6 posts tagged “travel”
Looks like we are going to be busy little travelers in 2008 - What fun!
Next weekend we are going to CT to celebrate a 30th birthday, I'm off to Phoenix AZ in late January (part work and then visiting a friend) and in February we are going to visit my sister and ski in Colorado. And that's just the first two months of the year!
We have plans for an Easter vacation - Montreal maybe. And a trip to Europe in the fall (using dividend miles for the flight, if everything goes according to plan). For work, I know of trips to Wash DC, Portland OR, and Williamsburg VA - I hope Adam tags along for one or two of them. AND, I want to do weekend visits to friends in Savannah GA, Richmond VA, and St. Louis - WHEW!!!! Fun, fun, fun
Last year was pretty lame. We spent the first half of the year tied up with house nonsense and I started studying for that exam in August - which didn't leave much room for studying. Also, we had been to Japan and Germany in 2006, which we were financially recovering from. I figure we better get all this travelling in now while we are kid-free!
Where is the farthest you have ever been away from home? Did you get homesick?
Submitted by Melissa.
JAPAN!!!!! Homesick? NO WAY!
I found this amusing today in an article in the travel section of the NY Times.
The article discusses what tourists think of the NYC subway system. It took me three months of living up there, taking countless subways to see apartments I could possibly sublet (what a nightmare that was!) for me to finally figure out how most of the trains worked. And even then, I would still slip up getting on in the wrong direction or a local instead of an express. I imagine the subway is even more overwhelming and disgusting for tourists that are coming from abroad, since just about every industrial country besides the US has a well-run public transportation system in place.
But if you're only here for a few days, how to survive? Take taxis and tour buses? You can't really claim you've been here until you've swiped a MetroCard and received a “swipe card again at this turnstile” message and a courtesy jolt to the pelvis, or experienced the utter discombobulation of emerging back onto street level and having no idea which way is north or south or east or west.
I came up to Boston today for a business trip. I took the 6:30am flight out of Philly (yes, it is as painful as it sounds) and had a full day of meetings. Actually, since I wasn't able to get on the flight my management team was taking home, I had to miss the last two meetings to catch my flight home (I was on the 4:30, they are on the 7pm).... So, 5min after I get to the airport, they cancel my flight. It was sleeting here this afternoon and all of the flights between 2 - 4:30 got cancelled... the 5pm was delayed and everything else for the rest of the night was on time....
After 25min online with customer service (as I stood in the non-moving customer line at Logan Airport) I learned that there were NO USAIR flights out of Boston until SUNDAY (!!!!) and they weren't able to book me on another airline today either. Luckily, my admin who is a bit flaky (and hasn't been showing up at work much lately) was in today and able to book me on a TRAIN home. Ugh. So, I'm on a 5:20 train out of here, but I don't get home until after 10:30. I am on an ACELA (fast train) until NYC, and then have 10min to switch over to a regional train for the last leg -- let's hope I make the connection. The only ticket they could get me for the Boston/NYC leg was First Class, so I am currently enjoying the Club Lounge -- its kind of swanky -- A row of free computers to use, free tea, drinks, snacks, and newspapers... I'm walking out of here with a WSJ, tea, apple juice, and fistful of pretzels. :-)
Luckily, I packed my portable DVD player, so I have plenty to keep me busy on the train. I had a feeling that the bad weather may delay my flight -- never did I imagine that it would be such a zoo.
Update: First Class Trains Rock! It felt like flying first class -- Free booze and a dinner were part of the deal! The train was packed with lots of people like me, that couldn't take their flight. I got home around 10:45pm - a very long day. Turns out tha the mgmt team I was travelling with were able to hop on an earlier flight. What the heck!!! they tell me I can't get a flight at all for 3 days, but they can catch an earlier plane??? There must have been plenty of others like me that just gave up on flying altogether. I was able to watch a movie and 2.5 epiosdes of Xfiles before the DVD players batteries died -- thank goodness I brought that thing with me!!!
I was booking a flight today for a business trip and realized that the points we accrued with our airline credit card were not being reflected on my dividend mile account. I got it straightened out this afternoon and we suddenly have over 30,000 more points - that's an entire free domestic flight!!!! We have just over 91,000 miles, which is fabulous. Looks like we will have the 100,000 we need for two free flights to Europe. We are planning to do a Switzerland/Italy trip in the Fall (assuming we aren't broke!) -- free airfare definitely makes a big difference!
Read an article today in the Wall Street Journal that compared frequent flyer programs. It focused on which airlines had more available seats offered at the lower-priced award level. Turns out that Us Air, which I have a huge amount of points with, is one of the worst.... that's just great. Luckily, Continental, which I also use, is in the middle of the pack. For one of the routes they used to compare the airlines with, USAir didn't have any flights at the lower-priced award level from now through November. Wow. Guess I better book our flight to Tampa for that wedding in November pronto. Luckily, we can take Southwest Airlines as an alternative, but if I don't use these miles now, when will I?
What's even more frustrating is that even though I know this, I'm unlikely to switch frequent flyer programs. With a hub in Philly, USAIr often has the cheapest &/or most frequent flights when I take business trips. AND, since they are part of the consortium that includes Lufthansa, I can always use my miles on that carrier instead.... if nothing else, this will make me less likely to use my credit card that gives me USAir miles and instead will use my AMEX where I can transfer points to Continental -- might as well be smart about this.
For those that care, the two best airlines for availability of using frequent flyer miles were American and United.
