2B Traveling

Travel Tuesday photo: Base of Egyptian obelisk in Istanbul

Posted on November 26, 2024 by 2btravel

The base of the Egyptian obelisk in the Hippodrome at Istanbul, Turkey

Base of the Egyptian obelisk

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Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen

Posted on November 26, 2024 by 2btravel

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia
Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW
Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL
Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH
Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn
Our Time in Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Next House, Copenhagen
Lodging Review: Story Hotel Studio Malmö
Our Time in Malmö and Ystad, Sweden
Lodging Review: IKEA Hotell, Älmhult, Sweden
Our Time in Älmhult, Sweden and High-Speed Train to Stockholm
Lodging Review: Motel L Älvsjö, Stockholm
Our Time in Stockholm
Flight Review: SAS A320neo Economy Class, ARN-OSL
Lodging Review: Comfort Hotel Grand Central, Oslo
Our Time in Oslo
Lounge Review: SAS Lounge, Oslo airport
Flight Review: Lufthansa A320-200 Business Class, OSL-FRA
Flight Review: Lufthansa 787-9 Business Class, FRA-MSP
Flight Review: Delta B737-800 First Class, MSP-MEM

Best Western Hotel Hebron (credit: Agoda.com)

Location & Transportation

The Best Western Hotel Hebron is about a 6-minute walk from the main train station, Kobenhavn H, or about a 4-minute walk from the Kobenhavn H metro stop. Be aware that many of the sidewalks in this area are cobblestone so rolling a bag across them is always “fun”. My friends took the train from the airport directly to the main train station. As I was coming from the Fairfield, I took the M4/Blue metro train to the metro stop.

How This Stay Was Booked

We booked this stay directly through the Best Western website and chose to pay a slightly higher rate upon arrival so that we could each pay separately. This not only allowed us to each earn credit card points while paying, it was one less thing we’d have to worry about reimbursing someone for later on. Our rate was about $191/night for a room with two twin beds and a daybed.

Check-in

I had to check out of the Fairfield by 11 AM and my friends’ flight landed shortly thereafter. I arrived at the hotel between 10:30 and 11 AM. I didn’t expect the room to be ready and it was not but I was allowed to work in the courtyard and use the WiFi there while waiting for my friends to arrive. The room was finally ready about 1:30 PM, still well ahead of the published check-in time. We were able to split the payment for the two nights we had booked, which was nice. Trouble is, we’d miscalculated and really needed a third night! Unfortunately the hotel was booked and they didn’t have a room for us for our final night. While we put ourselves on the waiting list, later that night we booked another place, which I’ll review in the next installment. Continue reading →

Categories: Best Western, Denmark, Europe, Hotel, Lodging Review, Trip Report | Tags: Best Western, Denmark, Europe, Hotel Review | Leave a comment

Our Time in Copenhagen

Posted on November 25, 2024 by 2btravel

Københavns Museum

As I’d arrived a day before my friends, I wanted to spend the afternoon doing something I knew would not be of interest to them so that once they arrived we could do something we all enjoyed. So I went to the Københavns Museum (Museum of Copenhagen) to try to get a sense of the city’s origins and history. In retrospect this was probably not the kind of place I should have visited after a night of no sleep and hustling through airports. I confess I didn’t get a whole lot out of it but at least it wasn’t very expensive. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Denmark, Europe, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Copenhage, Denmark, Europe, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn

Posted on November 24, 2024 by 2btravel

Why This Stay Was Booked

I found business class award space on Finnair on a Saturday, but the best prices for my friends’ economy flights was on the Sunday. So I used the opportunity to review an extra hotel in Copenhagen.

Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn

Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Denmark, Europe, Fairfield Inn, Hotel, Marriott, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Bonvoy, Copenhagen, Denmark, Fairfield Inn, Lodging Review, Marriott | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH

Posted on November 23, 2024 by 2btravel

Why I Booked This Flight

This was a continuation of my quest to reach Copenhagen to kick off our annual international trip. To reach Helsinki I’d booked an American Airlines flight from Memphis to Dallas-Fort Worth and, on a separate ticket, two segments on Finnair: DFW to Helsinki and this flight, Helsinki to Copenhagen.

How I Booked This Flight

I booked this flight and the connection from DFW as a single ticket, using 70,000 Alaska Air Mileage Plan miles plus $25.20, which included Alaska’s $12.50 booking fee. If I’d paid cash at the time of booking the two legs of this flight would have cost me $1908. If I value Alaska miles at 1.5 cents each then this 2-segment flight cost me $1050, so I came out ahead using miles.

