (or as the Greeks would say “Καλημέρα από Αθήνα, Ελλάδα).  I am writing to you from the InterContinental Athenaeum Athens (35,000 IHG points/night).  If you are heading to Athens, Greece, I highly recommend the Athens Small-Group Culinary Walking Tour, where you walk around the city, lead by a local, English-speaking tour guide and try some of the best, most authentic Greek food in the world.

I am not going to cover everything we saw, ate, smelled or learned on the tour, but here some of my favorite photos.  Our tour guide handed us a piece of paper showing us which foods we would be experiencing on this tour (I will reference names and restaurants throughout the post).  At the beginning of the tour, we stopped by a local street vendor selling Koulouri, the “Greek breakfast” that is a round piece of bread covered in sesame seeds.  You can find Koulouri all around Athens, at any time of day, and the price is only 0.5 Euros.  I ate a few of these around Athens :)

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