Posts Tagged With: Award Travel

2023: The Year in Travel

Posted on December 31, 2023 by 2btravel

Another year has passed and I’m just thankful I got through this one without injury. I cracked my tibial plateau while on my European trip in 2022 which meant I didn’t get to ski but for a few hours this year but I still went on the trips I had planned and had a very good time anyway.

The Year in Travel – 2023

January

My first trip of the year was a visit to Winter Park, Colorado, a place I hadn’t visited in nearly 30 years. I was so looking forward to it because I really couldn’t remember much about it and had only been skiing a year when I visited last time. Sadly I spent an hour each day rehabbing my knee instead of skiing though I did get to go tubing one day.

I enjoyed a quick non-stop flight from Memphis to Denver on United and we took a bus right to the lodge. We stayed slopeside at the Zephyr Mountain Lodge where the location of your room can make a big difference.

Zephyr Mountain Lodge Slopeside Building
photo from Planet of Hotels.com

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Categories: American Airlines, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Condos, Croatia, Cruises, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, North America, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, Tours, UNESCO World Heritage Site, United, United States, Viking, Winter Park, Year in Review | Tags: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, California, Colorado, Croatia, Greece, Iberia, Italy, Lufthansa, Mammoth, Marriott, Montenegro, OneWorld, Ship Review, Star Alliance, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Viking, Viking Neptune, Winter Park, Year In Review | Leave a comment

Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens

Posted on December 21, 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

For our three-night stay in Athens we chose the Academias Athens, Marriott Autograph Collection due to its location and the fact that we could get a twin room using points. While I didn’t check to see the going rate in cash at the time we booked, I believe it to be around 364 EUR per night before taxes. Instead we opted to pay 45,000 Bonvoy points per night. Using a valuation of 0.7 cents per point (based on the figures provided by One Mile At A Time) that means we spent about $315 in points per night, which was a better deal than paying cash. We booked a 2 Twin/Single Beds, Deluxe Guest room as that was the only type of room with two beds that was available on points. The view didn’t matter a whole lot to us as we planned to be out and about most of the day.

Getting to the hotel

We took the Metro from the airport to Syntagma Square for 9 EUR. If you have heavy luggage, even if it’s on rollers, be aware that you can take an elevator and avoid one set of steps up from the train level to the square but there is another giant set of steps required to get up to Vasilissis Sofias Avenue unless you take the long way around. It is then about a 650 meter walk to the hotel. Under normal conditions Google Maps thinks that’s about a 9-minute walk but let me tell you that when you’re lugging a 45-pound suitcase and a backpack and the temperature is over 70 degrees with humidity, it sure feels a lot longer. Were I doing this trip again, I’d take the Metro from the airport to Syntagma station but then change from the blue line to the red line and go on to the Panepistimio station, which is only 270 meters away, or a 4-minute walk without luggage. There is an elevator in Korai Square which is across the street from the main Panepistimio station entrances that will take you down to the train level. While I would certainly be fine with taking the Metro from the airport again, if I was returning to the airport I would only take the Metro if the temperature was cooler. We worked up quite the sweat hauling our large luggage around in the Athens heat, even in mid-to-late October and I would not want to be that sticky and then have to get on a plane.

Hotel Exterior

The hotel is at the corner of Akadimias and Omirou Streets. As we wheeled our luggage up, the bellman, who was standing outside, jumped to attention and took our large bags while holding the door open for us.

Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens

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Categories: Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Europe, Greece, Hotel, Lodging Review, Marriott, Trip Report | Tags: Academias, Athens, Autograph Collection, Award Travel, Bonvoy, Greece, Hotel Review, Lodging Review, Marriott, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich

Posted on December 20, 2023 by 2btravel

Booking the flight

I had originally booked my flight to Athens as a 1-stop from Memphis to Newark and on to Athens in United Airlines economy for just 33,000 United miles. It was a deal that was hard to beat! But I really wanted to fly business class and United never made any saver award space available on the longhaul leg. I kept searching, utilizing award search tools like PointsYeah!, Roame.travel and Seats.aero and eventually found space out of Charlotte via Munich for 70,000 Air Canada Aeroplan miles. I was going to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points (UR) to my Aeroplan account as there was a transfer bonus going on and it would have only cost me about 58,000 UR points but I hit a snag.

For years my Chase cards had all been in my “called by” first name rather than my legal first name. Years ago I was able to successfully connect my UR and United accounts but now I was unable to connect my new Aeroplan account. I’d had a similar issue with Amex Membership Rewards awhile back and ended up getting all my Amex cards changed just by uploading a photo of my ID and filling out an online form. No such luck with Chase. They had to snail mail me a form. About a week later I saw in my daily USPS Informed Delivery email that the mail piece was to be delivered soon but a week later I still had not received it, so I contacted Chase to send yet another form. That one I did receive but it was at least two weeks after that before the name was changed on my account. So, word of caution, make sure the name on your credit card matches the name on your frequent flyer account!

