Trip Report: Turin, Italy and Bonn, Germany

Introduction
Lodging Review: Novotel Torino Corso Giulio Cesare
Attraction Review: Museo Egizio
Lodging Review: Hilton Bonn
Lounge Review: Lufthansa Lounge, Cologne-Bonn Airport
United 777-200ER Old Style vs. Polaris Business Class

Late last year I took a business trip that included stops in both Italy and Germany. The trip details were finalized while I was on my fall vacation to Amsterdam, Iceland and Munich so I only made my reservations about 10 days before I left. That actually worked to my advantage. Oftentimes our company gets better pricing on Delta. I know Delta has a great product and a lot of my co-workers love traveling on them and even have status with them. But for me their routing doesn’t often work. (For example, I really don’t like having to fly from Memphis to Atlanta and then west to go skiing. Yes, I could route via Minneapolis or Detroit and I know they handle the snow well, but it just doesn’t make sense to me when I could go via DFW or Houston or even straight to Denver.) And those of us who like to use airline miles for travel know that Delta doesn’t even have an award chart and can often charge ridiculous amounts for premium cabin flights.

But by booking so late, my co-workers had already used the allotment of cheaper business class fares so by booking on United I saved the company money and earned miles I’ll be able to use more easily. My solitary business trip in 2017 had earned me Silver status with United for 2018 so I earned 7x the base fare for my flights, enough to re-qualify me for Silver status for 2019. One downside of booking through our company’s travel department is that whenever possible our longhaul flights have to be on US-based carriers. So while I’d have loved to have flown on Lufthansa on the longhaul legs, I flew United to Munich and Lufthansa for the intra-Europe legs. While both flights between Chicago and Munich were in B777-200ERs, the one on the flight to Munich was the kind with 10-across seating in Business Class while the one on the return leg had been retrofitted with the new Polaris cabin in a 1-2-1 Business Class setup. That was my first time to fly Polaris and it’s just soooo much nicer than United’s older version it’s not even funny.

Outbound route in red: Memphis-Chicago-Munich-Turin, Domestic Europe Route in blue: Turin-Munich-Cologne/Bonn, Return route: Cologne/Bonn-Munich-Chicago-Memphis

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Categories: Accor Hotels, Europe, Germany, Hilton, Hotel, Italy, Novotel | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lodging Revew: Park Station Condos, Park City, Utah

My ski club visited Park City this year for the first time in several years. As our club has aged we have become more enamored of staying slopeside and are willing to pay for it. On our last visit to the PC area we stayed at the base of the Canyons side of Park City Resort. The condos were nice and large, reminiscent of those at the Summit, in Big Sky, MT. While staying just steps from the lift was super-convenient, when it came time for dinner our trip leaders had organized private shuttles for all 40+ of us to wherever we were dining that night. If you chose not to return with the group it was usually a 30+ minute bus ride to get back to our condos. And if you wanted to ski at Deer Valley, the bus ride was more than 40 minutes.

While I really liked the units themselves at the Canyons base, I felt like we spent too much time in transit each day so I pushed for our club to return to the Park Station condos. These are located right at the base of Main Street Park City so it’s an easy walk to lots of dining and shopping. There’s a bus stop right at the end of the condo’s driveway so it was hard to get more convenient that that. From the east side of the street, closest to the condos, it was a 4-minute bus ride to the base of Park City Resort. From the bus stop across the street from the condos it was an 11-minute ride to Deer Valley. We did have dinner away from Main Street one night and due to the way the buses run it took us about 20 minutes to get there. The good news is that the ride back was much shorter as we’d gone the long way ’round on the outbound leg.

Each condo in this complex is independently owned so they each have unique decorations though the general furnishings and layouts are mostly the same. There are two buildings and the 100-series rooms are in the building closest to Park Avenue while the 200-series rooms are on the building on the Deer Valley Drive side. The pool and outdoor hot tubs are located between the two buildings. Park City had over 250 inches of snow before our arrival but the maintenance crew did a good job of keeping the paths between the buildings and the hot tubs shoveled. There are also stairs from that central area that lead up to the base of Main Street and that was kept cleared as well, so good job to the crew for that.

Two-Bedroom Condo, #223

Our group had all two bedroom condos and they were basically the same layout with one exception as I’ll describe below in the master bedroom. The condos have a small entryway and then the room opens up into the living room, dining area and kitchen. In our case we had a sleeper sofa, a love seat as well as a comfy chair with a side table.

Living Room of Park Station #223

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Categories: Condos, Lodging Review, North America, Park City, United States, Utah | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: SpringHill Suites Salt Lake City Airport

One good thing about flying to my ski destination a day before the group is that often I can use the free night that comes with one of several credit cards in my wallet. That’s one of the reasons I selected the SpringHill Suites at the SLC airport. Another is that they have a free airport shuttle. Normally the included breakfast would be a draw as well but in this case I have friends in the SLC area and they came and picked me up for breakfast so that was a non-factor this time around.

SpringHill Suites Salt Lake City Airport

I arrived at the airport and while one of my bags was one of the first bags on the belt, it took another 30-45 minutes for my skis to be delivered. It was after 10:30 PM before I collected my luggage and called the hotel regarding the shuttle but fortunately it did not take very long for it to arrive. The shuttle services both Hilton and Marriott properties that are all very close together. In my case the cabin crew from a recent flight was on the shuttle with me but was not staying at the same hotel. The SHS was the third stop for this particular shuttle run. Continue reading

Categories: Award Travel, Hotel, Lodging Review, Marriott, North America, United States, Utah | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: The Huntley Lodge, Big Sky, Montana

I was back in Big Sky, Montana recently. It’s one of my favorite resorts because I love the slopes and (shh!) there are never any liftlines. They’re in the midst of a multi-year, multi-million dollar project performing upgrades all over the mountain. This year saw the addition of North America’s first 8-seat chairlift (complete with a bubble and heated seats!) and in coming years the ancient beginner lift will be replaced with a gondola that will service both beginner slopes as well as bowl skiing for advanced skiers.

In the recent past our ski club has stayed at The Summit, which is a high-rise condo right at the base of the slopes. But two years ago the property began the process of upgrading from a 4-star property to a 5-star. Though it’s only a 4.5-star at the moment, that was enough to push the pricing out of our club’s budget. I really hate that because it’s so convenient and has the best hot tub on the mountain.

So this year our club stayed at the original base lodging facility, The Huntley Lodge. Named after resort co-founder Chet Huntley (he of NBC News fame from the 1960s & 1970s; look it up, kids) it’s a 3-story hotel with half the rooms facing the slopes. Rooms in one wing are mere steps from the beginner Explorer lift while rooms in the other have the mountain village right outside the door at the end of the hall. For convenience, it’s really hard to beat.

While I have stayed here before, it had been at least 20 years so I was curious to see what had changed. The answer: not a whole lot, which is actually a good thing for the most part.

The lobby is not huge but has a fair amount of seating and, like all the common areas, has a mountain theme to the decor. I especially liked the old skiing items mounted up high.

Skiing artifacts decorating the vaulted ceiling

The dominating feature is The Bear. If you ever need a meeting point, it’s a great landmark.

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Categories: Hotel, Lodging Review, Montana, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Hilton Garden Inn, Bozeman, Montana

As I’ve done for the last couple of years, I flew out on a Friday for my ski trip even though the group wouldn’t arrive until Saturday. I do this because I’m in a different origin city and I want to be sure I’m not late catching the bus from the airport to the ski resort. If all my flights are on time it works out fine but at some airports I just can’t arrive before the group due to flight schedules. And with so many credit cards offering free nights I can usually spend one of those certificates although that’s not what I did in this case. I looked into using my IHG free night but by the time I got around to booking a room, the Holiday Inn Express had no more availability.

This year my first ski trip was to Big Sky, Montana, one of my favorite resorts. I believe my first visit was in 1994 and I’ve returned every 3 or so years since. On my club’s last trip here I flew up on a Friday and spent the night at the Residence Inn in Bozeman and that was when I learned they no longer had a hotel shuttle. So instead of burning my Marriott certificate here I thought I’d try out my newly minted Diamond status with a Hilton property.

I was fortunate that the cabin crew from my flight was also staying at the Hilton Garden Inn because by the time I’d collected my luggage (and kudos to the BZN baggage crew for making priority bags first on the belt!) and called the hotel, the cabin crew had called the hotel, the shuttle had arrived and they were already on board so I didn’t have to wait for the shuttle at all.

Lobby and Check-in

Since I had so much luggage to wrangle I let the flight crew check in first while I got all my bags inside. The lobby has a large seating area for breakfast on the right side and more casual seating on the left side though there’s a long table there that could be used for breakfast too.

Hilton Garden Inn Bozeman Lobby Seating

Hilton Garden Inn Bozeman Lobby Seating

Hilton Garden Inn Bozeman Breakfast Seating

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Categories: Hilton, Hotel, Lodging Review, Montana, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wow! 100K Hilton Bonus Points on No-Fee Card

For a limited time American Express is offering an increased sign-up bonus for the no-fee Hilton Honors credit card. The standard offer is 60K points but the increased offer is 100K points after spending just $1000 in the first three months after approval. The card earn 7x points at Hilton properties, 5x points at US restaurants, US supermarkets and US gas stations and 3x points everywhere else. Unlike many no-fee cards, this card has no foreign transaction fees – though Amex is not as accepted worldwide as Visa and Mastercard.

