Award Travel

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Posted on December 18, 2023 by 2btravel

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise
Lounge Reviews: The Club CLT and Centurion Lounge Charlotte Airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich
Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens
Our Time in Athens, Part I (Acropolis and Museum)
Our Time in Athens, Part II (Roman Agora, Hadrian’s Library, Ancient Agora)
Our Time in Athens, Part III (Kerameikos, Temple of Zeus, Panathenaic Stadium)
Our Time in Athens, Part IV (Restaurants and Observations)
Ship Review: Viking Neptune
Our Time in Ancient Olympia (Katakalon, Greece)
Our Time in Corfu, Greece
Our Time in Kotor, Montenegro
Our Time in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Our Time in Zadar, Croatia
Our Time in Venice, Italy
Flight Review: Iberia A330-300 Madrid-Chicago

When we returned home from our October 2022 European trip that included a Viking River Cruise on the Seine, I received the standard follow-up phone call from our sales rep to ask how the trip had gone. Of course the other part of his job was to try to get us to sign up for another cruise. My travel companion and I discussed it and tried to get some other friends to come along on a 2023 cruise but it just wasn’t working out. So instead of taking another river cruise, we thought we’d try one of Viking’s ocean-going vessels for a Mediterranean cruise. By completing our payment before the end of 2022 we were eligible for $200 of shipboard credit that could be applied to anything from spa treatments to shore excursions. That sounded like a good deal to us so we booked a tour on the Viking Neptune, which was only put into service in November 2022. While we had done a western Mediterranean cruise in 2008, only two ports of call overlapped with the Neptune’s itinerary.

Even though the cruise began in Athens, it did not include any time in the city itself unless you paid for the $599 pre-trip extension. I had spent time in Athens in 2007 on a Greek islands cruise but my friend had never been there and we knew we could do it more cheaply thanks to hotel points. So we left the US on a Tuesday, arriving in Athens on Wednesday and had two full days in the city before boarding the cruise ship on Saturday.

Booking the flights

As usual, we booked our own airfare using our airline miles. While we typically leave from Chicago, where my traveling companion lives, in November 2022 we found connecting airfare on United through Newark directly to Athens for just 33K miles in economy. While my friend had a number of ORD-EWR flights to choose from, the only MEM-EWR flight available at this price left Memphis at 6 AM and then had an 8+ hour layover in Newark. You can imagine I was not excited about that! It also broke the promise I’d made to myself not to cross oceans in economy. My friend was ok with it as she’s retired and trying to conserve her miles. We went ahead and booked the flights because they were so cheap and I could not find any business class flights on our travel day for what I considered a reasonable price.

Fast forward to July 2023 and I found flights on Lufthansa out of Charlotte for 70K Aeroplan miles. I transferred 70K American Express Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan and paid taxes and fees of $74.66 USD/$98.30 CAD.

Now my problem was getting to Charlotte. There is no non-stop United flight (a Star Alliance partner of Air Canada and Lufthansa) between Memphis and Charlotte so trying to get to Charlotte on the same ticket would have meant changing planes – assuming I could even find domestic award space. But there is an American Airlines non-stop and while I often cannot find saver award space between Memphis and DFW or Chicago, I had multiple saver-level options to Charlotte. But rather than using 25K American AAdvantage miles I opted to use just 15K British Airways Avios + $5.60 to get me to Charlotte in domestic first class. I also made sure that there was another MEM-CLT flight after mine, just in case of delays, and I’d still have time to get my bag checked in for my Lufthansa flight.

So our outbound flights were as follows:

10/17 1151 ORD – 1510 EWR on UA 2471 in economy
10/17 1750 EWR – 1010+1 ATH on UA 124 in economy for 30K United miles + $5.60 (a bargain!)
These flights are shown in red on the map.

