[Recapping our trip, 311 days in] After a relaxing week in Asunción, we spent the day flying on Friday, March 10 to Quito, Ecuador. Thanks to my Chase Ultimate Rewards points and a transfer to Singapore Airlines, we were able to fly business class on Star Alliance partner Avianca. In our ten months of travel to this […]
[Recapping our trip, 297 days in] On Thursday, March 2, we finally headed out from Rio de Janeiro, exhausted from the Carnaval season. Thanks to 7,500 British Airways Avios and a small copay per person, we had access to a nice free flight to the western border with Paraguay and Argentina, at the amazing Iguaçu Falls. These […]
[Recapping our trip, 294 days in] Early on Friday, February 24, 2017, we flew from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We flew into Rio just in time for their annual Carnaval celebration, and we were really excited to experience it. (Side note: Flights were insanely expensive, and much more than we had […]
On February 1, 2017, we finally took our last intercontinental flight, as we flew on LATAM 800 from Auckland to Santiago. LATAM is a member of the Oneworld airline alliance, meaning we could continue using the American Airlines miles we used to get into and around Australia in style. With some foresight, we made sure […]
Christmas morning, we woke up at the early hour of 1AM in Delhi, ready to spend the day traveling. (At 1AM, I think most people would still consider it Saturday night instead of Sunday morning!) We were excited this time, though. After some careful planning on my part and 60,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles (plus […]
On Saturday, October 1, 2016, we headed to our first destination in Asia: Tokyo, Japan! Before we set out on our trip for the year, we budgeted enough American Airlines AAdvantage miles to be sure our “long haul” flights were in style. We had a nice business class flight into the Middle East on Qatar Airways, […]
The morning of Tuesday, September 27, we finally boarded a flight out of Europe for the last time on our world tour. Our destination was Muscat, Oman, and thanks to our stash of American Airlines AAdvantage miles before this trip started, we had the chance to fly in a premium cabin! Because American Airlines is a […]
Eleven of our last twelve hotel nights have been free. (If you consider our timeshare exchange to be free as well, you could add another seven free nights onto that total.) By understanding and using hotel chain loyalty programs (and one third party site), I’ve tried to milk every free penny we’ve got coming, and I […]
I’m writing to you from Reina Sofia airport, in the south of Tenerife, Spain. We just finished a wonderful relaxing week at the CLC Sunningdale Village resort here. Charley and I normally don’t need high levels of luxury and are just as happy staying in a small studio in a city center as we are […]
When the host of the adorable Bed & Breakfast on the Aran Islands asked me if I wanted her to charge my credit card in Euros or U.S. Dollars, I responded, “Oh, Euros please.” This sounds counter-intuitive if you’re not an experienced international traveler, but I promise it makes sense. There are plenty of costs […]