No referral required on this one! To take advantage of this offer, get started HERE.

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Regent Hotels Joining IHG Rewards Club on February 1

Yesterday IHG announced that the six hotels of the Regent Hotel chain will become part of the IHG Rewards Club starting on February 1st. There are four Regent Hotels in Asia and two in Europe:

Regent Taipei
Regent Berlin
Regent Porto Montenegro
Regent Beijing
Regent Chongqing
Regent Singapore

These are considered luxury properties, on par with – or even higher than – Intercontinental Hotels, which are already under the IHG umbrella.

We stayed at the Regent Beijing in October 2017 for the kickoff to our Roof of the World tour with Viking River Cruises and were generally quite pleased with the room size and amenities. You can read our review of the property here.

The IHG portfolio is far-reaching and covers the full array of property types.  Adding Regent Hotels helps to beef up the top end.  Here are the current brands available within the IHG Rewards Club portfolio:

Which of the properties would you like to try next?

 

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New Year, New Quarter, New Bonus Categories

Happy 2019!  Here’s a quick reminder that there are new bonus categories on some of your favorite cards for the first quarter of 2019:

The Chase Freedom card offers bonuses on purchases at Gas Stations, Drug Stores and on Tolls.  If you haven’t already activated your card you can do that HERE.

 

The Discover Card is offering 5% cash back on purchases at Grocery Stores.  You must register before you will receive the bonus cash back.  You can do that HERE.

And finally the US Bank Cash+ card offers choices of a number of different categories for you to decide what works best for you.  You can pick 3 categories that will earn 5% back and one category for 2%. All other categories will earn 1% cash back.  You can make those choices HERE by logging into your account on the US Bank website.

 

Categories: Cash Plus, Chase, Credit Card Promos, Credit Cards, Discover, Freedom, US Bank | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

2018 Travel Year in Review

Once again it’s time to look back and see where I traveled in the past year.

Red: Ski trip to Snowmass, flying into the Vail/Eagle County airport, Yellow: the path my luggage took on that ski trip, Pink: a visit to New Orleans, Green: European vacation, Blue: Vacation to Iceland, Purple: work trip to Italy and Germany

My lone ski trip of the season was to Snowmass, Colorado in February. I flew United Airlines from Memphis to Houston and into the Vail/Eagle County airport (EGE), where I chose to rent a car and driving the last 1.5 hours rather than getting stuck all day in the Aspen airport like I’d done in 2017! I spent one night at the Westin Snowmass and the rest of the week at The Crestwood condominiums. Meanwhile, my luggage decided to take the scenic route (shown in yellow on the map) and visit San Juan, Puerto Rico. When it arrived there the good folks on the ramp determined that the quickest way to get it to me was to send it to Newark, NJ and from there Newark to EGE. Unfortunately that meant over 48 hours without my luggage and two missed ski days. I did get a free sweater, t-shirt and shorts out of it (had to buy something clean to wear and to sleep in) and eventually United reimbursed most of my expenses and sent me a flight voucher. Continue reading

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Activate 2019 Q1 Quarterly Bonus Categories!

We’re just a couple of weeks away from the end of the year, so it’s time to register for the category bonuses for the first quarter of the new year.

Discover Card

Once again Discover has released their bonus categories for the whole year. The first quarter’s category is Grocery Stores, which should be pretty easy to max out. To register, just log into your Discover account online or visit this link to log in. Note that to receive the 5% cash back you must register first before making your purchase. You can earn 5% back on up to $1500 in purchases.

US Bank Cash+

US Bank is offering the same categories as for Q4 2018 though you can choose the ones that work best for you. Select 1 of the 2% categories and 2 of the 5% categories, based on your needs. For the 5% category you can earn the 5% on up to $2000 in purchases. To select your categories, visit the US Bank Cash+ website.

 

Chase Freedom

For the fourth quarter the Chase Freedom card will earn 5x points at Gas Stations, Drug Stores and on Tolls. As in previous quarters this offer is good on up to $1500 in combined purchases for the quarter. I’m hopeful I can max out this card at Drug Stores but we’ll have to see. But be sure to register ASAP so you’ll earn your bonus points!  To get your card activated, follow the link to this page that shows the categoriesWhen you click on the green button you’ll be taken to a screen where you enter some minimal card information

And then you’re ready to go!

Categories: Cash Plus, Chase, Credit Card Promos, Credit Cards, Discover, Freedom, US Bank | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

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