Tagging Miles

Catching up on the Saverocity Observation Deck

By 5 Comments





For some reason, 2018 has been super busy for me. But, even with that, I’m still able to catch up with Joe of As The Joe Flies and chat travel every couple of weeks on the Saverocity Observation Deck. We’ve had some really great episodes covering a true smorgasbord of topics with a bunch of awesome guests over the last few months. I figured as we’re getting to mid-year, that it’d be good to take a moment and highlight some of the podcasts we’ve done.

Catching up with the Saverocity Observation Deck – The Elite Status Conundrum

We caught up with Sam of Milenomics, who’s made an incredible resurgence over the past few months with the help of Robert Dywer. 

As long time readers would know, I’ve long been on the Elite Status Hamster Wheel. Well, this was a great conversation that is starting to sway me just a bit, it was so much fun that we ended up doing a second. Part one was primarily focused upon airline status:


Part two, I think was a bit more of a challenging decision on hotel status:

Catching up with the Saverocity Observation Deck – On Hyatt Globalist Status

Continuing on the discussion of Elite Status, we linked up with Freequent (best pronounced Freeeeeeee) Flyer (FQF) to talk Hyatt Globalist Status and Best Practices Earning Ultimate Rewards.

Catching up with the Saverocity Observation Deck – Focus on Travel, not Points

We had the chance to chat with Becky Pokora on Mexico, and also on her rather unique approach to travel. I say unique because “SightDoing” is a unique approach and I think its absolutely awesome. In full disclosure, I try to push myself on travel, but I’m nowhere near Becky’s level just yet.

We also had the chance to chat with Cynthia Drescher where we talked about cruising, and started our Destination Focus, including festivals in Germany, and Vivid Sydney (which ironically I’ll be experiencing in just a few short days!!)

Catching up with the Saverocity Observation Deck – Hawaii with not one, but 2 special guests!

Now this may be biased, but, we had a really fun podcast on Hawai’i with Tim Brooks, where I surrendered my seat to a woman who was far more seasoned with Hawaii travel than I am, in fact, this wahine spent part of her childhood in Hawai’i; Rose (my wife) was awesome to step in and share tips for Hawai’i travel that I wouldn’t even have guessed. Really appreciative of Rose to step in and prevent me from stumbling through based on my memories of L & L’s Drive in or Tex’s Malasadas.

Wrapping Up

I hope you’ll enjoy some of these excellent podcasts.

You can find all Saverocity Observation Deck podcast episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play! If you enjoy the podcast, it would be awesome if you left us a review and subscribed!

What is your favorite Saverocity Observation Deck Podcast episode?

 

 

 

 

What enhanced security will you go through flying from Qatar?

By Leave a Comment

Last week I had the chance to fly back to the US via Doha, Qatar on Qatar Airways. I found it interesting to find out what enhanced security there was flying from Qatar. You see, airlines from a number of countries in the Middle East experienced a laptop ban mid-2017. While I originally thought it was a win for the US big three airlines–American, United, and Delta–(US3), that controversy seems to have faded from the national discussion. 

We had connected in Doha following our surprising QSuite flight. with a bit of a layover that I’ll cover in a separate post. Ultimately however we were flying from Doha, Qatar to Philadelphia on a Qatar Airways A350. Our experience traversing security was one that is ingrained in my memory, at least for another few weeks.

Entering Hamad International Airport from our long layover was welcoming as usual:

flying from Qatar

Further immigration and security was simple. We found ourselves in the lounge in no time–so much so that we skipped photos, since its been well covered.

But, when it was time to travel, we made our way to the gate and found a rather complicated process to ultimately board our flight. That process started with standing in a line to have our electronics swabbed and bagged in duty free bags.

flying from Qatar

Once our electronics were in the duty free bags, we went through another 2 individuals who had to inspect our boarding passes and passports.

flying from Qatar

Resulting electronics bag

Then it was security, which was typical–remove your belts, electronics and liquids. Following that we had no fewer than 5 additional Qatar Airways staff members who inspected our boarding passes and passports. That isn’t even including the flight attendant at the door that verified our boarding passes and pointed us to our seats.