A few days before my flight, Lufthansa made first class award space available to partners. I have never flown Lufthansa First and seriously considered doing the upgrade for an additional 30,000 Aeroplan miles but I decided to conserve my points and stick with business class.

Now that I had a longhaul flight, I needed to get to Charlotte. As CLT is not a Star Alliance hub, if I could have found award space on United to include with my longhaul flight, I’d have had to connect via Chicago, Houston or Denver. I decided the easier path was to take the American Airlines non-stop. Unlike when I try to get to Chicago or DFW on American, there always seems to be plenty of award space on flights to Charlotte. So I spent just 15,000 British Airways Avios on the non-stop flight in domestic first class. Did I really need to fly in first? Of course not but this is my big international vacation of the year and I like to make it special. I won’t review this flight except to say it was on time and my luggage made it, which were the important parts. There were three flights that would have gotten me to Charlotte in time to make my flight though the first one was extremely early. I decided to take the middle flight which would put me in Charlotte six hours ahead of my Lufthansa flight. Even though that was a long layover for a domestic flight, it left plenty of time in case of irregular operations or lost luggage as there was another flight after that. What didn’t occur to me until about a week before the flight was that the Lufthansa counter would not be open when I landed. Fortunately there was one pre-security restaurant open amidst all the construction in the lobby and baggage claim areas of the Charlotte airport and I was able to have a leisurely lunch until the Lufthansa counter opened at 2:30 PM, 4 hours before the flight.

Lufthansa 429 CLT-MUC A340-600
October 17, 2023
Boarding – due: 1755 actual: 1805
Departure – due: 1830 actual: 1851 – takeoff 1952
Arrival – due: 0915+1 actual: 0856+1
Seat: 6G (Business Class) Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Flight Review, Lufthansa, Star Alliance, Trip Report | Tags: A340, Award Travel, Business Class, Flight Review, Lufthansa, Trip Report | Leave a comment

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Posted on December 18, 2023 by 2btravel

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

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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

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

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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: 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 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

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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

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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: Andaz Savannah

Posted on July 9, 2021 by 2btravel

Southeastern US Road Trip
Andaz Savannah
Embassy Suites Charleston Historic District
Anderson Ocean Club and Spa
Country Inn & Suites Asheville Outlet Mall

Our road trip was planned with the idea of using as many of our free-night certificates as possible. I only had one Hyatt certificate as I earn new ones in December and I’d already spent the 2019 certificate at the Hyatt Place Denver Airport in early 2020. But I have plenty of Chase Ultimate Rewards points so I transferred enough to my Hyatt account and we booked the Andaz Savannah using one night on points and one night with the free certificate earned from renewing my Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card.

The hotel has a great location in the heart of the historic district. This also means there’s no free parking. The hotel offers valet service but there’s a garage practically next door so for us the valet service wasn’t worth the extra money ($37/day). I will say that despite the fact that we didn’t use the valet service, the valets were always super-nice, opening doors for everyone and ensuring our stay was a good one. They also helped us load our luggage on to a cart before parking the car.

The front desk is located just inside the lobby and the associates were always very friendly. She thanked me for being a Discoverist and we were given a room on the fifth floor. She pointed out that the mini-bars were empty but if we needed any of the complimentary items usually found there (water, soft drinks) that we could just ask at the front desk. She also told us of our welcome amenity of a free beer or champagne (or soft drink for me) and we took advantage of that. Though I wasn’t sure I’d need it, she gave me a complimentary 2 PM checkout time as well.

Continue reading →

Categories: Award Travel, Colorado, Georgia, Hyatt, Lodging Review, United States | Tags: Andaz, Award Travel, Georgia, Hyatt, Savannah | Leave a comment

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Posts Tagged With: Award Travel

2023: The Year in Travel

January

Lodging Review: Academias Hotel, Autograph Collection, Athens

Getting to the hotel

Hotel Exterior

Flight Review: Lufthansa A340-600 Charlotte-Munich

Booking the flight

Trip Report: Athens and a Mediterranean Cruise

Booking the flights

Review: Air France A350 CDG-ORD

Lodging Review: Park Hyatt Vendome, Paris, France

Location

Our Time In Florence, Part 1

Palazzo Pitti

Lodging Review: Sina Villa Medici, Florence, Italy

Location

Return to International Travel – Introduction

Lodging Review: Andaz Savannah

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