Remember that tomorrow is the first Friday of the month and instead of the normal 2 points per dollar spent at restaurants, you can get 3 points per dollar with your Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Chase is keeping this offer through the end of the year but we don’t know if they’ll continue it into 2015 or not so take advantage of this offer while you can! Remember you can buy restaurant gift cards in the store itself and effectively enjoy the 3x points for many more visits!
Turkey Trip Overview
Booking Flights To Turkey
British Airways First Class Lounge IAH
British Airways 777 First Class IAH-LHR
Transiting Heathrow and British Airways A320 Business Class LHR-IST
Marriott Courtyard Istanbul Airport
Pegasus Airlines Istanbul to Izmir and Back
Ephesus, Mary’s House and Basilica of St. John
Swissotel Efes
Pamukkale Bus and Preiene
Ritz-Carlton Istanbul
Major Sites to see in Istanbul
Radisson Blu Bosphorus
Turkish Airlines Lounge Istanbul
Turkish Airlines 777 Business Class IST-IAH
I live in Memphis and my two traveling companions live in the Chicago area and in Southern California. With access to large, hub airports it’s easy for them to be able to get flights anywhere. Flying from my midsize airport sometimes means an extra stop along the way.
Though I’ve only been in the miles and points “game” for a couple of years, already I’d heard about the wonders of the Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul and put it on my mental list of places I wanted to check out. When my friend announced he was taking the apartment in Turkey in August and September I realized here was my chance. I’d saved up a bunch of United Airlines miles and planned to use them to fly Turkish Airlines. But last winter we started hearing about how United was devaluing their miles and how many more miles it was going to cost to fly on partner airlines. So on the very last weekend before the devaluation hit, my friends and I got together on the phone and got our dates in order.
My original plan had been to fly to Turkey on Turkish and back on another airline. But as I got to thinking about it, I realized that if I wanted to enjoy the lounge at the Istanbul airport, I’d need to fly back on Turkish. This actually worked out very well because we really wanted to arrive at the same time and go through Customs together. While I’d had a couple of ports of call in Turkey while on a cruise several years ago, my friends had never visited. So I was aware of how western much of Turkey is – though it certainly has a much more Islamic influence than what we’re accustomed to here – but my friends were being a little more cautious and wanted to be sure we were all on the same flight into Istanbul.
As it turned out I’d recently acquired one of the American Airlines Executive MasterCards when they were giving out the 100,000 mile bonuses, so I had plenty of miles to spare. I was able to find two premium award tickets, a business class seat on American from Chicago and a first class seat on British Airways from Houston. Since my Chicago friend was also using miles, she took the business class seat and I flew to Houston (via Dallas) on American and then to London. My friend in SoCal purchased an economy ticket on BA/AA non-stop to London.
I used 62,500 American AAdvantage miles and just over $500 cash for my first class ticket. This is because both my flight from Houston to London and the flight from London to Istanbul were on British Airways and BA passes along fuel surcharges (which are distance-based). Still, for a first class seat that retails for over $11000, I’m ok with the fuel surcharges. My friend from Chicago flew her trans-Atlantic segment on AA metal and thus her fuel surcharges were only about $250.
In the end, here is our flight map as we all met up at Heathrow:
Map drawn with gcmap.com
Turkey Trip Overview
Booking Flights To Turkey
British Airways First Class Lounge IAH
British Airways 777 First Class IAH-LHR
Transiting Heathrow and British Airways A320 Business Class LHR-IST
Marriott Courtyard Istanbul Airport
Pegasus Airlines Istanbul to Izmir and Back
Ephesus, Mary’s House and Basilica of St. John
Swissotel Efes
Pamukkale Bus and Preiene
Ritz-Carlton Istanbul
Major Sites to see in Istanbul
Radisson Blu Bosphorus
Turkish Airlines Lounge Istanbul
Turkish Airlines 777 Business Class IST-IAH
I have a friend who was renting an apartment for a couple of months in Turkey. Since he was going to be there for awhile, I asked if he’d mind having my two friends and me come for a visit. It turned out his apartment was too small for so many visitors so we’d need to get a hotel. He was staying in the resort town of Kusadasi, which is about 45 minutes outside of Izmir, so we decided to use Izmir for our base in the area. Since most international flights fly into and out of Istanbul, we’d spend time there after leaving Izmir.
While we were in Izmir I knew we’d want to take a tour of the ancient city of Ephesus and we wouldn’t have a car so I did something that’s a bit of an anathema in the points & miles game: I contacted a travel agent. I have a friend here in town who is a Virtuoso agent yet knows my preference to plan as much as possible myself and she put me in touch with a Turkish Virtuoso agent who helped us greatly. I’ll have more on how they helped us but it’s not always a bad thing to pay for travel.
We flew from three different US cities and met up in London before continuing on to Istanbul. We spent a night there before flying to Izmir, where we spent four nights. We then flew back to Istanbul for five nights before returning home.
Stay tuned for the trip highlights as well as details on booking the flights.
Can you tell that we’re right in the midst of shoulder season? There are all kinds of promos coming through every day. Here are recent ones I’ve seen, in no particular order:
IHG Rewards Club is featuring a bonus on purchased points this month. The bonus depends on how many points you’re purchasing. I’ve got a nice stash of points at the moment so I’ll sit this one out.
