Monthly Archives: April 2012
This past weekend was a super busy one for Indulge The Wanderlust. Not only was I attending a long weekend full of miles and points related events in New Jersey, but at the same time I was there, one of our local news channels began airing an interview that I taped for one of their shows about a month ago. I will definitely be providing more detailed information on this weekend’s events and my first media appearance, but I wanted to make sure I take a quick minute first to welcome any new readers that are here today.
I really do appreciate each and every one of my readers and I am always excited to welcome new people as we try together to experience more, spend less, and travel the world. So whether you are someone who happened to catch my interview on TV this weekend or someone who I had a chance to talk to for a few minutes in New Jersey, I hope you will find my writings informative and helpful in your quest to Indulge The Wanderlust.
Over the next few days, you can expect to see some detailed write-ups of my experiences at The Freddie Awards, The Travel Executive Summit, and Frequent Traveler University. I will also tell you all where you can find my Local TV interview if you want to take a look. If things go well, I might even get to the first couple of days of trip reports from our visit to Paris over Easter. Of course, since it has been about a week now, you can also expect to see an Updates From the World of Miles and Points post coming soon.
In the meantime, take a look around the site and see what we have to offer. Hopefully you can find some valuable information in some of my previous posts. In addition to the blog, we also have Award Flight Booking and Vacation Planning services through Wander the World Travel, in case you need a little bit of assistance with your next trip.
If you like what you see, you have lots of options to make sure you always get the most up to date content as soon as it comes out. You can use your email address to subscribe right here on the blog, subscribe through your favorite RSS reader, follow me on Twitter @JeffTheWanderer, or Like Indulge The Wanderlust on Facebook. Heck, if you want to, you can even bookmark our Home Page and check back every 15 minutes to see if there is anything new. This is definitely not the most efficient way to do it, but to each his own. In addition, you can find me sharing my views, posting new information, and helping out those in need over on MilePoint. I post over there under the username Jeff The Wanderer and whether I am taking part or not, you can find some great discussions and a ton of information at MilePoint for almost everything miles, points, and travel related.
So once again, let me say a big WELCOME to everyone who is stopping by for the first time to see what this is all about. For those who have been with us for a while, thanks for continuing to read and contribute. It was exciting meeting so many readers, both new and old, this weekend and I look forward to meeting more and more of you as time goes on. For now, make sure you are all subscribed (or following, or liking, or bookmarking) and telling your friends about us too. Here at Indulge The Wanderlust we are planning to continue teaching you how to get out at experience more, spend less, and travel the world, and we don’t want to leave anyone behind.
In about an hour and a half I am packing up the truck and heading to New Jersey. The first stop tonight will be the Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel for the Freddie Awards. I have written all about these awards in the past so I am not going to cover it here, but will just link to the Freddie Awards website in case you want more information.
Needless to say, I am super excited and honored to be able to take part in this event. I was lucky enough to win a seat from The Points Guy (thanks Brian) and will do my best to share the event with all of you. I look forward to meeting some of the airline and hotel executives during the pre-event cocktail hour as well as some of the bloggers that I have learned so much from over the past couple of years.
After the Freddie Awards, next up on the agenda is Friday’s Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit. Again, I will have the opportunity to hear from some of the industry’s top executives about what they see for the future of loyalty programs and what they think of the programs that are in place today. If breaks happen at the right time, I might even be able to sneak outside and catch a glimpse of the space shuttle as it flies over the NY Metro area on its way to the Intrepid Museum.
Once Friday’s program is over, I will be driving a truckload of attendees up to Secaucus to the Sheraton Meadowlands Hotel and Conference Center. This will be the home of this weekend’s Frequent Traveler University. It will be my first time attending this event, but I am confident that I will come away with a huge amount of tremendously valuable information. I will be sharing as much as I can from the workshops and side conversations, but you should know that there are certain sessions that we are not allowed to publicly report on. To learn this insider information, you have to make the trip to attend one of these events. This is perhaps what I am most excited about because I can never get enough insider tips and tricks for my travel planning arsenal.
On Sunday afternoon, I will pack up and head back home to PA. I am pretty sure that I will be exhausted if anything I have read about past events holds true for this one.B From what I have seen already, it looks like there will be some fun swag given out throughout the weekend. Of course, some of it will be kept for my collection, but you can also expect some to be given away next week. I just might need some help deciding what to keep. I am already struggling with whether I should eat the airplane lollipop myself or save it for one of the kids.
So if you can’t make it to New Jersey for all of these fantastic events, make sure you are keeping up to date with everything I am posting. Follow me on Twitter @JeffTheWanderer, “Like” our page on Facebook, and keep on eye here on the blog. I would assume that with everything happening so quickly, Twitter will probably be my posting method of choice for the weekend. I will try to get some content up on Facebook and the blog, but I just don’t know how much free time I will have. Be assured that you will get a comprehensive recap here on the blog when I return though.
Now for the last part before I say goodbye and head out on my journey. I don’t think I could call myself a travel blogger if I was going to these events and not running any sort of contest, so here it is. Since I will be attending 3 separate events and I know that different people will be attending each of the events, there will be 3 separate prizes. Actually, I guess there will be 4 prizes because for the purposes of this contest, I will be counting the Friday night cocktail hour as a separate event. That way, everyone has a chance to win, no matter which events you are attending.
The prizes will be GoGo Free Single Flight Internet Passes. I will give one away at each event, the Freddies, the Travel Executive Summit, the Friday Cocktail Hour, and Frequent Traveler University. All you have to do to win is be the first person to come up to me, mention Indulge The Wanderlust, and tell me that you would like free internet on your next flight. I know the prizes are kind of small, but this is my first official blog giveaway and I have to start somewhere. Hopefully next week I will be able to do another giveaway that all of you can participate in.
Overall, I am really looking forward to meeting as many people as possible this weekend. Whether you win the contest or not, make sure to come say hi if you can find me at any of these events. I would love to put some faces to the names that I know and I am always excited to meet readers of my blog. Whether you are in New Jersey taking part in the miles and points madness or somewhere else around the world, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I am sure I will. Although northern New Jersey isn’t a brand new area for me to visit (it used to be my sales territory when I worked in NJ), I am sure that I will pick up lots of information this weekend that will help me to get out and explore far away lands.
It’s time once again for an Updates From the World of Miles and Points post.B For those that are new to the blog, I have been trying (but largely failing) to do these updates every Sunday to help catch you up with what is going on. There are often items that come up throughout the week that I donbt really think I should devote an entire post to, but still think you might want to know about. This is where I link to some of the other blogs that I read and respect so that you can get the whole story.
As of this post, I am officially giving up on my attempt to post Updates every Sunday. With Chrissy and the boys off of school and our family often having exciting and exhausting weekend adventures, I have found that I just don’t have the time or energy to do a write-up when I get home on Sunday night. Instead, I am going to say that you will see Updates once every week to week and a half. I will not let too much time go in between because if I do, there is just too much to write about. I will also not do Updates too close together because who wants to read Updates that don’t really contain any new news? I know that this less structured approach makes it a little tougher for you to know when the Updates will come out, but that problem can be easily solved if you subscribe via email, RSS, Facebook, or Twitter. Then you will always know as soon as a new Updates post comes out. So without further rambling, here is what we have for this week.
Extra Pack of Peanuts did a nice summary post this week on getting more for your miles using AA and US Air off-peak awards. If you haven’t looked at off-peak awards, you might be surprised by how low some of the mileage requirements are and how long some of the off-peak seasons last. Details HERE.
Travis also reminds us that Air Berlin can be a great option for getting to Europe, even as soon as this summer. Having just joined OneWorld recently, Air Berlin is still showing some good award availability at times when award tickets are hard to find on other carriers. Details HERE.
Hack My Trip has a review of AwardWallet that is a pretty good summary of what they offer. The contest mentioned in the post is already over, but it is still worth taking a look to learn a little bit about a great online service. I use AwardWallet personally for all my account tracking and I would highly recommend their service if you don’t use it already. Even though I use AwardWallet regularly, Scottrick pointed out a few features that I didn’t know about. Details HERE.
Frequent Miler gives us details and instructions for how to earn 5X points on almost all of your purchases. It takes a little bit of effort, but the rewards can be more than worth it. Details HERE.
Ric over at The Loyalty Traveler lets us know about some new features that have been added to Room77. You can now see AAA and Senior rates as well as rates that can be booked through their site that will still earn loyalty points. This makes Room77 a pretty good tool for hotel searches. Details HERE.
Online Travel Review gives us some information about an Alaska Airlines MasterCard that doesn’t seem to get much publicity. It has a couple of features that make it even better than the Alaska Airlines Visa, including coming with Chip and Pin technology. It is about time US Card Providers start adding this to cards and this might make me add the Alaska MC to my next churn. Details HERE.
Even though we can’t be sure that the US Airways Grand Slam will be returning again this year, Mommy Points is starting up her coverage of the promo just in case. She goes over a few tips and tricks that you can use to make sure that you are ready to earn as many miles as possible when (if) the Grand Slam goes live. Details HERE.
Many of us got in on the Daily Getaways deal yesterday for Wyndham Rewards points, but now that you have them, you might not know the best way to use them. Mommy Points goes over a few of the best options for redeeming your new points for those who need some guidance. Details HERE.
One Mile at a Time gave us the great news that Brazilian law prohibits airlines from adding fuel surcharges to flights originating in Brazil earlier in the week. Then, a few days later, told us that British Airways has started adding fuel surcharges to their flights leaving from Brazil. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out, since it appears that it is not allowed and if the law is enforced, a pre-trip stop in Brazil could be a great way to save some money on BA long haul redemptions. Details HERE and HERE.
Lucky also let us know that United is now displaying Qatar flights in their online search results. The great news is that unlike in the past, there is no miles increase for redeeming for Qatar flights. Details HERE.
Million Mile Secrets gives us an update on his experience joining the Executive Privileges Club to get 12 lounge passes for under $35. He has submitted and received reimbursement for his first few lounge passes, so it looks like all is well with this deal. Details HERE.
The Points Guy gave us the great news that British Airways, Alaska Airlines, and Hawaiian Airlines award availability is now showing in searches on AA.com. It is great to see AA adding more and more partners to their award searches. Now if every other airline would just follow suit. Details HERE.
View From the Wing has a great post explaining how you can use a free Platinum Trial to get a better sign-up bonus on the Chase Hyatt Visa. The deal is scheduled to work until May 11, but you never know when they might shut it down early. I might have to take advantage of this one myself if it is still going in the second week of May. Details HERE.
Gary also gave us the head’s up to save the date for the West Coast version of Frequent Traveler University which will be happening in December of this year. I am attending the East Coast version this weekend and will be sure to report back to you so you can get a better understanding of what it is all about. For now, mark the date on your calendars if you think you can be out in LA for a couple of days later this year. Details HERE.
Finally, for our comical/scary stories of the week, I am going to take two more posts from Gary over at View From the Wing. From drag stars’ issues with security to pilots texting while flying, you never quite know what you are going to see in airline news. Details HERE and HERE.
I know I am getting a little close to the time of the sale, but I wanted to post a quick note in case anyone hasn’t already heard about today’s Daily Getaways offer. There are actually several packages being offered today, but they are all for different quantities of Wyndham Rewards points. No matter which package you purchase, you are getting a tremendous deal, whether you choose to use the points for hotel stays or transfer to airline miles.
I am not going to go into all of the details and points cost breakdowns for today’s deals because it has already been done by others. You can check out posts by Mommy Points or Million Mile Secrets for all of the details. Deals go live at 1 PM EST, but there is a limited pre-sale available at noon for people who like Wyndham on Facebook and get the presale code from their page. If you want to get in on this deal, make sure you have signed up for a Wyndham Rewards account in advance and be ready to hit refresh and snap up the deal as soon as you see it. The most important things to know are that these deals will sell out very, very quickly and you will not regret your purchase if you manage to get one.
I will definitely be in the mix of people trying to get some Wyndham Rewards points today at 1 pm from the Daily Getaways site. Unfortunately, I have to pick my son up from preschool so I will not be able to try for the pre-sale packages at noon. Remember to use your American Express card when you check out to get an additional 10% off your purchase price. Hopefully a few of you will read this before the sale goes live and will be able to take advantage of this great offer. Most people think this is by far the best deal of the Daily Getaways and some even think it is one of the top deals of the year. Good luck to all who try for a purchase, but I hope that none of you get in the way of me purchasing mine. Let me know how you do and how many points you are able to get.
When Chrissy and Ryan get home from school/work this afternoon, we are packing up the truck and heading out of town. We have been home for almost 10 full days since our trip to Paris, so why not get out of the house again?
This time we are not flying, but instead driving down to Washington, DC. Chrissy went to college at American University in DC, so we have spent a fair amount of time in the city. We try to get back at least once or twice a year to visit friends and show the boys more of what the area has to offer. We are so comfortable with driving in and out of DC that once when driving home from a vacation, we actually took a side trip and stopped at the National Zoo for a few hours. Our friends thought we were nuts, just popping in to central DC for a few hours, but it was no big deal for us.
On this trip, we are hoping to take Ryan and Cole to see a few new things, but we haven’t quite decided what yet. Those who know us know that not having a plan is a far cry from our usual trips. Chrissy loves to have detailed itineraries ready to go for each trip we take and it almost always helps us to see far more than we would have without prior preparation. We are trying to take it easy this weekend though and we will have to see how it works out.
Our family has been to the Zoo, the Natural History Museum, and the Air and Space Museum several times, but due to their young ages, we haven’t yet visited all of the big monuments with the kids. The one thing we have planned for this evening is to take them on a walking tour of the monuments at night. It is supposed to be warm and clear and it is really quite spectacular with everything lit up at night. If you have never strolled past the monuments after dark, it is something that I highly recommend.
Tomorrow we have a few choices and will probably talk with our friends to see what will work best for them too. I am hoping that we can take a bus out to the Air and Space Annex to see the Space Shuttle that just arrived there on Tuesday, but the rest of the family is not as excited about that as I am. I might just have to pull the “birthday weekend” card and make them go. Or maybe in the interest of everyone else’s happiness, I will visit that museum on a future trip by myself.
I think that sometime during the day tomorrow we are also going to visit Georgetown Cupcake for some delicious treats. If the weather holds up nice, we may take a Duck Tour. There are a couple of other options on the table as well, and who knows, we might just end up back at one of our favorites to visit the pandas. If anyone has any other suggestions of things we shouldn’t miss with the family, feel free to leave them in the comments.
With all the free things to do and places to see in Washington, DC, this looks like it will be a fairly inexpensive weekend. It helps that we will be staying with friends and eating some of our meals there. Unfortuntately, low cost vacations are not all good news. Sure, we save some money, but the bad news is that we won’t be flying or staying at any hotels, so this trip will earn minimal miles and points. I will just have to make sure we are using our Sapphire cards to get double points on our gas and dining.
When we travel, I am often trying to either earn or use miles and points, but this weekend trip is an example of when neither will happen to a large extent. It is important for all of us to realize that this is ok. If you spend too much time worrying about miles and points redemptions, you might miss out on those quick weekend visits with friends that can sometimes be just as rewarding for your family as a trip to another continent.
I am confident that we will have a great time in our Nation’s Capital. We always have in the past and I don’t expect this weekend to be any different. We will have a chance to catch up with good friends who we haven’t seen in a while and the boys will get to see many new things. Remember that as much as we talk about traveling the world, there are often lots great places to visit within a short driving distance of home. Washington, DC is only about 3 hours from our house by car (or truck), and it provides a wealth of opportunities for family exploration.
So that’s our plan for the weekend. It looks like we will be successful in our quest to experience more, spend less, and travel (our little corner of) the world. Let me know what you are up to for the weekend. Do any of you have travel planned? Is it a big trip or just a quick couple of nights away from home? I would love to hear how you are Indulging the Wanderlust in you.
If you want to see pictures and updates from us as we travel, be sure to follow me on twitter @JeffTheWanderer and like our page on Facebook. I will be tweeting from the road and updating Facebook whenever I have a chance. I hope all of you have a great weekend, and if anyone will be in the DC area, let me know and maybe we can meet up for a chat.
Well, I think the title pretty much says it all, but it seems like I should write at least a few sentences to go along with it. You may remember the announcement from a couple of weeks ago that we were active on twitter (@JeffTheWanderer). Now we have taken the next logical social media step and Indulge The Wanderlust has its very own shiny new Facebook Page.
Feel free to stop by our page, “Like” us, leave us a note, and take a look at what we are posting. The page has Facebook’s new Timeline layout, which I’m still not too sure I like,B but there wasn’t much of a choice when creating a new page, so I might as well be excited about it. I’m sure once I get used to it, I will be perfectly happy with it. I started posting on the page a few days ago, so there is already content for you to check out.
What we share on Facebook will be a little bit different than what you can get everywhere else, so even if you already subscribe to the blog and follow on Twitter, it makes sense for you to Like us on Facebook too. Of course, you will be able to see when there is a new post on the blog, but the big addition you will notice is that you can view all of the pictures from our trips. You always get a few teaser pictures in my trip reports, but they are just a small sampling of what I actually shoot on the trips. Usually, when I get home, I start editing the photos as soon as I can. This can take some time (I took over 700 pictures in Paris), but as I finish each day, I will be posting the full album on our Facebook page.
You can head over there now to see Paris – Day 1 and later tonight I expect to be done with and post the second day, including Giverny, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre. It may be another week or two before I can get to the trip reports, so this is a good way for you to get an idea of what we experienced before then. It’s always great to see pictures of a far away place, but pictures don’t come close to actually experiencing it for yourself. So take a look, get inspired, and book your next trip.B Hopefully our new Facebook page will help inspire you to get out and experience more, spend less, and travel the world. Indulge The Wanderlust in you!
I am constantly amazed at how often I am just giddy with excitement about something travel related. It may not be that surprising to all of you, since I usually end up doing a blog post about whatever has me so worked up, but I once again find myself eager with anticipation for the coming weeks.B Just before heading to bed last night, I checked my email and saw a message from Danielle, the Director of Operations for thepointsguy.com. The subject of the message was “Congrats from The Points Guy” and I knew that could only mean one thing. I won a seat at the TPG table at the 2012 Freddie Awards!
For those who aren’t familiar, I will take a few snippets from the Freddie Awards website to tell you what the event is all about:
“Since 1988, the Freddie Awards have been widely recognized by frequent flyers and travel industry executives alike as the preeminent honor for frequent travel programs. Each year, the exciting gala Freddie Awards ceremony recognizes the best programs throughout the world, as decided by those who know these programs best – the frequent traveling public. And in 2012, the world’s frequent travel programs will once again vie for a coveted Freddie.”
“Introduced in 1988 by InsideFlyer magazine’s Randy Petersen, the “Freddies” have grown in stature and importance to become the most prestigious member-generated awards in the travel loyalty industry. The goal of the Freddie Awards is to give voice to the frequent flyer and to honor the efforts of an industry that counts more than 300 million members worldwide.
The iconic “Freddie” trophy graces the lobbies of some of the most respected travel loyalty programs throughout the world. The obelisk-shaped statuette is a symbol of excellence that can only be obtained by exceeding the high expectations of frequent travelers.
In 1988 thousands of voters cast Freddie Award ballots. Today, more than 1 million ballots are cast annually. This year, balloting is available in the following languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Chinese and Japanese. And voters will be able to cast a ballot for their favorite travel loyalty program in one of three geographichal regions: The Americas, Europe/Africa and Middle East/Asia/Oceania.”
Now I have mentioned the Freddie Awards, including The Points Guy’s contest, in several previous posts, but I never devoted a full post to the event. This was partially because I always covered it along with the Frequent Traveler University and partially because it is so difficult to get a ticket if you want to attend. As far as I know, the only way to attend the Freddie Awards is to be invited.
This presents a problem for someone like me who is just starting out in the blog world, but luckily Brian (The Points Guy) was here to save the day. He is presenting an award at the ceremony and managed to get a table of seats to give away to his readers. Now that I have the blog up and running, I try not to take part in too many contests that other bloggers are running, but since this was something that I couldn’t otherwise attend, I went ahead and entered. Boy am I glad that I did! The attendee list for the Freddies reads like a who’s who of travel industry elites. From Airlines and Hotels to Credit Card Companies and Bloggers, the top people in the loyalty and travel business will all be there. I only hope that I will have a chance to speak with some of them during the less formal parts of the evening.
Thanks to The Points Guy, I will have an opportunity to attend the Freddie Awards and of course, tell my readers all about it. I will be taking lots of pictures, lots of notes, and if possible, live tweeting from the event. Make sure to follow me @JeffTheWanderer to get all the live updates. I’m sure that this event will be something that I will always remember and I wish I could take all of you with me. I’m not sure how long it will take, but hopefully sometime in the years to come, as Indulge The Wanderlust gains a bigger presence in the world of miles and points, I will be on the list of invites and might even be able to give away seats to some of you. For now, we’ll just have to settle with myB promise that I’ll do my best to share as much as I can from the Freddie Awards and the entire weekend of events.
Thanks again to Brian, Danielle, Randy, Tommy, and anyone else at The Points Guy and The Freddie Awards who helped to get me this ticket. I am honored to be able to attend, appreciative that you have given me the opportunity, and excited to meet all of you.
I know this isn’t the first time I have mentioned the Frequent Traveler University, but with only a few seats left and only two weeks until the event weekend, I thought I would offer one last reminder. If you are just getting started, this event is one of the best ways to dive whole-heartedly into the world of miles and points. If you are an old pro, this is still a great place to trade ideas and learn a few new tricks.
One of the most valuable workshops of the weekend is sure to be Saturday afternoon’s Mileage Confidential. In this workshop, the experts in the field will be sharing and discussing the tips that are too protected and valued to ever be put online in the forums or blog posts. Believe me when I say that I will be sharing as much as I can with you from this event, but the information presented in the Milage Confidential workshop will be strictly off limits for the blog.
If you haven’t registered yet and you are able to be in the NYC area April 27-29, you should seriously look at attending the Frequent Traveler University. You can read more about it over on MilePoint, including seeing the expected schedule of events. Then go ahead and register to secure your spot before it is too late.
Once you are registered for the Frequent Traveler University and if you are free during the day on Friday the 27th, it would be a good idea for you to take a look at the Randy Petersen Travel Executive Summit. When I mentioned this one day event in my last Updates From the World of Miles and Points post, I told you all that I had taken advantage of a 50% discount and registered for just $49. Well, a couple of days ago, that discounted rate was extended to all members of MilePoint. Gary Leff did a post explaining the discount the other day, so rather than re-write it, I will just send you there. Joining MilePoint is free and easy, so if you want to attend the Travel Executive Summit, I would recommend getting in on this deal.
I am still hoping to win a ticket to the Freddie Awards so I can join in on the fun starting Thursday night, but if I don’t, I will be heading to NJ bright and early on Friday the 27th. I hope that some of my readers are planning to attend the weekend’s events and I look forward to meeting those that do. I am expecting to make connections with a lot of new people and learn a tremendous amount of information over the course of the weekend and I’m sure the same will be true for anyone who attends. Let me know if you are going to be there for part or all of the weekend, and we can make sure to get together for a chat. Also, if anyone needs a ride from the Travel Executive Summit in Newark to the FTU hotel in Secaucus on Friday, I will have 3 extra spots in my truck. Hope to see you all there.