Good afternoon everyone, here is a summary of my 2 week trip to Europe from January 2016. Here is my planning and booking process: Hotel & Flight Bookings for LHR, CDG, NCE, MUC, VCE, and DUB. Here is a visual representation of my intra-European flights. I also flew from SFO-LAX-LHR on American Airlines and DUB-SFO on Aer Lingus (not pictured).
Good morning everyone, happy TGI Friday! First, I wanted to thank everyone for voting in my poll (Reader Feedback Needed: Which Blog Posts Should I Write First?). I was busy this week with 2 free movie screenings in SF (13 Hours and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies) and the SF Travel Hackers Meetup, but I’m finally getting around to writing about my upcoming trip to Europe. That was the overwhelming winner and since my trip starts tomorrow (1/16), I better write about it before I fly out of town.
I will share my thought process and booking experience with my flights and then about my hotels. Since I planned most of this trip back in March/April/May 2015, I was able to find award space to/from SFO very easily. Here is an overview of my paid and award flights:
Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great New Years celebration, but now it’s Monday morning and time to get back to reality. A few months ago, my friends Daniel, Esther and Michael started a blog: DEMflyers.com. (The ‘D’ is Daniel, the ‘E’ is Esther, the ‘M’ is Michael, and the ‘flyers’ is who they are.) They are very experienced travel hackers and members of the SF Travel Hackers Meetup Group. Like I always say, 3 travel hackers/bloggers is better than me 1, so I always look forward to reading their informative, educational, and entertaining posts (except for writing 94 letters to IHG, no one has time for that!)
Anyway, a few days ago, I asked the DEMflyers team if they could help me with a math problem. How many Citi Thank You Points per year do I need to redeem to justify paying the $450 Citi Prestige annual fee vs. paying the $95 Citi Premier annual fee? Take it away Daniel…
The number one rule of churning is that you should never pay an annual fee. Go for a retention offer, downgrade, or cancel, but never pay an annual fee.
This is the conventional wisdom for two reasons: First, the fees add up. If you keep just 10 rewards credit cards a year but pay a $95 annual fee on each one, you’re paying nearly $1,000 in annual fees for benefits you probably don’t even use. Second, the value proposition is usually in the sign-up bonus, so you have no reason to keep the card after you’ve received the bonus. Continue reading
Update: Travel Predictions for 2016 Part 2: Credit Cards and MS is now live!
Good morning everyone, happy New Years Eve! To prove how smart or dumb I am, I wanted to make a few predictions for 2016. In Part 1, I will share my thoughts and predictions about airlines and hotels. In Part 2, I will share my thoughts and predictions about credit cards and MS. If you strongly agree or disagree with any of my thoughts or predictions, please leave a comment below and we will see who is right next year. Without any further ado, let’s make some guesses!
Southwest – Southwest points used to be worth 1.67 CPP, then they were worth 1.43 CPP, now with route variability, I have no idea how much Southwest points are worth. I wish Southwest points would be worth a fixed amount, maybe 1.5 CPP for all flights. I hope Southwest continues to announce new routes, especially a few routes from the West Coast to Hawaii. Lastly, for the last several year, credit card sign up bonus points have counted toward the Southwest Companion Pass. I think this might change in 2016.
American – after the devaluation goes into effect, I hope award space improves considerably (it can’t get much worse). I hope American gets rid of the close-in booking fee for booking award flights within 3 weeks of travel. I also hope that Citi adds the ability to transfer Citi Thank You Points into American Airlines miles. I hope Citi Prestige Credit Card holders retain the ability to book American and AA codeshare flights for 1.6 CPP.
A few years ago, I wrote My Travel Predictions (Both Good and Bad) for 2014 on December 30, 2013. I thought I wrote a similar post at the end of 2014 for 2015 predictions, but I guess I did not. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to review that original post and see how close I came to predicting the truth. For the most part, I think my predictions were about a year too early.
My original predictions are in black and my thoughts/reactions are in red.
Airlines: