US Destinations Archives

Oct 12 2017

MASS MoCA and Porches Review

Towards the end of the summer, Jess and I decided to take a quick two night trip without the kids. We try to travel at least for a couple days and are lucky to have good babysitters (read: grandparents). Where to go this time: Europe? Asia? Bora Bora? Nope! We settled on a 3 hour drive to North Adams, MA. Most of our friends responded with, “Where?” But we fulfilled Jess’ dream of visiting MASS MoCA and Porches. And to be fair to her, they were both pretty great.

If you enjoy quaint boutique hotels and art museums, MASS MoCA and Porches definitely warrant a visit!

Porches and MASS MoCA – a quick history

Seriously, why North Adams? I knew nothing about MASS MoCA and Porches (or North Adams) until I got there, but found the backstory fascinating once I learned it. North Adams used to a typical mill town, with its economy basically revolving around a factory in the center of town. Like most mill towns, the factory went through a few iterations before eventually shutting down.

Enter MASS MoCA. In the late 1980s a plan was put in place to use the large factory space for a modern art museum. After various twists and turns, MASS MoCA opened in 1999, and according to the internet, it has helped not only to begin to revitalize North Adams but also the region altogether. So a lot of the economy still revolves around that factory, but now its due to the cultural and artistic capital housed within!

Porches, a boutique hotel across the street, came about a few years later. Some genius bought the old mill houses near the factory and turned them into a lovely hotel for guests wanting to visit North Adams and MASS MoCA.

Porches – booking with Ultimate Rewards points

I’ve moved to the point in my life where I either take FQF’s advice and spend cash last, or I stay at a severe discount (or both). The latter is a function of cost of points vs. cost of redemption.

Porches exists on Chase’s Ultimate Rewards booking portal, so I booked the hotel using Ultimate Rewards points. I no longer track how I earn all my points, but I know that the most I spent for them would have been about 1 cpp, and I redeemed at 1.5 cpp. At worst, I paid for my hotel at a 33% discount. Since Porches is a boutique hotel, I didn’t have to forego any points earnings (I don’t bother with Orbitz and the like anyway).

One thing to note, sometimes the Chase portal costs more than other booking sites (including the hotel’s own site). That didn’t happen to me in this instance but make sure to do your homework.

If you like modern art and quaint boutique hotels, consider checking out MASS MoCA and Porches. A hidden gem in North Adams, MA! — Our suite room (I decided to splurge a bit)

Porches Quick Review

MASS MoCA and Porches are across the street from one another. The one word that comes to mind when I think of Porches is “cute”. Not normally what I look for in a hotel, but when you’re trying to get away from the kids it works very well. The rooms are clean, quaint, and well decorated with art and local flavor.

Porches reminds me of a typical bed and breakfast, both in feel of the rooms and feel of the overall property. Unlike a bed and breakfast, Porches houses a ton of rooms, some complete with…a porch. There is a nice pool and a nice sitting area with board games, books, etc. Note that breakfast is continental; you can also order a cool (cute!) lunchbox breakfast.

What I loved most about Porches escapes description. It just has a pleasant, comfortable feel to it. It feels personal and welcoming, just like home. It’s the kind of place where you borrow a free DVD and watch at night, or just sit out on the porch watching the cars go by. There’s a nice view of MASS MoCA across the street – they keep some of the large exhibits lit up so you can see them from a distance.

All in all, a lovely hotel I’d highly recommend – just don’t expect the bells and whistles of a Grand Hyatt or JW Marriott. To me, MASS MoCA and Porches go hand in hand – stay here if you’re visiting and have the points or cash to!

MASS MoCA – modern art at its finest

I am by no means an art connoisseur, but I know what I like. And I loved MASS MoCA. Forgive my (too) geeky (or not enough) analysis here, but I’ve never been a huge fan of cubism and abstract stuff like Picasso. I finally started “getting” it in my 30s, but I don’t need the artist to trust me as an audience – just paint something pretty!

What I appreciate about more recent art is its use of space, technology, architecture, and the like. Modern art consists of building pretty things, making cool things, and using cool color palates. It appeals to my artistic sensibilities but also my nerdy science/engineering sensibility.

MASS MoCA contains all of that and a bag of chips. Exhibits change, but there are exhibits that utilize all your senses (except maybe taste?). There were even a couple of VR demos.

The space itself is also very well used. You’re walking through an old factory and they really take advantage of old bridges, rooms, stairwells, etc. It’s just a fun place to walk around. Anyway, it’s tough for me to describe art, so I’ll let the pictures do the most of the talking. It’s a great museum!

Final Thoughts

MASS MoCA and Porches may not be on your radar, but if you appreciate art and quaint little towns, you should definitely put it on your list. I didn’t even talk about our visit to nearby Williamstown which was a great adventure in and of itself. Overall, I think MASS MoCA and Porches are well worth a visit and a nice getaway, especially if you live in a city in the Northeast.

Have you ever visited? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!

Aug 31 2017

Free Chicago Kids Activities

This summer, my daughter and I spent a long weekend in Chicago. While we didn’t plan it this way, we ended up spending the good part of a day bouncing between Chicago kids activities without having to pay any admission fees or cash.

We stayed at the Hyatt Place Chicago/River North. From there we walked to Millenium Park and checked out some of the art work. Obviously, the large metallic bean aka The Bean highlighted this portion. We then made our way over to the nearby Maggie Daley Park. After taking our fill of the various playgrounds there, we walked up the Lakefront Trail to the Navy Pier.

Since it was Thursday night, the Chicago Children’s Museum offered free admission, which we took advantage of! We finished the night with a stroll down the Navy Pier and then back to our hotel. No admissions fees and about three and a half miles of walking!

Here are my recommendations if you’re going to check out some of these free activities, and a couple extra that we didn’t make it to.

Millenium Park

Millenium Park sits at the top of my Chicago free kids activities list. As I mentioned, one of the most iconic Chicago landmarks, “The Bean”, resides here. (Officially, it’s called Cloud Gate.) But besides the bean, Millenium Park offers a lot more art to look at. There are rotating contemporary art exhibits to go along with various free standing architectural works such as the Millenium Monument.

Better yet, kids can play in Crown Fountain, two fifty foot tall glass towers that act as a very stylish and architectural water park. Be sure to have your kids stand in the correct spot when the faces on the fountains open their mouths – and bring a change of clothing for them!

Keep your kids entertained in Chicago with these FREE activites. There's plenty of fun to be had without hurting your wallet! — Crown Fountain in Millenium Park is a ton of fun for kids

Maggie Daley Park

Right next to Millenium Park lies Maggie Daley Park. In my mind, I actually just think of the two as one giant park. Maggie Daley Park houses a fun labyrinth of outdoor playgrounds that should keep toddlers and school age kids entertained for hours.

One great feature of this set of playgrounds is how well they are delineated. Trees and shrubbery separate all of the playgrounds. A winding but simple set of paths leads from one playground to the next. This demarkation helps to really give each playground a sense of seclusion, it’s not like one gigantic play area where kids are all on top of each other. Instead, each playground feels like its own separate entity which helps to contain the insanity. Plus each section feels “new” to the kids.

As far as playgrounds go, the playgrounds on offer at Maggie Daley Park are pretty great. There’s a sunken pirate ship, small sides, super large slides, climbing structures -plenty of fun stuff for your kids to play with!

Chicago Children’s Museum (Thurs nights)

Chicago boasts a great Children’s Museum, and though it usually charges an admission, the museum offers free admission on Thursday nights. We took advantage of this and had a great time.

As you might imagine, a huge crush of people entered the museum at 5 PM when admission switched over to free. Pretty much like every free admission to a museum you’ve ever seen! However, we found that by 6:30 most of the crowds had cleared out, so it’s not like you’re contending with huge crowds the entire time.

As for the museum itself, it’s your typical large metropolitan children’s museum, which is to say it was pretty great. We would gladly have paid admission to go during regular hours, but it just happened that our only chance to go was Thursday night, so that worked out!

Navy Pier

The Chicago Children’s Museum resides at the Navy Pier, a very popular Chicago tourist destination. The Navy Pier is one of those places where there’s a lot to see and do, but while it’s technically free, you’re likely to spend some money here. Whether it’s grabbing a bite to eat, watching a show (the Madagascar musical was on when we visited), or riding the Centennial Wheel, chances are you might find yourself forking over some dough. Still, it’s a great place to visit with a great vibe for kids and parents alike.

