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Just bought EQP to requalify for IHG Diamond through end of 2025! Since I usually buy miles for 0.5 cents, the $768 to buy 110,000 EQP was only a $218 premium, and I get Diamond again
Ran into the Mexican car insurance scam with Budget in Merida, Mexico š²š½
Base rate was $18 USD a day, but if you didn't get the CDW costing minimum $85 USD a day, I had to put down a deposit of 330,000 MXN / $16,000 USD which obviously got rejected by all my credit cards.
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Greetings from the Intercontinental Fiji! We can’t believe that we’ll be headed home in just a few short hours after our adventures (and misadventures!) in Sydney, Queenstown, Auckland, and now here. It’s been a blast traveling together, though, and we’ve gotten to work on aĀ little surprise project going on that we’ll share with you in the coming weeks.
Before I go on, let me share with you exactly what I’m looking at right now:
Due to various sales ex-EU in the past, I have some experience dealing the American Airlines reservation systems for flights from the European Union. American Airlines uses Amadeus for certain countries in the EU (in this case Ireland) instead of their usual SABRE.
I would often book directly through American because either I could only find the best fare on American vs. OTAs, or I wanted to use the hold feature. Google Flights would direct me to the americanairlines.eu.amadeus.com link. And when I tried to search for the same flight on aa.com, I was quoted a slightly higher price due to currency conversion to USD. But when I put a reservation on hold through the americanairlines.eu.amadeus.com website, and later tried to find it on the AA.com site to pay for it, I would get this message “Please call to book your trip”
Greetings from Sydney!
At long last, the whole DEM Flyers crew is together in one place traveling for two weeks, and we could not be more excited. Unfortunately, Michael and I are still sitting on the tarmac at Sydney as we wait for a truck to tow our 747 the last 500 feet to the gate. So close, yet so farā¦.
I donāt typically write trip reports, but I figured this occasion was significant enough to warrant it. And besides, I donāt have anything better to do ????
Tip 1:Ā Be able to read Japanese
Okay, that’s not good advice. Let’s try again.
Tip 2: Have family or friends that can read Japanese
Okay, say youĀ don’t have that either.Ā What if you don’t know Japanese and would still like to experience an authentic Japanese ryokan experience?
The different types of Japanese style lodging
First of all, there areĀ a couple of typesĀ of Japanese style lodgings. Ryokan are the full blown traditional Japanese style inn experience with Japanese style rooms. They will typically include dinner and breakfast. Often they will have either a private or shared bath (onsen.) Ryokan will usually be in the price range of 6,000 to 30,000 yen per person.
Warning, the topic of this post is R rated, though I will try to keep the post as PG rated as possible. If you aren’t interested in more lurid topics, I’d skip this post.
You may or may not have heard of the infamous Bangkok ping pong shows. If you haven’t, google it if you dare (I would not recommend searching for it at work.) Pretty much no respectable Thai person goes to these things, and the main audience is curious tourists and pervert expats. I would say it’s a very, very unique experience that may not be for everyone, but makes a great story to tell amongst cruder minded company! Personally, I have very little interest in the titillating parts of the show myself, but just want to have very unique experience.Ā For something equally unique that is less straight up gross and with a lesser chance of getting scammed, I would recommend theĀ Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
A couple weeks ago, my friend challenged me to come up with a list of crazy things I could do with miles and points, or more specifically, a list of aspirational travel ideas with the restriction that they couldnāt have anything to do with luxury (which is what motivates many to begin travel hacking in the first place).
I tried for a while, but evidently I’m not creative enough to come up with a list without some other kind of inspiration (whereās my muse when I need one?). Instead, I decided to compile a list of all the (travel-related) adventures Iāve had this past year:
My friend Alex and I recently went on a week long trip through Europe, taking advantage of a British Airways sale for business class to Europe. We hit Zurich, Berlin, and London, staying 2-3 days in each city. Here’s a mini trip report, as well as some travel tips gained from first hand experience. Tips will be at the bottom of the post for those who don’t want to read the trip report.
Admittedly, I am one of the worst prepared frequent travelers out there. Due to taking so many frequent trips, and being a bit scatterbrained, I tend to barely plan, always forget to bring something, lose things in hotels, miss experiencing things, and make small mistakes that could have happened with better planning. But things somehow turn out okay in the end. But hopefully you can learn from my mistakes!
This has been floating around the internet for the past couple of days, so I figured I would share it here for those who hadn’t seen it:
One of the things I love about traveling around the Pacific, and in particular what struck me when I was in Bali two months ago, is how different (Southeast) Asian cultures can be from that of the U.S. Like paying attention to detail for details own sake. Like treating everyone — including strangers — like family.
Hello! I’m on my way back home after a quick trip to Bogota, Colombia (and sadly missing TravelCon II.) I’m currently sitting in the Admirals Club at Miami Airport because I’m too lazy to go through a security checkpoint without TSA Pre to get into another terminal for the Priority Pass lounge there. Just enough time to write a couple of short blog posts before my connecting flight!
AfterĀ jumping onĀ a mistake fare to IndonesiaĀ in the spring (and convincing my friend Jacob to join),Ā I finally got to live out my trip, spending five days in Bali followed by one in Singapore and another in Tokyo.
We spent a large portion of our Bali segment staying in Ubud, from which we had access to much of northern Bali (like Mt. Batur, an active volcano, shown above) as well as respite from the hordes of tourists typically crowding the beaches of Kuta (we did of course spend a day in Legian to take advantage of the beaches).
