Lodging Review: Top of the Village Condos – Snowmass, CO

Posted on January 18, 2017 by 2btravel

 

The Gatehouse, home of the front desk, pool and hot tubs

The Gatehouse, home of the front desk, pool and hot tubs

I stayed here for almost a week with my ski club. TOV has lots of good things going for it but could use a refresh.

There are four buildings: Leaf, Slope, Trails, Summit. Each building is slopeside (ski-in with a small hike to ski-out) and each condo has a slope view.  Our group utilized both 2BR and 3BR condos. I am not sure if there are larger or smaller units.  Each unit is independently owned, so furnishings and decorations are up to the owner. As you might expect, some units have been refreshed more recently than others.  Each unit has its own wi-fi router though I was surprised at how my signal sometimes dropped when I was in a bedroom with the door closed.

Each building has only one (slow) elevator and sometimes it seemed to get stuck.  As we were on the second floor we’d walk up on those occasions, but at altitude that’s a lot more difficult than it looks!
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Categories: Colorado, Condos, Lodging Review, North America, Snowmass, United States | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: The Stonebridge Inn, Snowmass, CO

Posted on January 16, 2017 by 2btravel

stonebridge-inn-signI didn’t set out to stay at the Stonebridge Inn.  When I learned my ski club was doing a trip the first week of January the timing worked out well for me.  The catch was that it wasn’t on our normal Saturday-Saturday schedule since the first Saturday would have been New Year’s Eve and no doubt quite expensive.  So we were running a Monday-Sunday trip.  I noticed that there was an IHG property in the area and thought that would be a good use of the free night certificate that comes with the Chase IHG MasterCard each year.  So I booked myself a flight to get to Snowmass a day early and used the free night certificate.  Unfortunately a couple of months later I was notified that by January the property would no longer be under the IHG umbrella so my reservation was cancelled and the certificate was restored to my account.  Not wanting to part with number of SPG points required, I was able to get a room at the Stonebridge Inn for one night.  I paid with my Chase Sapphire Reserve and the $200 annual travel credit covered the majority of the room charge.

My flight arrived just after noon so it was no surprise that my room was not ready.  But the friendly counter folks kept watch over my luggage while I walked up to Snowmass Village for some lunch and shopping.  They gave me a call less than an hour later to let me know my room was ready.

stonebridge-inn-exterior
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Categories: Colorado, Hotel, Lodging Review, North America, United States | Tags: , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Bank Cash+ Category Changes

Posted on January 15, 2017 by 2btravel

US Bank has a couple of credit cards that I’ve found useful.  I’d had their Club Carlson Visa and I got good value from Club Carlson points in Turkey a couple of years ago but since then the card had sat idle in my drawer.  Last year I changed to the Cash+ card.

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Each quarter the US Bank Cash+ Card allows you to select the cash-back categories that best fit your needs.  There are three categories that are 2% cash back each quarter and you can select which categories you’d like for 5% cash back from a list.  While the 2%/5% categories max out at $1500 in purchases each quarter, you can get unlimited cash back at 1% for all purchases after the $1500 or for any unbonused categories.

When I recently downloaded my latest statement I noted this wording under the Important Messages heading:

Effective February 15, 2017 a new 5% Cash+ Category will be available: Ground Transportation featuring merchants such as Uber and Amtrak®.  Also effective February 15, 2017, the 5% Charity Category will no longer be available.

While that’s great for folks who use Uber and Amtrak, it defeats the main purpose I had for getting the card, namely charitable donations.  I’ve been blessed with a good income and like to give back and this was a real incentive to do so.

It’s a shame that US Bank is removing this category so I’ll be sure to bump up my giving for this quarter so it is completed before February 17.  I find the timing of this odd as it’s smack in the middle of the quarter, instead of waiting until quarter-end. We’ll have to see how they handle the selection of a new 5% category for those of us who’ll be losing this one

Does this category change negatively impact you?

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2016 In Travel

Posted on December 31, 2016 by 2btravel

It’s time to take a look back at the travel I’ve done this year.  As usual I had a couple of ski trips and one multi-week trip overseas with a couple of long weekends too.  First, the visual of my domestic travel:

2016-12-31-domestic-travel

It’s hard to tell on the map because I hit up the same airports several times but here’s how it worked out:

January

A trip to one of my favorite places, Big Sky, Montana.  As usual, finding award seats was a challenge.  Add in the fact I had a friend traveling from Memphis with me and another friend in Nashville who wanted to use miles and we decided it was cheaper to take an extra day off work and leave on a Friday rather than buy a ticket to fly on Saturday with the rest of the ski club.  Splitting a hotel room made that an obvious choice for us.  With American Airlines flying into Bozeman for the first time this ski season, I’m hoping that in the future there will be more award space available than on the Delta flights.