Lincoln Park Zoo

While we didn’t make it on this trip, the Lincoln Park Zoo is a great place to take your kids. It stands as one of the few free zoos in the United States. The 35 acre zoo holds a variety of animals, including lions, tigers, bears, penguins – all the hits. If your little kids are like mine, they’ll probably love this zoo.

Final Thoughts

One of the toughest things on vacation is saving money on sights. Sometimes, with kids, it doesn’t feel like it’s worth the investment. Luckily, Chicago has some great free activities that are great for kids. I’m sure I missed some, do you have other fun things for kids to do in Chicago? Let me know in the comments!

Jul 12 2017

Preparing to travel alone with a preschooler

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My 4.5 year old daughter M and I head out to Chicago soon for a fun little daddy-daughter weekend. We plan to spend a night in the city on our own using a Hyatt credit card free night and then will meet up with some friends for the weekend. This will be our third time traveling together alone (fourth if you count my flight with the two kids). Might be the last for awhile since her brother just turned two and I can start taking him on solo trips. Now that we’ve done this a few times, I’m beginning to pinpoint what makes travel alone with kids difficult for me as a dad. So let’s a take a look at what preparations I need to make to travel alone with a preschooler!

Preparing to shoulder 100% of the “mental load”

A coworker shared a comic with me the other day about the “mental load” many moms bear. (By the way, don’t click on it expecting a funny comic like I did! It’s just a straight up essay with pictures – not even any satire 🙁 sadface). The comic introduces this concept of “mental load” in a household. I’ve found this concept very useful and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Basically, there is a huge burden in keeping track of everything that goes on in a household and while raising children, mentally. Then you put the work of the actual tasks on top of that mental burden and those two things add up to be quite a job. It’s a good concept, in my opinion. Here’s a stay at home dad’s take on it (in response to the original comic). Lifehacker even shared some tips for how to relieve mental load from the more burdened partner.

One of the many challenge traveling alone with kids is preparing to shoulder 100% of that mental load. Jess definitely carries more than 50% of the mental load in general, so when I travel alone with the kids I need to mentally psych myself up for taking on her (bigger) percentage completely. What that means for me is mentally going through the various aspects of the trip and calculating the best way to get through them. I’m rarely a planner, but I make an exception for traveling alone with the kids (and Disney World).

Now if I could offer a word of advice to parents considering traveling alone with their kids: if you don’t know how to shoulder 100% of the mental load at home, you’re in a tough spot if you have to do it on the road. Act accordingly.

Booking flights, hotels, and transportation

Since we don’t travel as much as we used to, I’ve found my miles and points accounts building. So I’ve quickly learned to adopt Freequent Flyer’s spend cash last mantra. Obviously, I still care about my cents per point value, but I’m always looking to redeem points first. To that end, I booked our outbound using United miles (12.5K per ticket) and our return using Jetblue miles (about 11,000 points per ticket). These are prices I can definitely live with, especially given the constraint I put on our flights. I couldn’t leave too early in the morning and didn’t want to deal with a connection since I’m traveling alone with a preschooler.

Getting ready to travel alone with a preschooler isn't easy, but in this post I help you think about what you need to do to get ready for a great trip! — Can’t say I’m thrilled to fly the friendly skies again, but gotta do what you gotta do (Photo Credit | Pixabay)

For hotels, I booked the one night I needed at the Hyatt Place Chicago/River North using my Cat 1-4 certificate I get from the Hyatt credit card. While I could have stayed at the Hyatt Regency or even used points to book the Conrad or the Park Hyatt, I don’t need frills when traveling alone with a kid. I just need a good location and I needed to use that free night. Note, I don’t actually think of this night as “free”. I paid $75 (the annual fee) for this room, so about 50% savings.

As for transportation, I’m not renting a car since we plan to link up with our friends after that first night. To save time, we’re going to Lyft to and from O’Hare, which costs more but M and I only have about 24 hours on our own so I want to make the most of it. I’ll be bringing along our mifold booster – no more bulky car seat huzzah!

Luggage and stroller

M and I will have to duke it out tonight. She wants to bring her Trunki, which we love but I sort of regret ever buying. Is it super cute? Yes. Is it super annoying to deal with a little kid trying to drag that through the airport? Also yes. But I don’t want to bring more than one suitcase, so we might just end up bringing that. Sigh.

