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:
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.
Good morning everyone. Last month, my brother and I went to Zion National Park for Labor Day Weekend (September 4-7). The trip was amazing and I definitely recommend everyone go to Zion National Park for a few days if you are ever in Southwest Utah. A few weeks ago, Frequent Miler wrote a post about his recent trip through Zion National Park where he stayed at the Zion Lodge (log cabins) for ~$200/night. I thought it would be a good idea to share my experience at the Holiday Inn Express Springdale / Zion National Park and show what other points hotel options were available at Zion National Park.
Getting to Zion National Park is tricky. You can fly into St. George, Utah, but that is a very small/expensive airport. I recommend flying into Las Vegas (easily accessible from every airport with many flights from many airlines) and then driving ~3 hours to Zion National Park (Google Map). My brother and I landed in Vegas around 8:30pm and then made our way to the Las Vegas rental car lot and then toward Utah. We arrived at the Holiday Inn Express hotel a little after 1am (1 hour time change from Arizona to Utah).
Good morning everyone, it’s been a while since I did a random news post, so I have accumulated quite a bit of random news. So much news, that I will have to do a random news afternoon special. Check back at noon for that. In the meantime, here is the morning edition of the random news. My first Citi Prestige statement closed and I received the full $250 airline travel credit.