Wrapping Up – Flying from Qatar

I have to say, our experience flying through Doha was less than stellar. Hamad International Airport is a phenomenal airport. But the enhanced security for flights to the United States was excessive and, while I try to avoid passing judgement, I fail to see the value added. The security, so far as I could tell, was just as exhaustive as US Preclearance out of Abu Dhabi, but without the benefit of exiting the aircraft Stateside without having to go through immigration. 

A look back at 2017 – travel and predictions

By 2 Comments

This time of year its nice to do a little navel gazing and take a look back at 2017. 

A Look Back at 2017 Travel

For me, 2017 was a drastically different year of travel than any of the previous 5 years. Just take a look at my travel map (courtesy of gcmap.com):

A look back at 2017 travel, courtesy of gcmap.com

A look back at 2017 travel, courtesy of gcmap.com

By the numbers:

  • 110,953 miles flown — this is much less than 2016 or 2015!
  • 11 Countries visited (12 including the US)
  • 2 New Countries (Malaysia and Laos)
  • 21 Southwest Flights – That companion pass has been very valuable for us!
  • 2 JetBlue Mint flights (and newly minted Mosaic status)

While the map certainly tells the story of leveraging Southwest Flights, but doesn’t really speak to the “why.”

Largely this year’s focus for travel was on important people and events. Nearly every single personal trip I made was focused on seeing specific people, while some were even focused on people and events. In past years, my focus was more on a new country, or a new place to see, a new airline product to fly. This year my wife and I threw that out of the window–with the exception of our annual trip to Bali.

This year we also had the chance to attend Oktoberfest–with a big group of friends which made the trip so much better! Later this week we’ll be driving up to Sydney, to ring in the new year–a bucket list item.

We also got to see tons of friends, for which I was even willing to sacrifice comfort and fly Southwest to make it happen. 

A note on Southwest: I realize I’ve got a reputation for flying in premium cabins. Flying Southwest was certainly humbling compared. That said, the value of the companion pass is hard to counter. Nearly every flight my wife and I took, we compared it to American, where we have top tier status–and a decent chance of an upgrade–in every single case, Southwest was cheaper when you are only paying for 1 person plus the September 11th fee on the second. Its hard to argue with that math.

2017 Predictions

Like many, I made some predictions for the year ahead in the miles, points, travel, credit card and reselling worlds. 

Doctor of Credit did an assessment of his and others–and I’m appreciative that he included mine. He only covered a subset, and lets just say that I didn’t rate terribly well with only 2/4 rated. I guess I’ve got some work toward becoming the next Nostradamus! 

A couple of highlights:

Reselling – Amazon has found new ways to counter counterfeiters however they haven’t been rolling them out to all of us third party resellers just yet. We’ve seen varying ebbs and flows of category and brand restrictions, some popping up literally over night. Overall though, online and retail arbitragers dodged the bullet this year. Even better, I think the consensus is that the restrictions and some of the other things in the works are actually working to counter counterfeiters.

Loyalty – I think I was pretty much entirely wrong here. Alaska’s award chart is largely intact–I suspect because of the Virgin America merger. Marriott-SPG has made small announcements, but they haven’t yet figured out how to combine systems, so I think all parties are happy for the time being. There’s been no new level of award redemption, however American has continued to make us question whether they ever release award space… But there’s always the opportunity to redeem 10,000 Delta SkyMiles for a bottle of Krug!

Wrapping Up

Overall, 2017 has been a different year for me. I’ve seen parts of the US that I had long been neglecting. Some of those parts, I’ve returned back to multiple times this year because they are so awesome. This year is also perhaps the first year that I’ve seen more friends either in their home areas or my own, rather than running into them in airports or the other side of the world. 

