One of my favorite things to do in the summer is to hike. What makes it better is hiking with my yellow labrador retrievers (who don’t retrieve under any circumstance, FYI). My partner and I spend a lot of time in the Vail Valley in the summer and we have discovered some pretty great hikes. This summer I’ve had the opportunity to do a couple…
I recently did a quick weekend trip to San Francisco (like straight to the airport on Friday after work and back Sunday evening). I have a bunch of points with the InterContinental Rewards Club so decided to stay at the InterContinential San Francisco, which only requires 45,000 IHG Rewards Club points per night. Plus, since I hold the Chase IHG Rewards Club credit card, I will receive 10%…
It’s pretty amazing the things you see when you travel. That’s the point of traveling right? To see new things, expand your horizons, change your life, yadda yadda yadda, etc. etc. etc. But on your way to see those amazing things, you also see and hear amazing things. Amazing, as in, like, things that you can’t believe you are seeing or hearing amazing. I’ve seen and…
I recently did a quick weekend trip to San Francisco (like straight to the airport on Friday after work and back Sunday evening). I booked my outbound ticket on jetBlue using True Blue points to go from Austin to San Francisco via Long Beach. Because I am currently a TrueBlue Mosaic member (thanks to a recent status match), I am able to cancel award tickets free…
Just shy of a year ago, I qualified for American’s top-tier elite status level, Executive Platinum, also referred to as ExPlat or EXP. One of the perks of ExPlat is that you receive complimentary upgrades on all paid tickets. Since achieving EXP, I’ve flown roughly 90 revenue flights and have only missed two upgrades (pretty good odds, I know.) American Airlines announced in July 2014 that…
I was recently in Seattle for the First2Board.com Sessions, a two day boutique travel-focused event that allows a small group of people to gather, share, learn, eat, and have fun in a new city every year. The event was held at the Sheraton Bellevue Hotel, which is a Category 4 hotel requiring only 10,000 starpoints. My partner’s corporate rate was able to score me a room…
I’m not a big international traveler. I would love to go abroad more, but time and money just doesn’t let it happen. Friends of ours invited us to join them on a western Mediterranean cruise in mid-November, which sounded like a lot of fun and the price was right. Problem (good problem) is that other friends are also getting married in mid-November. So obviously we couldn’t…