Club Carlson is having a sale at select hotels when you book by this Friday, October 10 and stay on select dates through the end of the month. Talk about restrictions! Since I just returned from vacation I won’t take advantage of this either.
I’m not an aviation geek by any means but one of the few planes I can recognize on sight is the Airbus A380, since it’s a full-length double-decker. Air France is starting a new route, Miami to Paris (CDG), on December 1st. Remember Air France is part of SkyTeam which means you can use Delta miles on this flight. Sadly, Delta will not allow you access to La Premiere (first class) and if you book before the end of the year a one-way ticket will cost as much as a round-trip. However, Air France’s Flying Blue program is a transfer partner of both Starwood and Amex Membership Rewards, so that’s the way to book first class on the new bird.
And finally, if you hold one of the Hilton co-branded credit cards (Amex has two, Citibank has one) you should have received this offer via email. The link in the mail is specific for each recipient but you can buy or give Hilton HHonors points until October 22 and get a bonus, depending on how many points you buy or give. Might be a nice way to top off your account if you’re just a little short.
Oh, I’m so far behind! I went on vacation for 10 days and have been scrambling ever since I got back. There are several promotions going on right now, so let’s get to the good stuff:
30% Bonus on Purchased Club Carlson Points
Between now and the end of the month you can get a 30% bonus if you buy 10,000-40,000 Club Carlson points. I recently points for a two-night stay at the Radisson Blu in Istanbul. If you also have the Club Carlson credit card, the last night of any multi-night stay is free! Click HERE to learn more.
100% Bonus on Purchased Dividend Miles Extended Through October 12
Buy or gift US Airways Dividend Miles through October 12 and get a 100% bonus. Click HERE to be taken to the US Airways site.
1000 Bonus Gold Passport Points
Book your next Hyatt stay via their mobile app and earn a 1000 point bonus. There doesn’t seem to be any limit and it’s good through the end of the year! Click on the HERE to be taken to the Hyatt site.
2500 Bonus US Airways Dividend Miles
Use your US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard at gas stations, restaurants, toy & game stores and department stores through the end of the year and receive up to 2500 bonus miles. That’s a bonus of spend in these categories up to $1250. You must activate this offer by October 20th! If you’re already a cardholder, you should have received info about this offer already.
That’s it for now. I’ve got some more updates coming including a report on my recent trip to Turkey. Stay tuned!
This weekend I traveled to Europe. In the past, I’d read other bloggers moaning and groaning about London’s Heathrow Airport. I never understood this as my one experience there had been fine. Now I know that’s because my flight terminated here and I wasn’t transiting.
This weekend I transited for the first time and man, what a terrible experience! Just so many ways this experience could be better organized. I hope to cover that in more detail in a future post but suffice it to say that now I understand why everyone is so unhappy!
American Airlines has a new sweepstakes that starts today and runs through the end of the month. Enter and you could win 200,000 AAdvantage miles. You can enter once a day and if you choose to receive certain emails from American you can get up to 5 extra entries. Click HERE for the AAdvantage shopping portal where you can sign up.
US Airways is well-known for selling miles at a discount. Now through September 30, 2014 they’re offering a tiered bonus when purchasing Dividend Miles. This can be a great way to top off your account if you’re just a little short of an award. Or if you want a business class ticket, you can buy 50,000 miles with a bonus of another 50,000 and, voila, you’ve got enough for that ticket. Just be sure that you can’t otherwise get the business class seat for less than the $1750 + tax price for those 100K miles!
To get the bonus, go to the US Airways website and click on the Buy Miles link. From there you’ll be prompted to log into your US Airways Dividend Miles account.
Avianca’s LifeMiles are an unusual currency. They can often be purchased cheaply and used for flights on Star Alliance carriers. But they come with at least one noteable restriction: all your flights must be in the same cabin. If a particular cabin is not offered on a give route, that doesn’t matter, you can’t downgrade, you’re just out of luck. In my case that’s a big impediment because United, the only Star Alliance carrier in my city, only flies 1-cabin regional jets to my airport. Therefore, if I wanted to use LifeMiles for an international trip in a premium cabin, I’d have to position myself to another airport first. Also, I’ve read that if you’re trying to book something more than a simple trip and have to call in that the call center is (not surprisingly) mostly Spanish speakers and it can be hard to find someone to help. For these reasons I’ve never gotten into LifeMiles.
Right now Avianca is offering LifeMiles at 2-for-1 pricing. Miles are available in blocks of 1000 miles for $30 USD + taxes. A maximum of 150,000 LifeMiles may be purchased during a calendar year.
This sale is good until September 30, 2014. Beginning October 1st, the cost of purchased LifeMiles will increase. At the same time Avianca announced this price increase, they also announced an award chart devaluation effective for flights on October 15th and beyond. That means it’ll take more LifeMiles on that date than it will today.
Here’s the updated award chart for Star Alliance flights using LifeMiles
If you want to compare the old and new charts, Lucky has provided that in this post
Want to get away next weekend? Marriott has certain properties on sale this Thursday through Sunday (Sept 4-7). Not all properties are included but if you can sneak away on a whim, now’s the time! Check HERE to see if the property you’re interested in is featured.
2B Traveling 
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