I also decided that since we’ll be doing a couple of miles of walking each day, I’ll still need M’s stroller. Our Uppababy G-lite has taken a beating over the years, but it’s still ticking and still our favorite stroller to travel with. Small and compact wins the day when you’re traveling.

Entertainment and snacks

Now that M’s older, I’m not super worried about keeping her entertained on the flight anymore. Chicago’s pretty close by, so I’m just running with our tablet (a Nexus 7 from like 5 years ago that I rooted), my phone, her Kidzgear kids’ headphones, some coloring books, and a couple of real books. Shouldn’t be an issue. United also has that personal device entertainment stuff so I might use that on my laptop in a pinch.

In terms of snacks, I’m just grabbing two small tupperwares with goldfish and crackers – again, shouldn’t be a major issue. 3 hour flights seem like a piece of cake after Hong Kong. If you want to see other stuff I’ve used in the past to keep the kids entertained, I’ve included my favorites on my Family Travel Gear page.

Wallet

I always like to empty out my wallet before a trip, though that presents some conundrums. What if I find a MS friendly location? What if something goes on sale and I need to buy it online?

My general theory is that vacation is vacation, so I don’t want to be bound by hacking or deals. Still…I don’t like missing deals. One thing I know people do (and I should get around to) is use 1Password or equivalent to store all their CC info electronically, which covers online deals. Generally, I carry whatever card I’m meeting min spend on and a couple of others just in case.

On this particular trip, I’ll probably cut down to three cards: Jetblue Plus card (working on Mosaic status), AMEX Delta Plat business (sign up bonus), and Chase Sapphire Reserve (all around card). I’ll throw my Priority Pass card in there as well for lounge access and call it a day. Hopefully I don’t miss out on any deals, but if I do, hey, I’m spending some quality time with my daughter.

Final Thoughts

I love traveling alone with my kids and can’t wait to take H on his first solo trip in the future. M and I have done this so many times, it’s old hat now. Sure, I may have to take on 100% of the mental load (for one kid, obviously Jess also takes on 100% of the load for H since he’s staying behind), but it’s well worth the experience. I can’t wait to show M “the giant mirror shaped like a bean” and the other adventures awaiting us in Chicago!

How do you prepare to travel alone with your kids? I’d love to hear everyone else’s thought processes/tips/ideas in the comments!

Mar 02 2017

I’ll be holding off on solo dad vacations for awhile

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have caught the Instagram story I posted a few weekends ago: my first solo dad flight with my two kids. For background, these lovely children are 4 years old (just turned) and 19 months respectively. Jess attended a conference in Charleston, SC and left the day before. My parents and sister’s family met us in Charleston as well.

I took my two young kids on the plane as a solo dad. And I survived! — Ready to go!

Despite my family being there as backup, at many times throughout that weekend I felt like a solo dad with his kids on vacation. Besides the flight, I took the kids to the aquarium by myself, handled bedtime alone in a new environment once or twice, and took my kids to a couple meals. It was tough. I think when the kids are older I’d like to take them on a trip on my own, but at a minimum I think H would need to be 4. The ability to dress yourself cannot be undervalued.

Anyway, I thought it’d be fun to write up a bit of our time together – equal parts fun and stress! 🙂

Choosing a flight – buy an infant seat or no?

I spent quite a bit of time debating whether to buy my son a seat. The benefits were obvious to me – I could bring his car seat on and prevent him from squirming around for at least some of the two hour flight.

Unfortunately, only one Jetblue flight flies directly between Boston and Charleston. Every other carrier and routing requires at least one stop. Doubly unfortunate was the fact that that ticket priced out at about $300 – one way! Flights with a connection ran around $220.

Ultimately, I decided I definitely couldn’t shell out an extra $300 for the seat. I debated between flying a connection with a paid infant seat or direct with an infant in arms, I opted for the latter.

One fun note, I booked the flight using my Jetblue points (came out to around 25,000 points, ugh). After I booked the flight, I ended up applying for the Jetblue Plus card from Barclaycard which offers a 10% rebate on points bookings. After my flight, I got the 10% even though I had booked the flight before I had the card. Good to know.

Surviving the flight

Honestly, I barely remember the flight at this point. We survived. For some reason for the Saturday flight Jetblue flies an Embraer 190. I’m no AvGeek but even I know that’s a small plane. The set up was 2-2 which was perfect: I didn’t have to worry about sharing the row.

Even better, the passenger in front of my daughter was another little kid so I worried less about whether she kicked him by mistake. But my big takeway was that 1 on 2 I didn’t have enough energy to feel bad about disturbing others. My choices were I to spend time and energy apologizing (if necessary) or focusing on fixing problems. I opted for the latter.

I placated the kids with a combination of snacks, tablets, games, and snacks. At some point my son shotgunned a can of Diet Coke. But other than that, the flight felt busy but not as stressful as I had thought. I just had no free time but for a two hour flight that’s totally doable.

The one semi-disaster was my inability to get my son to nap. By the time we were on final approach it was around 1:45 PM. My daughter hadn’t allowed me to go to the galley to rock my son to sleep (which my wife had successfully done twice the week before); she didn’t want me to leave her alone – understandable.

So of course he freaked out as soon as the seatbelt sign turned on and I had no real options. He didn’t want to drink milk or eat crackers or even potato chips. I just did my best to soothe him and of course as soon as the seatbelt sign turned off he flipped back to happy mode. Kids, man!

Picking up the rental car

Some point late in the week before my trip I became much more worried about getting to the rental car than the flight itself. Car seats, amirite? I had to buy another Jeep Car Seat bag (affiliate link) since mine had basically disintegrated over four years of flights.

Luckily, Charleston is a small airport. My son has gotten into this “I don’t want to actually ride in my stroller I just want to play with the buckles” phase which actually made things easier. I threw my backpack in the stroller, slung the car seat around my back and just walked with the kids to Hertz. Thanks to AAA, we got a free second car seat from Hertz (membership basically paid for itself right there).

Of course, the most annoying thing about car seats is installing the monstrosities. It took me about 5-10 minutes to do this. That whole time my kids climbed in and out of the car, in and out of the car. They had a great time but I basically soaked through my shirt. Still, we happily went on our way, they fell asleep for a nap, and I bought myself some Arby’s to celebrate.

Getting around

As I mentioned, my son decided that he no longer needed the stroller. We only brought one, so we let his sister use it. But since he loves the buckles so much he kept trying to push her out of the way so he could play with the buckles. Like, COME ON, DUDE.

Practically, this meant doubling the amount of time allocated to get anywhere on foot. We stayed right by King Street which has a lot of great things to eat so we walked often, it just took a lot longer than expected, especially when when 1 on 2.

Visiting the aquarium

Due to various parenting situations, I found myself alone at the Charleston Aquarium with the kids for a morning. This proved to be the simplest part of single parenting since I’ve taken my kids to the museum on my own before.

Since M is 4, I can let her wander within like a 100 foot radius and I can keep H on a 15 foot radius. I really enjoyed this aquarium. First, they have all these fish and water creatures (like an alligator) made from Legos – so cool! Secondly, I thought the aquarium had a nice vibe, just a lot of nice things for the kids to duck in and out of, some play areas, the touch tank wasn’t as cramped as Boston, etc. Highly recommend.

Dealing with crankiness

Probably the toughest thing about solo dad travel is the same as being a solo dad at home: disciplining the kids. First there’s the practical issue. Who watches kid 2 while you deal with a disciplinary issue with kid 1? Then there is an energy issue. How many problems or issues can you deal with at once? Add to that the new environment and things can get pretty tough.

So one morning M just up and decided she didn’t want to go to wherever everyone was going. At this point I basically told her if she wasn’t ready to leave in five minutes we wouldn’t be hanging out with her cousin (who she loves dearly) in the morning. Well, she didn’t get ready and I don’t make empty threats so that’s how we ended up at the aquarium alone that morning.

I can’t do a solo dad trip until at least both my kids are as reasonable as M is now (even though she wasn’t being reasonable in that instance). Because as everyone knows, there’s no reasoning with a toddler! Still, after that first morning I realized it would be better to just go with it and to not put too much pressure on myself due to our sunk costs. M and I had one more major issue on the trip, but I’ll save that for another post.

Final Thoughts

While I mostly highlighted the difficulties in traveling with those crazy kids alone, we actually had a really good time. Like every family trip we take, I feel more bonded to my kids than before. We have fun memories to talk about (especially now that M can legitimately remember them).

Still, what struck me was just how tiring it was to be the #1 parent on the road. Thankfully Jess finished up her conference Monday morning and once The Glue returned we settled into a much better routine. But yeah, I’m gonna hold off on another solo dad vacation for a little while, at least with both the kids. And for now, achievement unlocked!

Jan 31 2017

How I decided between the multitude of travel options to Orlando

For some reason, domestic travel stresses me out more than international travel. Booking the travel, that is. The reasons for this are pretty simple – international travel presents way fewer options. If I’m trying to book a premium cabin with miles (which I try to do), then my options really boil down to how persistently I check award space.

Domestic travel between cities like Boston and Orlando, however, can be booked any number of ways:

Cash
Cash Equivalents (ThankYou Points, Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, Flexperks)
Airline miles (fixed value)
Airline miles (region based)
Airline miles (distance based)
Gift cards

As I like to do from time to time, I’m going to break down my thought process and how I decided to book my flights. Surprise surprise, I screwed up! Oh well…

Parameters

I have reached the point in my life where traveling with kids, I now refuse to

a) fly with a connection (at least for destinations within 2-3 hours)

b) leave super early or super late

That meant that there were only four options: Delta, Jetblue, Spirit, or Southwest. Since I try to spend cash last (TM Free-quent Flyer), I dismissed Spirit immediately. This also helped me avoid any carry on bag fee calculations.

For various reasons, I also only needed to buy a one-way flight. That meant that Flexperks were probably out, since the cheapest award you can get is for a flight up to $400. The cash prices weren’t going to approach that.

Checking cash prices

Due to my parameters, I quickly cut down my options. Since UA and AA both don’t have direct flights, I eliminated distance based mileage options (British Airways or ANA). I’m not sitting on any gift cards to any of those airlines, so I eliminated that option as well.

booking travel — Hmm a few days out – these flights must not be too full since the prices haven’t gone up too much

I knew that the majority of my remaining options were going to be a function of the cash price for flights. Cash, cash equivalents, and fixed value points are all tied to the going rate for the flight you want.

So I threw my city pair and dates into my favorite flight search engines (Kayak and Google Flights) and found that the cheapest non-stop flight was around $175 (Delta). Jetblue was going at around $200 and I think Southwest was pricing out at like $240 (I threw this out after looking at the cost in both cash and points so I forget).

Converting cash prices to cash equivalents

Once I had the cash prices in hand, I set about looking at how much those flights would cost if I paid with cash equivalents. I’ve learned to not worry about how much I earned the miles for in general and instead just focus on how much value I’m getting at the time.

So the cost of these flights with cash equivalents was pretty easy to calculate:

Membership Rewards (Business Platinum): 17,500 cents / 1 cents per point = 17,500 MR points

ThankYou Points (Citi Prestige): 17,500 cents / 1.3 cents per point = 13,461 TYP

Ultimate Rewards Points (Chase Sapphire Reserve): 17,500 cents / 1.5 cents per point = 11,667 UR points

The Jetblue flight cost about 15-16,000 points, I can’t remember exactly. Anyway, at this point Ultimate Rewards were looking pretty good but I still had to check region based mileage programs.

Delta Air Lines, Boston’s hidden gem

I shall not continue beating the dead horse. But suffice it to say, Delta’s website showed three award seats available for 10,000 points each. This looked like a better deal to me than all of my other options, so I booked the tickets. I made sure to pay the taxes and fees with my Delta Gold card so that I’d get a free checked bag (a mistake I’ve made in the past).

10,000 points for $175 tickets felt like a great deal – especially since Delta miles feel less valuable than UR points, my next cheapest option. Getting a value of over 1.5 cents per point felt like a real win. Except.

My foolish mistake

At this point, savvy readers probably already know what I messed up. Robert Dwyer, ever the voice of reason, pointed this out to me after I had already booked. Since I have the AMEX Business Platinum AND Delta is my airline of choice, I could have gotten 50% back off a pay with points redemption.

Short version: I could have paid 17,500 points for the flight, but get 8,750 points back for a total cost of 8,750 MR points AND mileage earning. Dooooooooooooh.

Final Thoughts

I’m still shaking my head at myself for missing that. The great things about miles and points are you have a ton of options to save money, but having lots of options means you sometimes miss the obvious one. Hopefully, running through my thought process will help some of you avoid that mistake and help inspire you to think through all your options as you plan travel. And hey, even though I could have saved a few miles, I got a travel related post out of this and fulfilled the bossman’s wishes!