10/17 0925 MEM – 1209 CLT on AA 1790 in domestic first class using 15K Avios + $5.60
10/17 1830 CLT – 0915+1 MUC on LH 429 in business class
10/18 1110 MUC – 1435 ATH on LH 1752 in intra-Europe business class for 70K Aeroplan miles + $74.66
These flights are shown in green on the map.

As you can see, my friend was due to get to Athens 4+ hours ahead of me. Before changing my booking I double-checked with her that she didn’t mind hanging out at the airport and she said she didn’t so I went ahead and changed my flights.

Our flights included travel on United Airlines, American Airlines, Lufthansa and Iberia Airlines

Continue reading →

Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Star Alliance, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Ancient Olympia, Athens, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Corfu, Croatia, Dubrovnik, Greece, Italy, Katakalo, Kotor, Marriott, Montenegro, Murano, Ocean Cruise, Olympia, Trip Report, Venice, Viking, Zadar | Leave a comment

Points and miles are not always about value

Posted on June 27, 2023 by 2btravel

Those of us who play this game of points and miles love to redeem those currencies for flights or hotels where we can experience luxury in a style that we’d never pay cash for. But one thing that’s great about having points and miles on hand is that they’re available when you need them which can save you from having to unexpectedly shell out cash.

I live in Memphis, Tennessee and on this past Sunday evening we had a series of straight-line winds blow through town. There were over 120,000 people in our county without power shortly thereafter as trees fell on power lines and even utility poles were knocked over. And at least a couple of folks whose private planes were not properly tied down found those planes upside down!

I was one of the unlucky ones without power. Temperatures had reached the mid-90s that day but when my power went out just after 7 PM the storm had dropped them to about 77F. But, as is typical in this area in the summer, the humidity was about 83%. I propped open the back door, hoping the lights would come on soon but at about 8 PM my dog, who was napping, started panting and I knew that we would both be miserable if we had to spend the night without air conditioning.

I have several free night certificates from the credit cards I hold and would have liked to have used some of them that would expire sooner but the closest hotels either didn’t accept pets at all or only pets that are smaller than my dog. So I was able to use my Hilton free night certificate at the Homewood Suites closest to me. This is the same hotel where I lived for four months in early 2020 while my house was being repaired from a fire. I knew the rooms were larger than typical hotel rooms and we’d have a sofa as well as the bed so it was a great fit. The room was quite warm when we arrived but still cooler than my house and we spent the night in comfort.

Just for holding the American Express Hilton Aspire Card I have Hilton Diamond status. And while late checkout is a benefit, it’s not guaranteed. I asked for 4 PM checkout and was told there was no way I could get that but I could get 1 PM checkout. By noon my power was not back on so I went ahead and used points for that night. And naturally, my power was turned back on shortly after 1 PM. But I was out 30K points instead of over $200. That’s a lot easier to swallow! It wasn’t a sexy, luxurious redemption but it was so nice to be able not to have to think about whether or not I could afford a hotel.

There are some who think that chasing points and miles is a loser’s game. And you can certainly get yourself into trouble if you’re not careful. But at times like this it’s wonderful to have those points in your back pocket.

Categories: Advice, Award Travel | Tags: Advice | Leave a comment

Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Posted on April 1, 2023 by 2btravel

Return to International Travel – Introduction
Review: SWISS A340-300 ORD-ZRH and Marhaba Lounge ZRH
Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy
Our Time In Florence, Part 1
Our Time In Florence, Part 2
Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France
Our Time In Paris, Part 1 (Louvre, Sainte-Chappelle, Arc, Eiffel Tower)
Our Time In Paris, Part 2 (Versailles)
Our Time In Paris, Part 3 (Catacombs, Musee d’Orsay)
Viking Kari and an Afternoon in Montmartre
Our Time in La Roche-Guyon and Vernon/Giverny
Our Time on the Normandy Beaches
Our Time in Les Andelys and Le Pecq
Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France
Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Since I had never flown Air France, I figured this was my best shot to do that. I looked for a flight that would connect in the US and fly me all the way back to Memphis on the same ticket but for whatever reason Delta was not making any saver-level award space available. We had originally planned on returning to the US on a Wednesday, the day our cruise ended, but I found business class award tickets that day were (if I remember correctly) about 95K miles. Then I noticed that by returning on Thursday to Chicago, which is not a Delta/SkyTeam hub, the cost was only 58K miles. Sold! I then bought a separate cash ticket on United back to Memphis.