Routing: MEM-DTW-MSP-BZN-MSP-MEM

February

My second ski trip was to Vail, Colorado.  I had no problem finding award space on the flight to Denver, which meant I could easily meet up with my ski club there.  However their return flight was in the late afternoon and the only DEN-MEM flights with award space were in the morning.  So I either had to pay for my own transportation back to Memphis or fly back from the Vail/Eagle County airport (EGE). Even though I had to book ground transportation from our condo to EGE, it was much cheaper than shuttling two hours back to Denver.

Routing: MEM-DEN // EGE-DFW-MEM

April

I took a long weeked to visit friends.  One lives in Chicago and the other in Milwaukee. So I flew into Chicago and spent a night there before we drove up to Milwaukee for the rest of the weekend.

Routing: MEM-ORD // MKE-ORD-MEM

August

Another weekend trip out to Denver and my first-ever summertime visit to Vail.  I’d originally purchased a MEM-DFW-DEN ticket for Friday night but my flight got cancelled. To get me to Denver as early as possible the next morning I was re-routed via … Charlotte.  I didn’t love getting up so early to catch that flight but I did get into Denver on time so for that I’m thankful.  A non-stop on Frontier proved to be the cheapest route home.

Routing: MEM-CLT-DEN-MEM

October

My longest trip of the year was a cruise on the Danube River.  I hope to start posting about it soon.  I flew to Chicago to meet up with my trip roommate and from there we flew to Prague via Brussels.  After a couple of days there we took a bus, a train and a taxi to Nuremberg, Germany, where we began our cruise,  and floated to Budapest, Hungary.  On the return trip I had visions of using my Miles & More miles to stop at Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt but no award space ever opened up.

Routing: MEM-ORD-BRU-PRG // BUD-FRA-ORD-MEM

2016-12-31-international-travel

Not the most glamorous of travel destinations but I’d never been to any of the European cities that I visited and it was good to go back to some places that feel like home by now.

Next year will bring more new destinations in the form of a trip to Asia as well as going back to some familiar ski resorts.

Where will 2017 take you?

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Earn 2x Starpoints in Early 2017

Posted on December 17, 2016 by 2btravel

Earn 2x Starpoints on your first three stays at ANY hotel in the SPG program from January 16 through April 15, 2017.

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Once you register you’ll get a special offer tailored just to you.

2016-12-17-spg-registration
As you can see, mine was to earn an additional 10,000 Starpoints.  This would be a fantastic offer if I had planned paid stays for the first few months of 2017.  Unfortunately I doubt I’ll be able to take advantage of this offer.

What was your special offer?

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Register now for Freedom Q1 Bonus Categories

Posted on December 17, 2016 by 2btravel

Each quarter the Chase Freedom card offers 5x points in certain rotating categories.  Registration is now open for the first quarter of 2017.  The bonus categories are gas stations and local commuter transportation.  Note that this does not include parking, tolls or Amtrak purchases.  It also does not include merchants that do not specialize in selling automotive gasoline; for example, truck stops, boat marinas, oil and propane distributors, and home heating companies.  I assume this would include charges like Uber, however.

2016-12-17-freedom-1q-bonus

It frustrates me that these categories overlap with Discover this quarter.  I wish they’d switch off so that it would be easier to max out each card.

I do not recall getting an email from Chase reminding me to register so go ahead and do it now before you forget about it!

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Register now for Q1 Bonus Categories

Posted on November 17, 2016 by 2btravel

Three credit cards have quarterly bonus categories where you can earn bonus points or cash back for purchases in those categories.  Registration for Q1 bonuses for US Bank Cash+ and Discover is now open.  Registration for the Chase Freedom card should open on December 1.

US Bank Cash+

The US Bank Cash+ card allows you to choose one category where you’ll earn unlimited 2% back and 2 categories that will earn 5% back for up to $2000 in purchases.  To activate those categories, see the email you should have received from US Bank.

