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, a few weeks ago, I wrote Transfer Times to Singapore Airlines from Chase Ultimate Rewards, AMEX Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You Points, and SPG Starpoints. In that post, I learned that transfers to Singapore Airlines were not instant and vary by transferable points program. Nothing is worse that transferring points to miles and waiting for the miles to post. It can be extremely nerve racking and frustrating to keep refreshing your Singapore Airlines account and seeing no change.
Long story short, I needed to book a very short notice award ticket for my friend from Germany back to the US. And by short notice, I mean less than 24 hours between request and flight departure. I did not have enough Singapore Airlines miles to book a one way from Europe to the US (which costs 27,500 Singapore Airlines miles), so I initiated a transfer from Citi Thank You Points around 8am PT. I was hoping the Singapore Airlines miles would post within a few hours, but that did not happen. I checked every few hours after that, but still no luck. Right before I went to bed (around 11pm PT), I checked one more time, but still no luck. I went to bed and set my alarm for 5:30am PT. Luckily I heard my alarm go off and saw that the miles posted to my account (almost 24 hours after after initiating the transfer).
Good morning everyone, a few days ago I wrote New AMEX Offers: $50 Off $200 RocketMiles.com, $30 Off $150 Lowe’s, and More. I have a few new AMEX Offers to share, including Dropbox, Adobe, Sleepys, Timberland, 1800Flowers.com, Vital Choice Seafood and Organic Food, Puritan’s Pride, and Oak Hall. None of these offers are great for MS unless you are considering Frequent Miler’s post on converting Discover cash back to frequent flier miles.
