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Ran into the Mexican car insurance scam with Budget in Merida, Mexico 🇲🇽
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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Pleasantly surprised by Cathay Pacific's service for oneworld emerald customers even in economy. Middle seat was automatically blocked off, multiple FAs came by to greet me, was given a bottle of water and a blanket / pillow
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Most of us know that shopping internationally can mean a significant savings especially with tax refunds via Global Blue, Planet Payment, Travelex, etc. I recently returned from Paris, where I shopped at a few stores who did tax refunds via Global Blue. However, I also discovered and tried out a newer service called Wevat (referral REQRESZQ for additional 5 euros refund; I receive no commission) for smaller purchases, and I’m here to report the experience!
Prefacing that Japan is not open to foreign tourists currently, but this post is for future reference. The coronavirus pandemic affected Japan heavily, like many other regions in the world, but along with it came the rising trend of remote work. In response, several Shinkansen bullet train operators in Japan started providing a remote work train service.
For example, the Tohoku, Joetsu, and Hokuriku Shinkansen trains, which service Kanazawa, Niigata, and the Tohoku region of Japan started an office car service. In the office car, passengers are explicitly allowed to make phone calls and join online meetings from the train, which are activities normally discouraged on trains in general in Japan. There’s no extra charge for this service, you just need to explicitly reserve a special car on the train. You should be able to reserve this with the various JR Passes as well, either the nationwide pass or the JR East Pass. I haven’t ridden this myself, but you can read more details here: https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/11/e3350c504173-jr-east-launches-bullet-train-office-cars-amid-telework-demand.html
If you’re like me, you freshly loaded up your United Travel Bank with your eligible Amex cards in the new year to use up the associated travel credits. Say you’ve also signed up for FoundersCard to get the discount on United bookings. United says that you can’t use Travel Bank funds to book when using corporate discounts, but is that correct? When I go through the booking flow on the web, that’s the case:
Recently I’ve gotten into margin lending as a form of leverage. Why would you want to do that? This great post from Mr. Money Mustache goes into how it works and some reasons why you might want to do it. But mostly, the interest rates are incredibly low (a base rate of around 1.1% which adjusts based on interest rates), so it’s a fast and cheap way to get liquidity to put to other uses. To me, I consider it safe as long as you aren’t using it to spend or invest beyond your means, and are just taking advantage of the low interest rates. For example, to get liquidity from your equity without selling it off and incurring capital gains taxes, or to get liquidity during a market dip to buy at the dip without selling existing equity. Personally, I am using margin lending to earn a much higher interest rate (19.5%) with Anchor Protocol, or the other day I needed to meet a capital call and funds were being too slow to transfer from other sources.
I recently obtained my Taiwanese Passport (台灣護照) for the first time. Growing up in the US as a Taiwanese-American in a fairly Taiwanese area, I never really thought about my identity until adulthood, when I began to fully embrace my background. Obtaining my passport is milestone along that journey. Technically, I don’t have the full rights of a Taiwanese citizen just by holding a passport, the status is called a National Without Household Registration. It would require obtaining household registration and then staying in Taiwan for some period of time to gain those full rights. Also, technically due my parents being Taiwanese, I was always a national, and this is just officially establishing my identity. As the United States does not forbid dual-citizens, and claiming your Taiwanese passport is not the same as naturalizing, which would require giving up your original citizenship, this is possible.
Recently, on my way back from Taiwan to Japan, I stopped for a week in Singapore to see friends and co-workers, and no quarantine was required! I used the Air Travel Pass, a travel green lane to enter Singapore that is open to the following countries as long as you have been there for the last 14 days (subject to update, check https://safetravel.ica.gov.sg/atp/requirements-and-process for the latest requirements):
Detailed review of Ventana Big Sur, pro tips for your stay, and suggestions for what to do around the area and along the beautiful Pacific coastline. Click the title to read more.
I moved to Japan in March, and had spend the last 7 months in Japan. While it was absolutely wonderful, especially taking advantage of the Japanese government’s travel subsidies, when the government announced that mid to long term residence could leave and re-enter the country starting October 1, I started plotting for a trip to another country to see friends that I hadn’t see in a while. On top of that priority list was Korea for various reason.
Several updates to Japan’s Go To campaign, which offers up to 50% off travel.
First, Sapporo and Osaka have been removed as eligible destinations. Supposedly for 3 weeks from 11/24/202, no new reservations will be accepted, and existing Go To reservations will be cancelled and refunded.
Next, only up to 7 nights of a stay will be discounted. This is to prevent usage for long-term stays that aren’t travel such as business stays.
e* here. I just returned from a brief stay at Miraval Arizona, where I went with my husband, a close friend, and fellow miles & points blogger Miles For Two. It’s been on my bucket list for a while as many in our miles & points community have been there in recent years. Thanks to the BOGO + credit card rebate promotion, we were able to book a trip to the recently reopened resort and get away from the polluted air that we’ve been dealing with in California for the past month or two. Since we haven’t been able to safely travel internationally for a long time, this was a great way to ease back into safely traveling with the new normal.
