Hyatt Selling Points at a 30% Discount

Hyatt is currently selling points at a 30% discount when you buy 5,000 or more points.  This brings the cost down to around 1.85 cents per point.  I wouldn't "speculatively" buy points at this price but if you are looking to book award travel for the holidays or 2015 this could be a good use of points.

I recently purchased 1,000 points recently to top off my account for an award at 2.4 cents a point.  Hyatt's sold points at a 40% discount so if you don't need the top off immediately, you might as well wait.

If you're new to the miles and points world, read this getting started post on the benefits of purchasing miles.

Blog Layout Changes

Good morning and happy Sunday.  I made a handful of layout changes (slightly narrower width and larger fonts) to the blog which hopefully will make things easier to read and navigate.  Would love to know what you think in the comments.  Thanks for reading!

Ringing in 2015: Introduction

Introduction
Planning & Booking
United 747 Global First San Francisco to Hong Kong
Grand Hyatt Hong Kong Grand Club
Cathay Pacific A330 Business Class Hong Kong to Taipei
W Taipei
Cathay Pacific 777 First Class Taipei to Hong Kong
W Hong Kong
American Airlines 777-300 ER Flagship First Class Hong Kong to Dallas

I've already dripped a couple of posts around our flight to Hong Kong and the return flight so figured I might as well write the first couple of posts since the holidays are coming up and things tend to get busy.  Beyond that, we had a flood in our house a few days ago and while everyone is okay, our house is a mess.  We were looking forward to this trip before but now we are REALLY looking forward to a week on the other side of the world.  And writing about the trip gets me even more excited.  Anyway..now on to the intro.

We had originally planned a more robust trip to Asia where we could spend more time in each place and also see more places.  For a variety of reasons, we had to rethink our itinerary so that we could be here for Christmas and return prior to the first week of January.  That left us with 8-10 days to play with.

Nearly 18,000 miles in the air - courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper

We knew we wanted to go back to Hong Kong as it's easily one of our favorite places in the world.  The combination (and juxtaposition) of cultures, sheer size of the city, and the setting make it a great place to visit.  We'll be leaving for Hong Kong on the 26th of December which has special meaning for us - we took the same flight two years ago when we departed on our honeymoon and also got engaged on the 26th four years ago.  Last time around we stayed on the Kowloon side at the W...this time we decided to mix it up and stay on Hong Kong Island at the Grand Hyatt.

So we'll spend a few days in Hong Kong exploring before we head to Taipei for three nights.  We are really excited about Taipei.  It's just a quick hop (2 hours) from Hong Kong and from everything we've read, is a real gem of a city.

We're staying at the W which is supposed to be one of the best of the W's.  The location is perfect and we'll have a great view of the Taipei 101 (second tallest building in the world) New Year's celebration.

We then head back to Hong Kong for one night where we'll return to the W we stayed at in 2012 before heading home on American's 777-300ER direct to Dallas.

Hong Kong taxi and view of the skyline

Flying "legacy carrier" first class from the US to Asia was once the way to go.  Not so much anymore with all of the competition from Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines among others.  But it will be fun to ride in the nose of a 747 (I'm in seat 1K where the window faces slightly forward) and see what American has to offer on their brand new 777.  And it will be fun to compare to our previous first class experiences.

I'm most looking forward to the actual trip and getting there in style just makes it that much more fun.  The entire trip was paid for with miles and points with the exception of our last night in Hong Kong.  I'll have all the details on each redemption in the next post but I believe our total cash outlay (for flights and hotels) will end up being less than $600!

IHG 10% Rebate Posted

Last month we went to Las Vegas for the weekend.  We stayed at the Venetian and our hotel was free thanks to the Chase IHG credit card.  For the first night, I used the annual free night that I get for keeping the IHG credit card.  Clearly worth the annual fee of $49.

For the second night, I used 50,000 IHG points that I had earned by signing up for the card and various other promotions. I didn't think of it at the time but IHG provides a 10% rebate (up to 100,000 points per year) on award stays if you hold the IHG credit card.

I checked my AwardWallet account this week and saw the 5,000 point bump in my balance.  I wasn't sure where it came from so I logged into my IHG account to check it out.  I value IHG points at around .7 cents each so on the redemption, it's like getting $35 back.

10% rebate posted

I will definitely be keeping this card and plan to leverage the free night coupled with an award night for a weekend getaway.  Well worth $49!

One Simple Idea to Make Your Trips More Memorable

Before our July trip to Bali, I read a great and very simple idea to make trips more memorable.  Photo books are great but they take a lot of work!

The idea:

• Buy a new bottle of cologne/perfume in the duty free shop during a layover
• Use it during your trip.  
• When you get home, put the bottle in the rotation
• When you wear the new scent, you'll be reminded of the great trip you had

Seemed simple enough so I picked up a bottle of Tom Ford Noir in the Incheon airport and used it throughout our trip to Bali.  When I returned home, I put the bottle in my rotation and found myself thinking of Bali each morning I put it on.  

The Ultimate Travel Hacking Sin

I've been working on putting together an end of year trip to Asia for awhile.  Originally we were going to take a bit more time off and head to multiple areas of the continent but for a variety of reasons that wasn't in the cards this year.

So we decided to head back to our favorite place (Hong Kong) and add a few days in Taipei over New Years.  The issue has been finding saver award availability over the holidays.  We're fortunate to have millions of frequent flyer miles across all the major alliances but I kept striking out on finding space for two on the dates we needed.

Looking across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island

As I posted about a few weeks ago, we did find space on the direct United San Francisco to Hong Kong flight the day after Christmas.  While there are certainly better hard/soft products to get you to Asia, the flight time is convenient and we took this exact same flight two years ago (in business class) on our honeymoon.  Plus we get to fly in the nose of a 747.  Something I've always wanted to do.

Using British Airways Avios, I was able to snag two seats on Cathay Pacific for the two hour hop between Hong Kong and Taipei.  We'll get to try Cathay's business class on the way there and first on the return.  A new airline and multiple classes!

But getting home was proving impossible.  We had everything set including our hotel reservations.  There was availability on American's Hong Kong to Dallas route featuring their new 777-300ER product and new flagship first class.  The only issue was that the flight was only bookable at the "anytime" level.  American charges nearly 3x to book these awards!!  So instead of 67,500 miles/person/each way they charge 210,000!

We had over 550,000 American miles thanks to some amazing 2014 credit card bonuses and we really wanted to make the trip a reality.  So I pulled the trigger on two "anytime" first class seats at 210,000 AA miles each and committed the ultimate travel hacking "sin."

I am keeping my eye on availability to see if anything "cheaper" becomes available but at least we have something.  And that is what makes this game/hobby fun.  Everyone has a different reason for playing but at the end of the day making a trip possible is what it's all about.

How to Train Your Wife

Before we took our first long haul trip (December 2012) together, I couldn't get Emily to do any of her online shopping through miles earning shopping portals.  It just "took too much time" and "wasn't worth it" she told me.

Chase Freedom 5x Quarterly Bonus Categories

This morning she was looking for some shoes at Bloomingdale's and not only was she using her Chase Freedom card to earn 5x points (quarterly bonus) but she was double dipping going through the Ultimate Rewards Mall earning another 5x.  Ultimate Rewards points are worth about $.02 to me so that's 20% off (10 x $.02) the purchase for maybe an extra two minutes of work.

Not sure how she changed her behavior but I have a feeling this is what happened..

British Airways First Class Booked

Earlier in the week, I wrote about British Airways up-gauging the current 777 Denver service to a 747 with a first class cabin.  As it turns out, award availability in first was/is fantastic and I booked two tickets for a trip to Europe next May.  I have yet to read (beyond local press in Denver) much about the change in equipment and because of that, there is tons of first class availability.  For comparison sake, I have looked periodically at the DEN - LHR flight in business class and very rarely seen availability so this is a welcome change that probably won't last once more people figure it out.

Anyway...our original plan was to start in Vienna flying Austrian Airlines business class from New York...but this is way better - less flying time and a better product.

BA First Class

BA's award chart is distance based so the further you go, the more expensive (miles wise) the ticket gets.  We are starting the week in Amsterdam so flying DEN - LHR with a layover and then a quick hop over to AMS came out to 84,000 Avios and $495 in taxes.  I didn't have quite enough Avios to book both tickets so I booked the other on American for 62,500 American miles and $495 in taxes as well.

British Airways 747 Coming to Denver!

British Airways announced yesterday that they will be up-gauging the current daily 777 Denver - London (LHR) service to a 747 in March of 2015!  This is awesome for several reasons:

1)  Denver International Airport will see additional 747 service - the only current 747 at DIA is Lufthansa's Denver - Frankfurt flight and equipment varies by day
2)  This represents an increase in capacity of 23% - more award seats anyone?
3)  I've been working on earning the BA "Travel Together Ticket" and I would love nothing more than to redeem it for this flight

British Airways 747 Seat Map Key

But the biggest news is that the 747 will add first class service to the Denver market.  The current 777 service provides three classes (business, premium economy, economy) but doesn't have first class.  Very exciting!

Courtesy of seatguru.com - BA first on the 747

I am kind of surprised to see BA adding capacity on the route but it must be doing well and there must be demand for first class for them to make the swap.  I'll keep you posted as award availability becomes available.

How to Manage Vacation Photos

One of the most challenging aspects of coming home from a trip is figuring out what to do with all those photos.  It doesn't matter if it was a family reunion, wedding weekend, couples getaway, or a RTW trip in international first class...we all take a million photos.

They're on multiple devices...sometimes the same picture on my phone, Emily's phone, and our point and shoot camera.  I want to remember the trips we've taken and share with others (beyond this blog) and I don't want to resort to sorting through thousands of pictures on dropbox.

Our favorite photo book (and picture) from our trip to Bali

Our solution is twofold.  First, we pick the best pictures from each of our trips and we print and frame them.  We have a nice collection of photos in our dining room from Hong Kong, Istanbul, Dubai, Thailand, and Singapore.  That part is relatively easy.

Second, we (well actually I) make photo books.  I've used a bunch of different platforms over the years from Photozini (now out of business) to Blurb.com.  But the best platform I've used to date is Artifact Uprising.

A few of our vacation photo books

They are actually a local Denver company and the quality of both the software for creating the books and the actual book itself is very high.  I've used them to purchase some prints as well from Bali that our hanging in our bedroom.  Brad Feld wrote a great piece a few months ago on a similar topic - wroth the read.

I love looking back at the books and sharing them with friends and family.  It's a great way to relive the trip and well worth the time it takes to sort and edit pictures.