Finnair E190 (photo credit: Aviation Source News)

AY 953 (HEL-CPH)
Embraer 190
Seat 1F (Business Class)
Depart: 11:55 AM EEST (actual 12:03 PM)
Arrive: 12:35 PM CEST (actual 12:44 PM) Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL

Posted on November 22, 2024 by 2btravel

Why I Booked This Flight

Our big international trip was to Scandinavia and you can’t get much more Scandinavian as an airline than Finnair or SAS. But I’d flown SAS before so I wanted to try an airline I’d never flown. I found award space on a Saturday out of DFW to Helsinki (the Finnair hub) and onward to Copenhagen. It was too bad I couldn’t find it on the same days my friends were flying (Sunday) but if I’d taken this flight on the next day they’d have had to wait around at the airport for a couple of hours for me to arrive. (And as it turns out, the flight doesn’t even operate on Sundays!) I didn’t mind going a day ahead and it also let me review another hotel. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: Award Travel, Finnair, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW

Posted on November 21, 2024 by 2btravel

I typically don’t review domestic flights but thought I’d give it a shot this time. This is a short flight, blocked at 1 hour, 39 minutes so I didn’t expect much above a beverage service and maybe a snack. It unexpectedly became a lesson in trip planning!

AA 2559 MEM-DFW, Aircraft N885NN

Why I Booked This Flight

I’d found business class award space from Dallas-Fort Worth to Copenhagen on Finnair so I had to get from Memphis to DFW. At the time I booked my long-haul flight there was no saver-level award space between Memphis and DFW. When I’m booking separate tickets I always like to ensure there’s a way to get to my international gateway should something go wrong with my positioning flight. That often means I arrive at the gateway more than four hours before my international flight and sometimes airlines will not allow a connection of more than four hours. And then there’s the restriction Alaska Airlines has: when flying on a ticket purchased with their frequent flyer miles, if two airlines are involved, one of those airlines must be Alaska Airlines. That’s tough for me because Alaska does not even fly to Memphis but I found a good price from DFW to Copenhagen using Alaska’s miles. Continue reading →

Categories: American Airlines, Award Travel, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Tags: American AIrlines, Award Travel, Flight Review, OneWorld, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Travel Tuesday photo: A bald eagle at Grant’s Farm

Posted on November 19, 2024 by 2btravel

A bald eagle at Grant’s Farm in St. Louis, Missouri, USA

A bald eagle

Categories: Missouri, North America, United States | Tags: Missouri, Picture of the Week | Leave a comment

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia

Posted on November 18, 2024 by 2btravel

Welcome to my next trip report! This year’s big international trip was to Scandinavia, which was the choice of one of my two main traveling companions. We spent about a week in Copenhagen, Denmark and in southern & central Sweden before going to Stockholm where we were joined by our German friend. We spent a few days there before winding up our trip in Oslo, Norway.

We were gone for two weeks and covered a lot of ground so I have lots to share! It was also a lesson in trip planning and how to adjust on the fly.

On this trip I only got to try one new-to-me airline but stayed at several new-to-me hotel brands. I had two positioning flights in US domestic first class, two two-segment international flights in business class and one short international segment in economy.

I’ll review Finnair’s A350-900 long-haul business class as well as their Embraer 190 short-haul business class along with Lufthansa’s A320-200 short-haul business class and long-haul B787-9 business class. I’ll also review a short SAS A320neo economy flight.

As far as hotels, we were all over the place on this one. We ended up using points for some hotels and paying cash for others due to various factors.

I had intended to review five lounges on this trip but that did not work out as expected and I’ll have just one lounge review.

Why Scandinavia?

I have a couple of friends I often travel with and we have a deal that whoever has a birthday ending with a “0” or a “5” gets to pick the destination for that year’s big trip. This year’s birthday girl picked Scandinavia as the destination. Our next task was to narrow down the things we could reasonably see in a two-week period. We realized that we wouldn’t be able to see all of the region so unfortunately we’ll have to save Finland for another trip. As we plotted things out we realized that Copenhagen and Oslo would be our starting and ending points, we just had to figure out which direction to travel. And that was based on finding award space. Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Denmark, Europe, Trip Report | Tags: Denmark, Europe, Norway, Scandinavia, Sweden, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Travel Tuesday photo: The Black Abbey of Kilkenny

Posted on November 12, 2024 by 2btravel

The Black Abbey of Kilkenny, Ireland. It dates to the early 13th century.

The Black Abbey of Kilkenny, Ireland

Categories: Europe, Ireland, Picture of the Week | Tags: Ireland, Picture of the Week | Leave a comment

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Travel Tuesday photo: Base of Egyptian obelisk in Istanbul

Lodging Review: Best Western Hotel Hebron, Copenhagen

Location & Transportation

How This Stay Was Booked

Check-in

Our Time in Copenhagen

Københavns Museum

Lodging Review: Fairfield by Marriott Copenhagen Nordhavn

Why This Stay Was Booked

Flight Review: Finnair E190 Business Class, HEL-CPH

Why I Booked This Flight

How I Booked This Flight

Flight Review: Finnair A350-900 Business Class, DFW-HEL

Why I Booked This Flight

Flight Review: American Airlines B737-800 First Class, MEM-DFW

Why I Booked This Flight

Travel Tuesday photo: A bald eagle at Grant’s Farm

Introduction: Late Summer in Scandinavia

Why Scandinavia?

Travel Tuesday photo: The Black Abbey of Kilkenny

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