These are the bonus category selections for the first quarter of 2017:
us-bank-q1-2017-bonus-categories

Discover Card

Discover Card bonus categories for Q1 2017 are Gas Stations, Ground Transportation and Wholesale Clubs.  Click on this link to be taken to the activation page.
discover-q1-2017-bonus-categories

As a reminder, Q4 bonus categories may still be activated if you haven’t done so already and any purchases in the bonus categories will be retroactively applied.  Bonus categories for Q4 2016 are Amazon.com, Department Stores and Sam’s Club.  So don’t forget to activate your bonus categories today!

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Review: Hyatt Place Denver Downtown

Posted on October 13, 2016 by 2btravel

After spending a night in Vail in August, my friends and I drove back down to Denver to spend a day sightseeing there.  We mapped out things we wanted to do and then looked for a hotel central to those locations.  Since there were three adults I specifically looked for a Residence Inn or a Hyatt Place knowing that the layout of these hotel rooms usually works well for us and that breakfast is included.

The only hotel-provided parking available is with the valet. We thought about parking on the street but the valet pointed out it was cheaper to park at the nearby Pavillions shopping center.  He even watched our car for us while we checked in.  Of course that meant we had to walk a few blocks to the car but that was not an issue for us since the weather was so nice.

What we like about Hyatt Places is that there’s a separate area with a large sleeper sofa which along with the 2 queen beds meant that we each had our own place to sleep.

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Hyatt Place Denver 2 Queen Beds

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Categories: Colorado, Hyatt, Lodging Review, North America, United States | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Review: Holiday Inn Vail

Posted on October 10, 2016 by 2btravel

My travel buddies and I needed a weekend getaway to escape the heat of our respective cities.  I read an article about fun things to do in Vail and as Colorado is a 2-3 hour flight for each of us, it made a nice, central place to meet up.

Knowing that lodging wouldn’t be nearly as hard to get in the summer as in the winter, I’d hoped to get a 2-bedroom condo at a reasonable price.  That way we’d each have our own bed and plenty of space.  It turns out that most of the condos can’t be rented for a single night.  I did have a travel agency track down one place but they wanted $300 for the one night.  No thanks.

I looked at what hotels were available on points and there weren’t a lot of reasonably-priced choices there either but I did find the Holiday Inn had a room that could sleep three adults.  The hotel is actually across I-70 from the resort but during the summer, there’s no charge for the parking deck at Lionshead so we were only a short drive away.

The valet greeted us promptly upon arrival. Leaving the car with the valet is really the only parking option but the price is cheaper in the summer than in the winter.  In the end, we were not charged at all.  I don’t know whether that’s due to my Platinum status, because we booked the room on points or if they just forgot.  But when I checked out there were no charges billed to the room.

Once inside we had a brief wait while other customers were being assisted but then were welcomed warmly and our room was assigned quickly.

hi-vail-hallway

Hallway to our room.  Carpet could use refreshing.

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

Donate to Hurricane Matthew Relief, Earn UA Miles

Posted on October 8, 2016 by 2btravel

2016-10-08-ua-relief-efforts

As Hurricane Matthew has now passed through some areas, relief efforts are kicking into high gear.  United Airlines is offering its MileagePlus members the opportunity to earn bonus miles for donating to one of four charities aiding those affected.

  • The American Red Cross is a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States
  • Airlink is a rapid-response humanitarian relief organization that links airlines with pre-qualified nonprofits.
  • Americares is a non-profit disaster relief and global health organization providing immediate response to emergency medical needs and supporting long-term health care initiatives for people in the United States and around the world
  • Operation USA is a non profit humanitarian organization dedicated to helping communities alleviate the effects of disaster, disease, and endemic poverty throughout the world by providing privately funded relief, reconstruction, humanitarian aid and development aid.

If you donate via the United Airlines link, you may earn bonus miles based on the amount of your donation:

  • Donate $50–$99 and earn 250 bonus miles
  • Donate $100–$249 and earn 500 bonus miles
  • Donate $250 or more and earn 1,000 bonus miles

United will award up to five million bonus miles to MileagePlus members who donate and they will match up to $100,000 of customer donations.  Note that because the donations are administered via CrowdRise, they will not count as United spending if you use your MileagePlus credit card to make a donation.  The donation might, however, count as a charity donation if you have a card that gives a bonus for that category.

Note that the deadline to earn miles for your donation is October 21, 2016.

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