Europe Archives - asthejoeflies

Jul 07 2016

Surveying Scotland: Introduction

Two kids creates more than twice the work. That holds true for regular life and travel. Nonetheless, we took it upon ourselves to travel to the United Kingdom to celebrate our son’s first birthday. Just kidding, it’s just when we were free.

As always, we paid for the majority of our flight with points. We even booked our first transatlantic flights in coach for the first time in five years. Slumming it! Just kidding, I’m just practicing what I’ve been preaching in my family travel hacking guide.

Read below for details of what we booked and the thought process behind it all.

Flights for Four

I wrote about booking our flights to the UK awhile back. Man, can’t believe I booked this trip back in August 2015. Either way, Delta availability still remains great. We elected to book in Delta One (aka business class) for the extra space. We figured since it was a redeye it’d be good for the kids to have “beds” overnight. I had to pay about $560 for the infant ticket: on international flights you pay 10% of the base fare even on award tickets. So overall call it 187.5K miles + $600 in taxes and fees for the four of us.

I'm convinced screen time is half the reason she flies — I’m convinced screen time is half the reason she flies

On the way back, the decision was between buying three business class tickets on United or four coach seats. Like I said, we haven’t flown coach across the Atlantic in years (though we did fly it to Aruba). That being said, we would fly our kids to California in coach and Europe only takes an hour longer.

Here’s how the pricing broke down:

Business Class (3 seats plus lap infant): 172.5K miles + $819 taxes and fees + ~600 for infant fare

Coach (4 seats): 120K miles + $384 taxes and fees

So basically, flying coach would save us 52.5K miles and a thousand dollars.

This ended up being a much easier decision than expected. You can do a lot of things with $1000… Plus 52.5K Ultimate Rewards points is like another $500. Anyway, we decided to fly in the back on the way home: it’s a day flight anyway. Gonna be interesting!

Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We'll see how the return goes — Not gonna lie: was pretty tired after this flight. We’ll see how the return goes

We also used some Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards points to book a quick hop from London to Inverness, not much worth writing about there. Miss you Wells Fargo!

Lodging

While we use miles and points to save money, at this point we have committed to traveling to where we want to go – not necessarily where we can get everything for “free” (note: not free). Thus we decided on Scotland knowing full well that the Scottish Highlands are mostly devoid of chain hotels that we could use points redemptions on.

I’ve written about the importance of having a separate room, especially for my one year old. We can do without but then lose access to the bathroom. Only two of our stops have chains we can even redeem at: London and Edinburgh. I decided to book a room with a confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrade in London at the Hyatt Regency The Churchill. I figured we’d really need that second room to recover from jetlag.

Our first and last hotel room on this trip - not complaining — Our first and last hotel room on this trip – not complaining

We booked everything else through airbnb, Trip Advisor, or directly from websites. For the rest of our trip we will not be staying in chain hotels. Though in this case we’re only giving up staying at a Club Carlson or Hilton in Edinburgh – but I really wanted to avoid getting stuck with a small room. Maybe when H is older. If only this kid would sleep in bed with us!

Ground Transportation

Our one final cost was ground transportation. We bought round trip tickets on the Heathrow Express and then took a taxi to our hotel. We’re planning on doing the same in reverse but will eat the sunk cost and take a cab if we are running low on time for our departure (still recovering from jet lag).

We rented a car for a week in the Scottish Highlands. No tricks or gimmicks just looked for the cheapest price I could find and called it a day. Too much running in the background to worry further.

We’re planning on taking a train from Inverness to Edinburgh, though that is subject to change as well. Everything depends on the kids!

Final Thoughts

When we traveled with one kid, I’d say she only affected about 60-70% of our decision making. Maybe even less (40%?) once we had gotten used to traveling with her. With two under four, about 95% of our decision making has revolved around them. That’s just life for us now. So we’re flying coach, not worrying about saving every last penny, and thus far, having a great time. Will update with thoughts as we go along!

Apr 26 2016

Award Booking Tips overheard at FT4RL

So I made a rookie mistake presenting at FT4RL – too many slides! I had to rush through a few of my points on booking awards so I thought I’d share some of them here, along with a few other tips shared by the group. Nothing earth shattering here, but some good tips nonetheless.

There is coach award space to Europe still available this summer

I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but as far as I could tell there is quite a bit of award space available to Europe this summer. I searched the three main legacy carriers for four people to/from various US cities to various European cities and there was quite a bit of coach availability.

My main point here is this: if you want to travel to Europe this summer with a family, coach is your best bet. People write about flying in the front cabin all the time (guilty) but if you want to travel coach can get you there just fine.

There is even some coach award space to Asia

I searched (again, not exhaustively) flights to Taipei and Hong Kong and I found assorted coach award space for four people at low level award prices. Cool.

Delta is still the best option if you want to fly business class

I’ve spoken about this ad nauseum. Nobody cares, that’s cool. It doesn’t work for everyone, but it works for a heck of a lot more people than care to admit it.

Got a stockpile of Membership Rewards? Believe me about the Delta space?

Then when you find it, transfer your miles over to Air France and book. I think it was Richard Kerr (@thepointsjock) who shared that AF will wait with you online while you transfer miles so you don’t need to worry about the award space from disappearing from under you (Delta will do that too and they eliminated their phone booking fees). Transfer to AF and avoid the pesky excise fee.

Alaska Airlines is good for more than just showers

If you are flying roundtrip, you can use Alaska miles to book that Delta award space. Or book American Airlines coach space. Or book award space on a host of carriers in coach (and sometimes even in business). You might have Alaska miles leftover if you were holding out for Emirates first – no problem! Now you can fly to visit your friends on the other side of the country instead. Or to Europe.

Korean Air is a great option to Asia

OK, so they are adding change and redeposit fees in August 2017. Boohoo. Korean Air has great award space to Asia and you don’t even have to fly in first class. They have coach and business class seats too if you’re short on miles! There are enough seats for your family and they are an Ultimate Rewards transfer partner and they got rid of most of their fees. You can even fly to Mongolia from Seoul to be like milestomemories!

Be creative – lots of award programs have cool little niches

The aforementioned Richard Kerr shared some cool stuff about booking with Etihad miles but I think he’s going to write about that so I’ll just say here that…there is some cool stuff you can do. But the bottom line is, play around with some award searches or read up on some programs and you can find some pretty neat things.

You can use cash to buy tickets

Seriously! And this isn’t an option for all families, but you could always book two award tickets and two tickets with cash. There have been a lot of good deals in coach for this summer, just follow any of the big fare deal sites (airfarewatchdog, The Flight Deal, etc.) and then see if they work for you. You can even offset the overall cost with award tickets if they match up to the same flights.

Hat tip to milenomics for this huge breaking news!

You can use cash to hire someone to do all this work for you

A lot of my talk was about finding balance in our lives as our families get bigger. If I want quality time with my family that means less time running out to various stores, less time blogging, and less time searching for award space (my favorite thing to do).

If you don’t have the time, there’s no shame in paying someone to do the work for you. Go spend an hour playing with your kids instead!

Final Thoughts

I think I will write an entire post on why FT4RL was so freaking fun. But these are just some random award booking tips from the conference. None are game changing, but they all served as nice reminders to me – especially the ones I thought of myself. Always good to go back to the basics…

P.S. – I apologize for all the exclamation marks I am still on a conference high. I will do better next time.

Dec 17 2014

Lazy Weekend in Lyon: Kid Friendly Activities in Lyon

She was packed and ready to go but wasn't coming... — She was packed and ready to go but wasn’t coming…

On our short trip to Lyon, we opted to leave our daughter – we just figured it would be more fun that way. But as a parent, I now naturally find myself constantly looking at destinations through the eyes of a parent. As far as cities go, I found Lyon to be super kid-friendly. Was that just me missing M? Yeah maybe, but I think like many French cities, the green spaces and walkability are great for kids. Here are some things we did that I wish we had brought M along for. I didn’t mind doing most of them as an adult, either!

Parc Tete d’Or

I know I wrote about the Parc Tete d’Or already, but it really deserves special mention. For starters, it’s a beautiful green space that kids would love running around. But it also could be super romantic for adults as well, pre-dinner stroll perhaps? Like any park, it’d be great for a picnic or a run or both.

Who doesn't like deer? — Who doesn’t like deer?

The park also has a lot of activities that would be great for kids. There are boats to rent on the lake which would be great for older kids. There also is a full blown zoo that actually had quite a few animals – way more than I’d expect from something with free admission! There’s also a train to ride and a ton of playgrounds. If we had brought M I think we could have spent an entire day at the park, especially since the Hilton was so close we could have gone back for a nap.

These look like they could be fun... — These look like they could be fun…

Playgrounds

One thing I noticed about Lyon is that there seemed to be a ton of playgrounds everywhere. I guess that’s true of every city but for some reason they stood out to me in Lyon. A great example is a play space that was created near one of the bridges on the Rhone river. There were all sorts of fun things to do, a “sunken” pirate ship, and even a gigantic slide that I was pretty tempted to go down. So if plain old green space gets boring for the kids, there are structures to be climbed and slides to be slid on all over the place.

I really wanted to go down this thing but was wearing my only pair of nice pants... — I really wanted to go down this thing but was wearing my only pair of nice pants…

Bernachon

If there’s one thing kids and adults can both get behind, it’s chocolate. Yes, the Salon du Chocolat was in town, but even if it isn’t, there is good chocolate to be had. When I was reading about Lyon, Bernachon was on the must visit list. We visited on a rainy day and pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was a good thing too – we spent quite a bit of time there. They have some amazingly decorated cakes, pastries, desserts, and of course – chocolate! We’ve been slowly making our way through a box of truffles that we bought – amazing stuff.

Funicular

If you’re walking around Lyon, you can’t miss the Notre-Dame de Fourviere. It’s a beautiful building that is worth a visit in and of itself. For kids, the highlight might be the funicular ride up. For just a few Euros roundtrip you can ride a short tram ride up and down the hill. Just the kind of things a lot of kids would enjoy. And if they don’t, the views from the top are spectacular.

Traboules

Something cute kids might like, there are small passages cutting through some buildings that kind of feel like secret tunnels. Some nice architecture in there too.

Final Thoughts

It seemed to me like there were quite a few fun things to do if you have kids in town in Lyon. It definitely doesn’t feel stiff or unfriendly at all. We didn’t bring ours, but still enjoyed all these different activities. Especially the chocolate.

Other Posts in this Series

Introduction

British Airways First Class and the Ghost Terminal at Heathrow

The Hilton Lyon, Parc Tete d’Or, and Salon du Chocolat

Michelin Starred Meals at La Mere Brazier and La Remanence

Nov 30 2014

Lazy Weekend in Lyon: Michelin Starred Meals at La Mere Brazier and La Remanence

One thing Jess and I don’t get to do as parents is go out for fancy meals, so we decided to binge while in Lyon sans the little one. The city is known for its food, after all, and is home to sixteen different Michelin starred restaurants. As I’ve said in the past, I’m not averse to spending money – these restaurants obviously weren’t cheap, so we definitely ate into our savings from the flights a bit. I personally thought the experiences were well worth it so thought I’d share some of our experiences. Both restaurants were about a twenty minute walk from our hotel, par for the course in our hotel experience.

La Mere Brazier (2 stars, Lunch)

I’ve decided to go in order of quality instead of chronologically. I was pretty blown away by our culinary experience at La Mere Brazier, a two star restaurant under the care of head chef Mathieu Viannay. The restaurant was housed in what felt like an old residence, instead of one large dining room it more felt like separate dining areas in different rooms of a house. Our particular room consisted of four tables though there were some (private?) rooms with only one table each.

La Mere Brazier just hangs out on a nondescript street corner

We both ordered the seasonal menu – I got a three course meal with appetizer and dessert while Jess opted only for the dessert add on to her entree. One of the things about fine dining overseas is that sometimes you have no idea what you’re eating – menus are in French and sometimes things get lost in translation. I find a lot of times that works to my advantage as a picky eater, since I am spending so much money I just make myself “try everything” – and in some cases ignorance is bliss! Plus my palate isn’t distinguished enough to figure out what I’m eating anyway.

The amuse bouche was a small piece of cod(?) in a root vegetable soup - delicious — The amuse bouche was a small piece of cod(?) in a root vegetable soup – delicious

Case in point, I ordered the Pate en Croute as my appetizer not really knowing what I was ordering (though I guess Jess knew). It was chicken pate with foie gras in a pie crust – we saw loaves of these things being made at some of the local stores. Anyway pate is generally too rich for my tastes and foie gras even more so, so while the appetizer was pretty good I wasn’t able to finish it. This would be the first and only plate I sent back with food still on it.

Chicken pate with foie gras and black cherry jam

For entree I ordered the suggestion du moment which was steak with root vegetables. Everything was cooked perfectly. It was a bit of a safe choice but I figured I’d already gone adventurous (for me) with the pate. The root vegetables were extremely well done – didn’t even have to force myself to finish them haha. I think this would be a good time to note that the presentation of all the dishes was very impressive.

Combine all ingredients for a perfect bite

Jess ordered a fall-vegetable adorned deer dish with black trumpets (trumpets of DEATH). She said it was very well done and the deer wasn’t gamey at all.

Those trumpets of death... — Those trumpets of death…

Before the dessert course, I decided to order a cheese plate, mainly so I could choose from this bad boy:

Cheese is cheese and all three were amazing. Before dessert even came, we were given petit fours which were among the most impressive I’ve ever had.

Petite fours, ice cream, and a madeline — Petit fours, ice cream, and a madeline

For dessert we had a Paris-Brest, which I guess is this thing – with hazelnut ice cream and caramelized hazelnuts.

We also had a caramelized apple dish with quince and vanilla sorbet. Also very tasty.

Finally, when everything was done, they brought out one more sweets cart for us to grab some caramels and marshmallows from, and then it was all over.

The French seem to take their marshmallows seriously

The meal ended up clocking in at around three hours. The service was great throughout until the very end, when it felt like we were abandoned for like fifteen minutes while waiting for our check. Not totally sure if I missed something culturally or whatever but that was a little weird. Up until that point though the servers were Johnny on the spot for all of our needs. Oh, and the chef came out to say hi at the end, which was a nice touch.

Another petite four close up — Another petit four close up

Overall, I was very impressed with La Mere Brazier. It was clearly a few notches above La Remanence (the one star restaurant below). The food and presentation were amazing; the service was great up until the end. It also clocked in at less than a hundred US dollars per person at lunch, which is great value for the experience in my opinion (if you enjoy fine dining of course).

La Remanence (1 star, Dinner)

La Remanence was our first meal of the trip and it was good in its on right. The restaurant just recently earned its one star and is an up and comer. To me, it’s just not as impressive as La Mere Brazier. That extra star makes a big difference I guess! (At least in this case). I’d say the one thing that stood out about La Remanence over La Mere Brazier was their homemade ice cream – each flavor that we tried with our desserts was really special. Anyway, here are some quick highlights of our meal.

I couldn’t tell you what was in the amuse bouche, but what I can tell you is that I ate them all and Jess wasn’t a fan.

Jess wasn't too into this — Jess wasn’t too into this

We ordered a tasting menu that covered the entire table. The most impressive course was the first one, a scallop cooked in its shell with some kind of foam (which would end up being a theme). It was really good.

After that it was foie gras, which we both finished (a rarity), so that’s a testament to how well done it was.

My second favorite dish was the grilled filet of Rouget Barbet. A lot of foam though, again.

For those curious, Rouget Barbet is an inland fish. The more you know

I honestly cannot remember much about the next course, which was veal.

After an unmemorable cheese dish, we finished up with two desserts, a roasted fig and a chocolate cake type thing. Like I said before, it was the ice cream that was really special – a hazelnut almond flavored ice cream and a vanilla with a hint of alcohol.

All in all, La Remanence was a nice meal but not as special as La Mere Brazier. Since they were around the same price, if I had to only go to one I’d definitely lean towards La Mere Brazier.

Final Thoughts

Like I said at the top, this isn’t a food blog, so take everything I said here with a grain of salt. We went to Lyon to eat well and these two restaurants did not disappoint. I realize fine dining isn’t for everyone, but if it is and if these restaurants are any indication, Lyon’s not a bad place to do it.

Other Posts in this Series

Introduction

British Airways First Class and the Ghost Terminal at Heathrow

The Hilton Lyon, Parc Tete d’Or, and Salon du Chocolat

Michelin Starred Meals at La Mere Brazier and La Remanence

Nov 22 2014

Lazy Weekend in Lyon: The Hilton Lyon, Parc Tete d’Or, and Salon du Chocolat

Hilton Lyon

Normally on a short weekend location is the most important factor for a hotel for me, but on this trip I wanted to make sure we had breakfast too. I ended up booking a 100 Euro/night rate at the Hilton Lyon.

We were put on the executive floor and given executive lounge access due to my HHonors Gold status (still 100% on executive lounges outside of the USA). The room was small but comfortable, nothing to write home about pro or con. There was a really nice view of the Parc Tete d’Or from the hotel – supposedly one of the largest parks in Europe.

...which just means regular room on the top floor with lounge access — …which just means regular room on the top floor with lounge access

Breakfast was simple but satisfying, generally just eggs, bacon, sausage, and an assortment of continental breakfast type foods. During happy hour and “sweet time” there were various snacks out, including hot hors d’oeuvres, which I found pretty tasty. And all the chips I could eat, woohoo! We avoided the hotel restaurant due to the fact we were in the food capital of the world.

