Off to Napa, CA

I'm off on another points related trip of sorts: Napa, CA.  Tomorrow I depart on a United revenue ticket from IAD to SFO.  I'll earn 4,838 much needed  United miles for my South African adventure.  My round trip ticket was $250 due to the fact that my travel companion (not Diva Ridge this time) had a coupon allowing a companion to fly free so we split the cost of 1 RT between us.  Couple this with the fact that the Weston Verasa  is comping us a 2 bedroom suite for two nights due to a major incident during my stay last year and already the $$$ saved topples $1500.  In addition, we'll move to the Hyatt Andaz Napa  for two nights on a revenue stay but as a Diamond member I'll be using one of my free suite upgrades for this stay and along with free Wi-FI comes breakfast (translation: more dollars to spend on wine tasting), then finally we cap the trip off with 1 night using 38K Club Carlson points at he Radisson San Francisco Airport Bay Front before taking our direct flight home.  I'll be reviewing all these properties in later posts. I hope to also review the Hong Kong Flower Lounge Restaurant  and a few wine tasting rooms so keep checking back.

A New Player Joins the Ranks

It didn't take long, not even two months before Diva's call came with somewhat of a sincere tone to it  "I want to know if you will walk me through how you do this points thing, I want to try it for myself" Many will recall Diva Ridge (her porn star name,devised to protect her real identity) accompanied me to Thailand, which was nothing short of first class all the way.  I had opened her eyes to what was possible for an investment of time rather than money when it pertains to travel and now she wanted to strike out on her own.  I told her I would help, hold her hand along the way but she had to follow my advice, change the way she thinks about spending and above all, she had to trust me.  She agreed and we started by reviewing what she was hoping to accomplish travel wise then we reviewed her spending.

Everyday shopping can earn multitudes of points

What do you do when the credit card bonuses have been met and its six months before another round of applications can be submitted to earn points: go shopping.  I know, I said that earning these travel points would not have a person spend more than their means and I'm standing by that statement.  What I mean when I say go shopping is think about the way you shop.  Sure it's great to spend $1000 on normal everyday expenses in a 3 months time span and earn 50,000 points but you can't sustain your travel based on credit card bonuses alone.

College students can play the points game

In my last post I mentioned helping my son with his spend.  Today, I’d like to detail how I got him to the point where he earned a premium credit card.  My family look at me with raised brow with the way I spend and set up reward accounts for all. They've come to accept it more as the kookier things mom does then the actual benefit of what I do brings forth. 

My son used to get annoyed with me because “junk” email was taking up his inbox.  The junk email he was referring too were monthly statements from various travel partners, Delta, Club Carlson, Hyatt that I set up on his behalf so he could earn points.  Let me rephrase that so I could earn points for him. 

Manufactured spend

I recently wrote about acquiring 2 more credit cards and the finessing I had to do with Chase in order to not be denied on my applications because I carry 6 active Chase cards (see post here).  The two cards I received require a total of $3000 in spends in 3 months, this is a relatively low spend for the amount of points.  The United Mileage Plus Explorer card came with a 55K bonus after a $1000 spend and the British Airways Visa 50K Avios points with a $2000 spend.

To Buy Points or Not to Buy, that is the question

This South African trip has me stuck.  I need to secure air tickets before US Air does anything with their pending merger to American Airlines because one of the sweet spots in their award chart happens to be South Africa and I hope to take advantage of that before it goes away for good.  To get to South Africa via a US Air Star Alliance partner I need 70K dividend miles RT for each economy seat or 110,00K RT for each business class seat.  The business option has a lie flat seat and being this will be the 6th longest flight in existence a lie flat seat might be enough reason to fly business class.  Problem is I only have 156K US Airways dividend miles points.  I need three seats total.  156K points are good for 2 RT economy seats with some points to spare.  One business class and one economy seat  are 180K dividend miles currently leaving me with a 24K shortage.  There in lies the problem.  I can't determine which option to utilize.  Ultimately, I would love 3 business class seats but given that I hope to ticket the seats next month I won't be acquiring enough miles with all my tricks for three buiness class seats  (330K dividend miles) so one of us  is flying economy and they may be riding with a partner if I can't figure a path to follow.  I also have 63K United miles (another Star Alliance partner) but have a 17K point shortage for a RT economy seat booked thru United (they require 80K for a RT to South Africa).  It all has to boil down to my ROI (return on investment).   Economy seats for the time period I'm considering are going run $1900 each and the business class seat about $6300, thats about $10,100 in airfare and I'd be paying a little less than 10% of that to purchase the points needed to make up the shortages.  BUT, if I go for 2 business class seats and 1 economy seat I'd be getting $14,500 worth of airfare for about an 12% investment.  It's all a little overwhelming as both United and US Air have bonus points promotions running right now to go along with points purchases.  So for the next few hours I'll be caught up in this triangle of which seating type to select.  I just wanted to share with my readers some of what is involved in the thought process behind acquiring ticketed award seats.  There are many more options available to me but for various reasons my choices have been narrowed to Start Alliance partners and by a full accounting of the various points I have on hand.  Stay tuned as the decision will need to be made soon.
  

Blogtember: A September blog challenge

"If you could take three months off from your current life and do anything in the world, what would you do?"  As part of this self imposed blog writing gig, I read other blogs for ideas, inspiration, challenges and general interest. A friend was telling me about this "Blobtember" Challenge  posted by "story of my life" blog where every day for the month of September a new question/topic will be raised and bloggers rise to the challenge of writing about the chosen topic...said friend thought today's question related to my travel blogging which did peak my interest. As I was updating my blog last night a side bar of this very topic started to overwhelm me, it's wasn't the stress of where will I go next but how will I get the time off from work to go?  I work a regular 40 hr a week job with pretty generous vacation and holiday leave but still with must do trips like visit family, take kids to college etc., there really isn't much left for the world according to me to visit.  I have another California trip coming up and I will have blown all my leave for the rest of 2013. I actually have to make up a day because of this last trip. I know, I know, such problems to have.  So today's "Blogtember" question isn't going to be answered by a destination reveal, it's going to be pondered on with how can I really take three months off?  I could try family leave, that's 3 months, or disability but both are cheating the system, I could try maternity leave (lord, no) or I could just come here every day and work not for the sheer enjoyment of my job but for the leave I earn.  I will continue to drop hints to my bosses that prove I do not need to be in the office daily and could easily do this work from a laptop in Bali, Seychelles, Bahamas, Slovenia or wherever my stash of travel points take me but somehow they just aren't buying it. I can't even get them to understand how I do all this travel for little to nothing out of pocket which is why I write the blog I do.  So for now, until such a challenge can become reality I'll continue to give my career the 100% it deserves until 4:30 pm each day but come 4:31 pm my life truly begins living.           

City Review: Phuket

This is my last post from my two week trip to Asia on points travel. Phuket always had been my final destination, I just chose to terminate in Hong Kong and make my way to Phuket through various means for which you can read about here, here and here.  As I have mentioned in my review of the Radisson Blu Cape Panwa, Phuket is a very large island about 30 miles long and 13 miles wide. That fact becomes apparent when you chose to stay in the quietness of Cape Panwa and wish to visit other portions of the island.