Air France 136
CDG-ORD
Aircraft: A350-900
Depart: 13:35, actual 13:59
Arrive: 15:25, actual 15:15
Seat: 2A (Business Class)

It was my first time at CDG airport so I was thrilled to find a luggage cart right where the taxi let me out. With my bum knee everything was taking longer to do so I was glad we had arrived quite early. Not being familiar with the airport’s layout I had hoped to reconnect with my friend, who was flying AA, once we went through security but I later realized that wasn’t practical. After checking my luggage I hobbled through the airport, on to the train and disembarked at Concourse M.

As I had plenty of time I visited the Air France lounge in Concourse M and would have liked to have reviewed it but thought it better to rest my knee. I did sample the chocolate mousse and loved it.

I left myself plenty of time to walk to the gate, though it wasn’t that far from the lounge, but I was moving slowly. Even while at the gate I had difficulty understanding the gate announcements as the acoustics in that building are such that the sound bounces all over the place but eventually we began the boarding process.

Air France A350

Continue reading →

Categories: Air France, Award Travel, Flight Review, SkyTeam, Trip Report | Tags: A350, Air France, Award Travel, Flight Review, SkyTeam, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France

Posted on March 29, 2023 by 2btravel

While we could have flown home after the final morning of our cruise, I found I could use significantly few Air France miles if I returned the day after. So we decided to stay one extra day and booked a hotel in a different part of the city. The Park Hyatt Vendome is in the 2nd arrondissement so we booked the Renaissance Republique, a Marriott property in the 3rd arrondissement which cost us 70K points for the night. While the two hotels are only about 5 miles apart their neighborhoods have an entirely different feel.

Renaissance Paris Republique Hotel

The area around the Renaissance Republique has much more of a local feel, with many small restaurants, grocery stores, laundromats and other types of stores that you’d need if you lived in the apartments above some of the shops.

Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Europe, France, Hotel, Lodging Review, Marriott, Renaissance, Trip Report | Tags: France, Hotel, Hotel Review, Lodging Review, Marriott, Paris, Renaissance Hotels, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France

Posted on March 22, 2023 by 2btravel

I admit it. I’m influenced by travel bloggers when looking for places to stay when I travel. So many of them have raved about the Park Hyatt Vendome that I figured we had to try it out.

We made reservations for our October 2022 river cruise back in the summer of 2021. We knew we wanted to get to Paris a few days early but we weren’t sure exactly how many days in advance we’d arrive. Then I learned that Hyatt was increasing the prices in each category. So I went ahead and booked the night prior to our cruise for 30K World of Hyatt points. The prices did increase to 35K per night and once our plans were nailed down I booked three more nights at that price. So we got four nights for a total of 140K WoH points. The hotel has since been elevated to a Category 8.

Paris has an official rating system for each hotel in the country and hotels must post their rating near their main entrance. The scale is typically 1-5 stars but there are eleven hotels in Paris that exceed five-star and are rated as “palace hotels”. The Park Hyatt Vendome is one of those and is the only one in Paris that’s bookable using points. You can read more about the hotel star system here.

