Tag Archives: Travel

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Ask Me Anything (AMA): Hotel Edition

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  A few days ago, I wrote Ask Me Anything (AMA): Credit Card Edition.  I had some great reader questions and I am doing the second AMA, this time on hotels.  I like to describe myself as loyal to hotel loyalty programs, but not loyal to a specific hotel chain.  Here is a screenshot from AwardWallet of the hotel loyalty programs I belong to and their elite status:

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Here is a quick rundown of how I have these hotel elite statuses:

  • Best Western Diamond Select – status match from Hilton Diamond (status match link)
  • Caesars Rewards Diamond – status match from Wyndham Rewards (Middle Ade Miles blog post)
  • Choice Hotels Member – I think I have only spent 2-3 nights at Choice hotels in the last 2-3 years
  • Hilton Diamond – free thanks to my American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card (my blog post)
  • World of Hyatt Discoverist – free thanks to my old Chase Hyatt Hotel Credit Card
  • IHG Rewards Spire Elite – I spent a few thousand dollars at IHG in 2019 (mainly at the InterContinental Moorea for my pre-honeymoon)
  • Marriott Bonvoy Platinum Elite – I had a few different Marriott / SPG credit card elite nights stack in 2019
  • MGM Resorts Pearl – status match from World of Hyatt Discoverist (Doctor of Credit’s post)
  • Radisson Rewards Gold / Silver – I have 3 different US Bank Radisson Rewards Credit Cards that come with Gold or Silver elite status
  • Wyndham Rewards Diamond – status matched from Caesars Rewards Diamond (Middle Ade Miles blog post)

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View Southwest Airlines Travel Funds in your Account (Effective December 3, 2019)

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Friday is going well.  A few years ago, I wrote in my 2018 travel predictions that “Southwest Airlines will increase their Transfarency by automatically keeping track of travel funds in each account.”  I wrote that post on January 14, 2018, and it looks like my prediction came true on December 3, 2019.  If you log into your Southwest Airlines account, you should see a new section at the top of your My Account page that says “My Travel Funds.”  Click the View Travel Funds button to view your travel funds.

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My 5 New Year’s Travel Resolutions for 2020

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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.

1. Travel Somewhere Every Month

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:

  • January: Laura and I will do a short road trip down to Carmel / Monterey for a long weekend and use our Hyatt Free Night Certificates.
  • February: I will fly down to Orange County for Super Bowl Weekend with my family and then we will make a second trip to Orange County for my cousin’s wedding.
  • March: Laura and I are flying to Ireland for her Spring Break (she is an assistant principal).  Check out my post How to Book Aer Lingus Award Tickets with British Airways Avios (Call BA to Save $100+ on Taxes & Fees).

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:

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What was your Favorite Trip of 2019?

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Good morning everyone, happy New Year’s Eve!  Since today is the last day of the year, I thought it would be fun to share my favorite trip of 2019 and ask my readers to share their favorite trips too.  Laura and I got married at the end of July 2019 and we couldn’t do a honeymoon afterward (work & school obligations), so we decided to do a pre-honeymoon to Tahiti and Moorea in June 2019.

I wanted to go to Bora Bora, but the ~$500 round trip flight per person from Tahiti to Bora Bora was a deal breaker.  We settled on Moorea (I call it the poor man’s Bora Bora) since it was easy to get to via a 45 minute car/passenger ferry from Tahiti.  We had a rental car, so we drove from the Faa’a International Airport in Tahiti (PPT), to the ferry, and then to the beautiful InterContinental Moorea.  There was no award nights available for the overwater bungalows, so I emailed the hotel to ask how much the overwater bungalows cost.  The hotel said that since I was an IHG Platinum Elite Member (now I am an IHG Spire Elite Member), they would upgrade me 1 hotel room level.  I paid for the standard overwater bungalow and when we checked in, we were upgraded to a premium overwater bungalow (same bungalows, just a better location and view).

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Have You Read My Top 10 Blog Posts from 2019?

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Good morning everyone, long time no blog.  I hope you all had a great holiday season and have exciting plans for New Years.  Quick update from me: Laura and I drove down to Orange County from the Bay Area for Christmas and then we *tried* to drive back up to the Bay Area on December 26, but since the Grapevine (on the 5 Freeway) was closed due to snow, we only made it half way up on the 101 Freeway.  We stopped in Santa Maria (near San Luis Obispo) for 1 night (shout out to the Holiday Inn Express Santa Maria for 20K IHG Points) and then we drove up the rest of the way on December 27 for a second Christmas with Laura’s family.  Then on Saturday morning, we flew to Las Vegas to visit my new niece (born on December 21).  On Sunday night, after a nice relaxing dinner at the LAS Centurion Lounge, we had a minor weather delay on our return flight to SFO, followed by sitting on our United flight for 90 minutes as we waited for an open gate (half of SFO is United, so there should be an open gate…).  We are glad to be back home and I have a few blog posts in the pipeline.

For today’s post, I will list my top 10 most read blog posts written in 2019 along with the top 10 posts of the year (regardless of the year they were written).  By the way, here are the most popular posts from 2018, 2017, and 2016. Continue reading →