Category Archives: Trip Reports

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Planes, Trains, and More Planes, 2017 Edition: Asia for the Holidays

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Buenos dias everyone,

Like last year, I just left Mexico City for a long international trip over the holidays – this time to Asia instead of Europe. This time the trip wasn’t built around a mistake fare, but rather a desire to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Chengdu Panda Base, both in western China.

I started planning the trip in mid-September, and found that Asiana Airlines had pretty good business class availability across the Pacific for the dates we were looking at. I tacked on United economy flights between Mexico City and LAX (though this resulted in an overnight layover in each direction, since United only has one flight per day between those two cities), and added a domestic Air China economy flight from Shanghai to Chengdu after a one-week stopover.

A world map centered over the Pacific Ocean showing the following flight routing in red: MEX-LAX-ICN-PVG, SHA-CTU

Map generated by gcmap.com

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Intro to Priority Pass Lounge Access

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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.

a pair of black and gold credit cards

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

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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.

a screenshot of a car rental

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Use the Mobile Passport Control App to Breeze through Customs at Select Airports & Cruise Ports

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Every so often, I’ll read or hear about some service or product that’s been available for a while and totally skipped my radar. I’d be surprised if I’m the only frequent traveler this happens to! Just last week, I read about the not-so-new Mobile Passport Control (MPC) app that’s available for iOS and Android phones and tablets. Back in the summer 2014, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launched the first authorized app to expedite a traveler’s entry process into the United States.

MPC allows eligible travelers to submit their passport information and customs declaration form via a smartphone or tablet prior to CBP inspection. This first-of-its-kind app was developed by Airside Mobile and Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) in partnership with CBP. They piloted the program at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) and it’s now available at 24 airports and one cruise port.

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Current Mobile Passport locations, as of 11/19/2017. Image source: https://mobilepassport.us/

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What was your Favorite Blog Post Over Thanksgiving Weekend?

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What was your favorite blog post from any blogger you’ve read over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? My choice may strike you as odd, because I’m picking one from Nick at Frequent Miler. He writes about things to keep in mind while shopping on Black Friday & Cyber Monday.

Why is that an odd choice for me? I’m not much of a shopper on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. In fact, people say I’m a retailer’s nightmare because I’m not much of a shopper at all :) So it seems odd to pick this post as my favorite because I’m not AT ALL who Nick is writing for. And yet I really loved his post. It reminded me that while I spent Black Friday with family and wasn’t online much if at all, and Cyber Monday was a travel day for me, many days of the year are good bargain hunting days! That FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) evaporated when I read his post. If I ever do become more of a shopper and put myself in the frenzy of holiday shopping, I can reread Nick’s post to remind myself just how to best approach Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

What was your favorite blog post of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend? Let me know!