Location

The hotel is located on Rue de la Paix in the 1st Arrondissement, an area that is convenient to the Tuilleries Gardens and Place de la Concorde to the south and the Palais Garnier (opera house) and the Opera metro stop to the north. It’s a bit of a longer walk to the Louvre but it’s an easy one. There are lots of shops and cafes in the area and the office of the Big Bus (the hop-on/hop-off bus) is right on the way to the Louvre. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Europe, France, Hotel, Hyatt, Lodging Review, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, France, Hotel Review, Hyatt, Lodging Review, Paris, Park Hyatt, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Our Time In Florence, Part 2

Posted on March 21, 2023 by 2btravel

Galleria dell’Accademia

Our timed ticket for the Accademia Gallery had us leaving our hotel without breakfast though we’d had a cup of tea in the room. We didn’t know exactly where we were going but thanks to Google Maps we had a good idea of how to get there and how long it would take. Once again we’d pre-purchased timed-entry tickets and that is definitely the way to go here. I believe they sell out (almost) every day so if you want guaranteed entry, pre-purchase.

Once inside everyone else walked briskly to the back of the museum where I (rightly) assumed the David statue would be. We took a leisurely route to get there, including veering off to a separate wing to look at old musical instruments. We saw some beautiful old instruments including several made by Antonio Stradavari. One thing that fascinated me was this pair of hurdy-gurdys.

A pair of hurdy gurdys dating to 1775

Continue reading →

Categories: Attraction Review, Award Travel, Europe, Historical Site, Italy, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Accademia, Firenze, Florence, Historical Site, Italy, Museums, Trip Report, Uffizi, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Our Time In Florence, Part 1

Posted on March 20, 2023 by 2btravel

There is so much to do in Florence that I know we just scratched the surface in our two full days of sightseeing. On the afternoon and evening of the day we arrived we just walked around the historic district, taking photos of various buildings and statues and having dinner in one of the many outdoor cafes.

We had pre-purchased tickets for the the Uffizi and the Accademia online several months in advance and would highly recommend doing that. These are timed tickets so we selected times as early as we could get.

There were several options for the Uffizi ticket and we chose one that also included the nearby Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens that run just behind it. Our Uffizi tickets were for 9 AM but when we arrived we were told the museum wouldn’t be opening until 10:30 AM for a “staff meeting”. Now it seems to me that if you’re going to have a staff meeting that you have it at a time that does not impact your open-to-the-public hours but we heard via people nearby talking that the staff was meeting to vote whether or not to go on strike. I don’t know whether or not they did but I was just selfishly glad it did not further impact our time in the city.

Palazzo Pitti

If you’re not familiar with Florence, here’s a quick primer on the Medici family, a name you will often see and hear. The Medicis (MED-i-chee) were an Italian banking family that began a rise to prominence under Cosimo de Medici in the first half of the 15th century. Their bank was the largest in Europe at this time and funded the family’s rise. Their family produced four popes in the 16th and early 17th centuries and two French queens during the same period. The title Duke of Florence was bestowed in 1532 and was elevated to a Grand Duke in 1569 after significant territorial expansion.

The Palazzo Pitti Exterior is rather plain but is it ornate inside

Continue reading →

Categories: Attraction Review, Award Travel, Europe, Italy, Trip Report, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Tags: Award Travel, Boboli Gardens, Europe, Firenze, Florence, Italy, Museums, Pitti Palace, Trip Report, Uffizi, UNESCO World Heritage Site | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy

Posted on March 19, 2023 by 2btravel

For our stay in Florence we decided to use some of our Marriott points. While there was a Westin and a St. Regis closer to the historic center of the city, we chose to save a few points by staying at the Sina Villa Medici, which is part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection. We stayed three nights at 70K points per night.

Sina Villa Medici, Autograph Collection

Location

The hotel is about a 25-30 minute ride from the airport, depending on traffic, and about a 15-minute walk to the Ponte Vecchio/Uffizi area and only a two or three minute longer walk to the Duomo area.

