Category Archives: Trip Reports

Unique View of Seattle – Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour

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Unique View of Seattle – Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour

This afternoon, my friends and I went on an unusual tour of Seattle, a tour of Seattle’s underground network of tunnels and walkways.  If you have been to Seattle before, you probably walked on the sidewalk or drove on the streets, right?  What you probably did not know or realize is that beneath your feet, there are hundreds of tunnels that are hidden and mostly forgotten.  If you want to learn about Seattle’s beginning and see a different side to Seattle, I really recommend going on Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour (Trip Advisor).

Seattle Underground Tour Trip Advisor Review

The tours take about an hour and leave every hour, so you will never need to make a reservation or show up early.  Prices for adults are $18 and prices are slightly cheaper for children, students, and seniors.   Continue reading →

Amtrak Coast Starlight Trip – Part 2: Transferring Points and Booking Trains

Sheldon Cooper Train

Amtrak Coast Starlight Trip – Part 2: Transferring Points and Booking Trains

Please read part 1 of my Amtrak Coast Starlight Trip (link) before reading this post.

To make this trip happen, I used 7,500 British Airways Avios to fly Alaska Airlines from Orange County, CA (SNA) to Seattle, WA (SEA) and 25,000 Amtrak Points for a 2 person bedroom on the Coast Starlight Amtrak train from Seattle to Irvine.  This was accomplished by using Chase Ultimate Reward Points and their instant 1:1 transfer partners (the chart is slightly out of date since it is missing Singapore Airlines).  To learn more about the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, click here.

Chase UR Partners

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Poll: Do you Manufacture Spend when you Travel?

Which Credit Card

Poll: Do you Manufacture Spend when you Travel?

Based on the responses from my recent poll (voting still open), it seems like this is a pretty popular topic.  I think I may have misled you with the question; I was more interested in seeing if most people do manufacture spending while they travel, either for work or while on vacation.  Since it is an interesting topic, I will share my view on MS while traveling.

MS Travel

The topic comes up frequently at travel conferences, especially at FTU events and the Chicago Seminars.  Last year when the FTU was held in Tampa, Florida, I remember hearing many people visit the CVS close to the host hotel to load up on Vanilla Reload Cards ($5,000 at a time).  Of course this happens often, but it is talked about less frequently.   Continue reading →

Last Day as a Featured Boarding Area Blogger and a Reader Poll

BoardingArea

Last Day as a Featured Boarding Area Blogger and a Reader Poll

First off, I want to give thanks to Randy, Meagan, and the rest of the Boarding Area team for having me as the featured blogger of the week.  It has been fun seeing my blog posts show up at the very top of the Boarding Area home page.  It is a dream come true.  When I started my blog on May 1, 2013, my dream was to join Boarding Area and blog side-by-side with the other blogging legends like Ben, Gary, Greg, Scott, Seth, Stefan, and all the other Boarding Area bloggers.  Thank you Randy for believing in me and for inviting me to be a part of the Boarding Area / Prior2Boarding family.

Beginning tomorrow morning (October 8), my blog posts will only appear on the Boarding Area home page in the light green box called In Case You Missed It (ICYMI for short).  You will still find me on the Prior2Boarding website along with the other fantastic bloggers who make up Prior2Boarding.

ICYMI Boarding Area Box

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Amtrak Coast Starlight Trip – Part 1: Advice for an Amtrak Noob

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Let me be honest, I have never been on an Amtrak train before.  Living in SoCal my entire life, I have never had a need or desire to take Amtrak, but every time I go to travel conferences or do OC/SD meetups, someone always shares awesome Amtrak stories.  Therefore, I decided to break my 24 year streak of no Amtrak rides and book one of Amtrak’s premier routes, the Coast Starlight (link), from Seattle down to Los Angeles.  The journey takes 35-36 hours non-stop on a train.  Before you think I am crazy, let me explain…

  • George (Travel Blogger Buzz) wrote a nice trip train report (link) about the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles up to Seattle.
  • Shawn (Miles to Memories) has a similar train report (link) starting in Santa Barbara / Oxnard up to Seattle.

Sheldon Cooper Train

The Coast Starlight leaves Seattle everyday at 9:30am and arrived in Los Angeles 9pm the following night.  Here is the map and list of cities where the train stops (probably for just a few minutes):

Amtrak Coast Starlight Train Stops Map

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