The Cite Internationale has some fun sculptures

The biggest downside of the hotel is its location – it’s about a 30 minute walk to the city center. Still, it’s in a nice little convention center complete with a movie theater, casino, and restaurants. The architecture of the complex, both the hotel and the entire Cite Internationale, is actually pretty cool. Though I wouldn’t recommend it, you could stay there and never leave.

Parc Tete d’Or

The best part of the hotel’s location is its proximity to the Parc Tete d’Or, a beautiful, expansive park that made me wish it was summer. We wandered around the park in the rain and I was still impressed with its natural beauty (the fall foliage didn’t hurt).

There is a large lake in the middle of the park; you can rent boats during warmer weather. The park is also chock full of playgrounds and there is even a zoo – a FREE zoo. I thought the free zoo would be, um, not that great but it actually was pretty nice (the price obviously factoring into my evaluation). I mean the Stone and Franklin Park Zoos here in Boston are great and all but they cost money!

An interesting thing we noticed in Lyon is that it seems to be a city for runners – it feels like Boston in that way. We saw people jogging at all hours of the day and night and there are tons of beautiful paths that you can jog on – in the park, along the two rivers, or even through the city center itself. I kinda wish I had brought my running shoes to burn off all the calories I ate! Then again, I haven’t run more than a mile in……let’s just move on.

Walk to the City Center

Since the hotel is so far away, it’s worth noting your options for getting to the city center. There is a convenient bus that takes you right in there but to be honest we didn’t even bother inquiring the price. We’re walkers and that’s what we did.

It’s about a thirty minute walk to the city center and there are multiple ways to get there from the Hilton. You can walk along the river, you can walk through the Parc Tete d’Or, or you can walk through more urban areas. They all felt super safe (we asked the hotel and they said it’s fine at all hours and our experience echoed this).

Would love to know the story behind this badboy

Lyon is home to two rivers – the Rhone and the Saone – the Hilton and Cite Internationale are along the Rhone. Walking along the river is beautiful and there is a path that runs along a large part of the river. I wasn’t sure if it was a permanent thing or what (it rained most of the weekend) but a lot of the paths on the Saone looked flooded. Weird.

Anyway like any European city there are a billion bridges you can choose to cross the rivers on including a handful of pedestrian ones. I have an affinity for walking across bridges so I really just loved strolling around the city. I always found it to be a pleasant walk but if walking is not your thing you might want to take the bus or find a different hotel.

Salon du Chocolat

The absolute best part about living in the Cite Internationale was that we were a two minute walk away from the Salon du Chocolat. What is the Salon du Chocolat, you say? Only a traveling chocolate exhibition featuring some of the best chocolatiers in the world! And it just happened to be in Lyon the weekend we were there.

The exhibition was in some kind of exhibition hall – and it was crazy. I mean its like a convention, except instead of weird gadgets or gizmos, everyone is featuring chocolate and candy at their booths. Free samples? Yes, thank you very much. And chocolate for sale of course, including some really unique things like hard candies flavored with flowers (Maison Boissier), a Coca-cola flavored chocolate bar that crackled when I ate it (Newtree), and of course products from Lyon’s very well known, very amazing Bernachon.

Almost finished product - ridiculous. — Almost finished product – ridiculous.

Jess was in heaven and I had a pretty good time too. Besides just gorging yourself on samples and spending way too much money on chocolate bars, there were also demonstrations by famous chocolatiers (with free samples!) and also an ongoing “chocolate art” creation station. Some of the stuff these people made out of chocolates blew my mind.

Gigantic mirror for the cooking demonstration

Not convinced? There is also a fashion show featuring clothes that have chocolate on them! What?! Who thinks of these things? And finally, there are demonstrations/lessons/workshops both for kids and adults. The kids dressed up in aprons and making chocolate are especially cute and make me want to return with Little M when she’s old enough.

So it cost us 10 Euros each to get in but we spent a few hours there and I thought it was well worth it. We had a lot of fun, got a nice little sugar high going, and Jess got to sit on an Eclair. All in all, a great time.

Final Thoughts

The Hilton Lyon is located a bit far away from the city, but that doesn’t mean you’ll lack things to do. The Parc Tete d’Or is lovely and the Cite Internationale has a lot of things to occupy your time. We almost went to the movies just because we never get to do that at home (we missed our show because we slept in, haha). And if you happen to be in town when the Salon du Chocolat is visiting – cha-ching!