Good morning everyone. A few weeks ago, I was a guest on the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast. We talked about my Ireland trip (now cancelled), my British Airways / Match.com love story, and what’s in my iPhone wallet. The episode is ~40 mins for regular listeners or ~60 minutes if you are a Patreon paid subscriber (you will hear Laura make her podcast debut). Listen to the episode on your favorite podcasting app or listen online here. Have a great day everyone.
Reposted on 3/17/20 at 7:30am
Updated 3pm PT on 3/14/20: I was planning on going to Kauai in March but have rescheduled my trip to Kauai for June. I have cancelled / rescheduled all the reservations below.
Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Friday is going well. As a sequel to yesterday’s post (I Cancelled My Trip to Ireland), we decided to go to Kauai instead for Laura’s spring break (we went to Kauai 2 years ago for Laura’s spring break as well). I checked flights from the Bay Area to Hawaii and flights were in the $100-$130 price range each way to all the Hawaiian Islands. Prices were so cheap that it was a better deal to pay for flights than to book award tickets.
Laura had ~52K Southwest Airlines Points in her account, so we booked 2 roundtrip tickets from Oakland (OAK) to Lihue, Kauai (LIH) using 50,292 SWA points and $22.40 in taxes/fees ($5.60 per person per flight). About an hour later, I checked the flight prices and saw a price drop. I immediately rebooked the SWA flight for free and saved 8,174 SWA points. This morning, I checked the flights again and saw more price drops. I quickly and easily rebooked those flights using the SWA app. After the dust settled, our SWA flights now cost a total of 35,087 SWA points (a savings of 15,205 SWA points in ~12 hours). I kind of feel bad that the prices keep dropping so dramatically (but I will keep checking the flight prices to see if they get any cheaper).
Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. In a few weeks, Laura and I will head to Ireland for her spring break (she is an assistant principal, so we can only travel during school breaks). As I wrote about a few days ago, there are 8 Radisson Blu properties in Ireland and 1 property in Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom). We plan on staying at 5 different Radisson Blu properties on our roadtrip, including Belfast, Sligo, Limerick, Cork, and then Dublin Airport. In this post, I will show you the point redemptions and share a photo of the hotels from the Radisson Blu website.
Good morning everyone. This past weekend, Laura and I did a mini road trip from the San Francisco Bay Area down to Carmel / Monterey. If you fly into San Francisco (SFO), Oakland (OAK), or San Jose (SJC), it is a 1.5 to 2 hour drive, depending on traffic. Alternatively, you can fly directly into Monterey (MRY), but that airport has a smaller route network and more expensive flights. I have been visiting Carmel / Monterey for 25+ years. Every year for Thanksgiving week, my extended family would drive up from Southern California to Carmel / Monterey and I would spend time with my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. As far as I can tell, not much has changed during that time in Carmel / Monterey. Here are some of my favorite places to stay, eat and visit.
Laura and I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel twice in the last 3 years. This hotel is a category 4 Hyatt which costs 15,000 World of Hyatt Points or you can use your Free Night Certificate from the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card. As of January 2020, there is minor construction on the main entrance road and outside the hotel lobby. They are also refreshing the hotel rooms and we stayed in one of the refreshed rooms. The hotel has plenty of parking (all free) and no resort charges. It is very easy to get to various parts of Carmel / Monterey within a 10-15 minute drive. I highly recommend this hotel and plan to come back next year after the construction and room renovations are complete.
Image source: https://www.hyatt.com/en-US/hotel/california/hyatt-regency-monterey-hotel-and-spa-on-del-monte-golf-course/mrydm
Good afternoon everyone, I hope you all had a great New Years! With the beginning of the new year, I wanted to make a few travel resolutions for the coming year. Here are my 5 New Year’s travel resolutions for 2020. Feel free to share your own travel resolutions in the comments section.
For the last several years, this has been my only travel resolution. It could be a short weekend trip, a road trip, a cross country trip, or a long international trip. I love to travel and take advantage of the 52 weekends every year (it helps that I work in San Francisco and can easily get to SFO or OAK in less than an hour). I’ve got the first 3 months of the year covered:
There are a few other trips planned the rest of the year, so my first travel resolution should be accomplished. Here are the 4 other travel resolutions I have in mind for 2020: