10 Things I Learned From My Mileage Run Vacation to Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Santiago

I just got back yesterday from my mileage run vacation to Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Santiago. It was a wild 5 days and I promise to have a full trip report in order within the next few months since I’m pretty backed up. I still have to finish my Buenos Aires trip report I took in January, followed by a trip to Guatemala, and Singapore. Bear with me and I thank you as loyal readers of Points Summary. There will be tons of new content in the next few weeks. Here are 10 things I learned from my mileage run vacation to Mexico City, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Santiago.

1. There is too much to do in Mexico City. I’ve probably ventured out of Mexico City airport in ten different instances within the past year and a half. It’s definitely my favorite city and I absolutely love how cheap and good the food is. The metro is my favorite as it’s only 5 pesos from the airport to wherever you want to go.

2. Mileage running to 4 different countries in a span of 4 days was taxing on my body. I could barely sleep and half of my flights were on red-eyes. I was unable to get any real work done due to being in different time zones, constantly on the move, and hotel hopping pretty much every day.

3. Delays are the epitome of spoiling a mileage running. I had a two hour flight delay from Mexico City to Lima that absolutely crushed my plans of going into Lima on my 6 hour layover. The delay cut my layover to 4 hours and I was pretty much confined in the airport. Things don’t always go as planned.

4. Mileage running is full of surprises. Last week on Saturday, I was in Xochimilco, Mexico City and befriended the Boys and Girls Scouts of Mexico. I got to talk to them and they invited me to go with them to clean up the trash in the canals. It was a good deed and I got to learn more about the town of Xochimilco and meet new people.

5. I got to see the Chilean President motorcade during my 8 hour layover in Santiago. That was pretty cool as I didn’t know that she was sworn into office that particular day.

6. Those 5:50am departures suck. I had an early departure from MEX-LAX and I basically had to be at the airport by 4:00pm. That means I had to wake up at 3am in the morning to get ready. In addition, that meant shelling out 200 pesos for a 15 min taxi ride instead of taking a 5 peso metro ride to the airport. The metro doesn’t run from 12am-6am.

7. There are way too many unauthorized taxis in Mexico City. Anyone can paint their car to be a taxi and have fake documents. I try to avoid taking taxis whenever possible, but have to take them if I’m forced to (situational based). There are metered taxis and unmetered taxis (have to negotiate a fare). I even had a hotel call an authorized taxi for me and they sent me an unauthorized one. The front desk person at the hotel must have gotten a commission by calling his friend.

8. The hotels in Buenos Aires keep giving me Presidential Suites. I don’t know what the deal is, but the Sheraton Buenos Aires and Sheraton Libertador really love me.

9. I was at the nicest Four Points hotel I’ve ever seen in Mexico City. The Four Points in Colonia Roma reminds me of a cross hybrid between the Aloft and W brand. The décor was top notch and the room type I was in blew my mind. I had a humongous heart shaped Jacuzzi.

10. I was able to bargain down a 60 soles taxi ride in Lima to 30 soles in less than a minute.

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