While there’s street parking around the area, the hotel has a special area for picking up and dropping off passengers so it’s nice that there’s no competition with passing vehicles. The exterior of the hotel gives a hint that this building was at one time a palazzo with an old-world style charm. Continue reading →

Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Europe, Italy, Lodging Review, Marriott, Trip Report | Tags: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Europe, Hotel, Italy, Lodging Review, Marriott, Trip Reportj | Leave a comment

Return to International Travel – Introduction

Posted on March 17, 2023 by 2btravel

After two years without an international trip I was thrilled to finally be able to travel internationally again. I researched Viking River Cruises that we had not yet taken and was excited to see that an extension on the Seine Cruise was a visit to Highclere Castle (aka Downton Abbey). As a relatively new fan of the show and films that would be something I’d love to see. However we like to cruise in October and not only did that particular extension package end in September, that extension was sold out for all but about two dates during the summer. So we decided to do something different.

In 2008 we had taken a Western Mediterranean cruise where in a single day we visited Pisa in the morning and Florence in the afternoon. We had a whirlwind tour of Florence, just enough for the famous museums and monuments to be pointed out to us but not enough time to get to explore any of them. So we decided to do a few days in Florence before flying to Paris to take a cruise on the Seine out to the beaches of Normandy and back. While the river cruise would start on Wednesday, we flew to Paris the Saturday before and had several days to explore things at our leisure as the mood struck us.

Red: Memphis-Chicago-Zurich-Florence (United and SWISS) Green: Florence-Paris (Air France) Blue: Paris-Chicago (Air France)
Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz

Continue reading →

Categories: Air France, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Cruises, Europe, France, Hyatt, Italy, Marriott, Renaissance, River Cruise, SkyTeam, Star Alliance, SWISS, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Tags: Air France, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Europe, France, Hyatt, Italy, Marriott, Park Hyatt, Renaissance, River Cruise, SkyTeam, Star Alliance, SWISS, Tours, Trip Report, Viking | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Hyatt House Dallas/Las Colinas (DFW Airport)

Posted on March 12, 2022 by 2btravel

On a recent ski trip I experienced more travel interruptions than I think I’ve ever had on any trip. My original plan was to fly from Memphis to Steamboat Springs, Colorado (HDN) via DFW on American (AA) on a Friday late in February. Things changed late the Wednesday before I was scheduled to leave when AA canceled the first leg of my trip and re-booked me for Sunday. Not wanting to miss out on my vacation, I managed to get the MEM-DFW leg rescheduled for Thursday night where I’d spend the night in the DFW Airport area and then take the second leg of my flight as scheduled on Friday.

I had a free night certificate from my World of Hyatt card that was good for a category 1-4 hotel. While I did not receive any exceptional value by using this certificate, I have a number of similar certificates from various credit cards so I was happy to be able to use it. I did look into staying at the Grand Hyatt DFW, which is accessible from the inter-terminal train (SkyLink) but they did not have any rooms available on points and that property is a category 5, so I couldn’t have used my free night certificate anyway.

Hyatt House Dallas/Las Colinas (photo from hyatt.com)

I’d previously stayed at the Hyatt Place DFW and had absolutely no complaints so this time I thought I’d try the Hyatt House in the area since I knew both limited-service properties included breakfast. What I hadn’t considered until after I’d booked is that for the Hyatt House, at least, the complimentary shuttle, originally shut down due to COVID, had not yet been restarted. As the hotel is only 8 miles from the airport I didn’t think it would be difficult to get a ride. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Hotel, Hyatt, Lodging Review, North America, Texas, United States | Tags: Airport Hotel, Dallas, DFW, Hotel Review, Hyatt, Hyatt House, Lodging Review, Texas | Leave a comment

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Award Travel

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Booking the flights

Points and miles are not always about value

Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Lodging Review: Renaissance Republique, Paris, France

Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France

Location

Our Time In Florence, Part 2

Galleria dell’Accademia

Our Time In Florence, Part 1

Palazzo Pitti

Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy

Location

Return to International Travel – Introduction

Lodging Review: Hyatt House Dallas/Las Colinas (DFW Airport)

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