Author Archives: Shelli

About Shelli

Shelli Stein is a health and fitness entrepreneur who travels the world in search of culture, food, and fun! Besides contributing to Travel with Grant, you can find her at Joy in Movement.

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Intro to Priority Pass Lounge Access

The Priority Pass program has been getting a lot of good press lately due to their expansion of both their lounges and airport restaurants. A fellow traveler recently asked me about the lounges and how to get access to them. I was boarding a plane so didn’t have time to explain it, so I sent them to our website to read up on the Priority Pass program. Well, the next email I got from them was rather surprising. There wasn’t anything recent on TWG for them to read about Priority Pass (Grant did write about using the Priority Pass app back in October 2015).  So here’s one for you, fellow traveler, and I’m sorry I sent you on a wild goose chase.

What Is Priority Pass?

Priority Pass is a program with more than one thousand airport lounges all over the world. More often than not, people pay a yearly membership fee for unlimited Priority Pass lounge access. But there are credit cards that come with free Priority Pass lounge access as one of their benefits.

And this benefit can be tricky because depending on which credit card you have, the rules and benefits are different. Costs (if not free) vary as do the number of guests you can bring into the lounge with you.

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Hyatt Concierges Undertrained & Upper Management Cannot Follow Through on Promises

Last week in my rant at Hyatt, readers suggested the issue was the incompetence of my concierge. I’ll admit, I was a bit defensive. When I was first assigned a concierge, I spoke with her to get acquainted. The first task I asked her to do for me was to amend some reservations I already had. That came off without a hitch. However, the more I looked into the Departures Magazine ad and the responses my concierge was giving me, I started thinking my readers were right.

One reader asked me if I had actually given my concierge the DUSA promo code, which was the code given in Departures Magazine to bring up the Park Hyatt deal for 3rd or 4th night free. I had not spelled it out for her, though she did acknowledge knowing about the Park Hyatt special offer. So I sent her another email specifying the DUSA promo code and asking her to check again. I gave her random dates and asked her to check the Park Hyatt Saigon. Here’s what she said in replying to my request:

Hi Shelli,

The offer code DUSA does not bring up anything. It may be a different code for each property so I searched the properties you requested based on a 4 night in the time frame for a 3rd or 4th night free offer. Again, I do not see that it is available.

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Park Hyatt Saigon. Image source: https://saigon.park.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

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Imoova has $1/Day Car, RV & Campervan Rentals (Vehicle Relocations)

Many years ago, (I’m not saying how many), I needed to get from the west coast to Boston. A friend and I took what I think back then was called a Driveaway car. Someone paid a company to get their car across the country and the company looked for drivers. We weren’t paid; we covered the cost of gas, had a set amount of time for the car to arrive at its destination, and off we went. Now there seems to be a trend for rental vehicles that need to be relocated, both for seasonal reasons and also because some routes are more popular in one direction than the other. The rental car companies offer directional specials, hoping to encourage people to rent and go against the flow and bring the vehicles back for them. It’s a supply and demand issue for them.

There’s a new website that I came upon called Imoova. It searches and has details for these one-way rentals. It seems you can find yourself paying as little as $1/day for a vehicle. Most of their listings are in New Zealand and Australia, but they have a few in the US and plan to grow further. If you have flexibility in your travel plans, this might save you money. What interested me the most are their RV relocation deals (Grant relocated an RV from Los Angeles to Denver with TransferCar). And some of their campervan deals looked good, too.

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Misleading Park Hyatt 3rd Night or 4th Night Free Ad in Departures Magazine (Warning: Rant)

When I feel a rant coming on, at first I second guess myself. Is what I’m experiencing really rant worthy? Would other people rant about this too? Once I’ve answered YES to those 2 questions, I rant :) So here we go. Oh Hyatt, I have such a love-hate relationship with you. But this week, you’re making me mad! Maybe I’ve misread you or misunderstood your intention, but I don’t think so. And now I’m asking our readers to back me up or tell me I’m wrong. We shall see.

It all started when my Departures Magazine came. I was flipping through it and noticed a Hyatt ad for their Park Hyatt hotels. You all know I love the Park Hyatt properties and this year alone I had two amazing Park Hyatt stays (Buenos Aires and Milan). So of course the ad caught my eye. What really caught my attention was that the ad was a Special Offer for a complimentary third or fourth night at participating Park Hyatt hotels. Hmm, this could be a chance to plan a trip to try some Park Hyatt’s I haven’t stayed at yet.

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13 Hacks for your Southwest Airlines Flights

When you’re an airline loyalist, you tend to know more than those of us who are airline free agents. I’ve been asking people who are Southwest Airlines aficionados what their best hacks are for Southwest Airlines.  So what are the best Southwest Airlines hacks? Here’s what people had to say!

1. First class seats on Southwest Airlines? Many people think the equivalent of a first class seat on the plane is the second row aisle on either side. This is because your time in getting on and off a Southwest Airlines flight is what’s important, not legroom. Some people DO prefer legroom above other advantages, like deplaning quickly. They say the first class seats on Southwest Airlines are the emergency exit seats on the right side as you walk down towards the middle of the plane. These seats usually go first, but if you see anything open, even the middle seat, take it! They are the best seats on the plane and have almost twice the amount of leg room.

2. Not all overhead bins are created equal. Using a roll-on whose shape tapers towards the top, makes stowing wheels out in the very front overhead bins easy. Have you noticed that the very front passenger overhead bins are slightly less deep than the rest of the plane’s stowage as the plane’s nose begins to curve inward just ahead of row 2? This affects the size of the bins. Behind rows 3 or 4, the overhead bins get even smaller. Continue reading