For me, what 2017 boils down to, is that there are so many different ways to make travel work for you. There are so many different priorities that travel can help you to actualize. That’s the key. Fulfillment, not copious amounts of Krug served on EVA Air, or flying the Emirates A380 in First Class. Unless of course that is fulfillment (it was for me a few years ago!).

Would you sell your body to be consumed by others?

By 2 Comments

Update: It appears this may be one of those pervasive Fake News stories, and admittedly, it just seemed so exciting that I wrote about it. Sorry about that, but I’d offer it is still an interesting thing to consider.

In perhaps the weirdest story I’ve seen in weeks, there is now a Japanese restaurant in Tokyo nicknamed “The Resoto ototo no shoku ryohin” translated to “Edible Brother.” But they can’t really serve anything unless you choose to sell your body, or at least others choose to sell their bodies.

sell your body

You see, Japan passed a law in 2014 that permitted the consumption of human flesh. Now, we’ve all seen how this can go badly in movies, but, lets put that aside for a moment and consider the economics.

According to Steemit (perhaps apply titled given the topic), if you want to be part of the main course, you must decide before dying, to sell your body to a restaurant. You can earn roughly $36,000 dollars, however, only folks that die young can sign such a contract. I’m not sure why its limited to the young. Once upon a time, I had a most amazing steak in India at the Oberoi Amanvillas in Agra (where the Taj Mahal is), and I have to guess that the cow must’ve been nearly as old as I was. 

Would you sell your body to be consumed by others?

I realize that the title of this post is pretty clickbait, but, when I read the linked article, that was the first thing I was thinking. If you ask me, I certainly wouldn’t. But, would you?

 

Review: Packing Cubes

By 9 Comments

 If you poll frequent travelers, I think you’ll get a mixed response on whether folks use or don’t use packing cubes. Until recently, I hadn’t even tried using a packing cube, but during the last Amazon Prime Day, there was a pretty decent deal, so I grabbed a 4-pack of two different sizes.

Packing cubes come in many different sizes, though they primarily seem to be quadrilaterals. There are also a bunch of brands as well, in addition to Amazon Essentials—Amazon’s private label brand—eBags has their own, and scores of others. Below are the two sizes that I got:

packing cubes

In general, packing cubes can be helpful for getting more into a smaller suitcase, as each cube compresses your clothes. They can also be really helpful in separating clothes if you are going to multiple destinations on your trip. For example, for a Southeast Asia trip, you could have one packing cube for Singapore and another for Bali. You can also use them to separate clean clothes from the dirty ones.

My Experience with Packing Cubes

I first tested out using the packing cubes on a 2 night trip a couple of weeks ago down to ResellingDO 5. My wife ended up using one as well, and we fit both of the smaller ones into a single Briggs & Riley carry-on—which incidentally is my favorite carry-on, period.

For 2 nights, really I could have just thrown clothes in a back-pack, but, I found for the most part, the clothes came out pretty neat. Not necessarily any more wrinkles than my normal standard rolling technique. Note: Due to the nature of packing cubes, I opted not to roll, just to fold and pack.

packing cubes

My second test of our packing cubes was on a 3 night trip to Napa Valley, California, to visit some friends. This time my wife opted for her own carry-on. You can see mine below:

packing cubes

Again, I was able to get all of my clothes into the smaller of the two sizes. Also of note, This carry-on is the Briggs and Riley Torq, and the cube fit fine with little to no wasted space wide-ways. It fit even easier into my normal Briggs and Riley international wide-body carry-on. 

Final Thoughts on Packing Cubes

While I’ve only had two trips with packing cubes thus far, I’m already sold on using them. I definitely feel like you can get more clothes in the smaller cubes. Are they appropriate for all situations and trips? Probably not, but, there are a lot of benefits. I’m still on the fence of what other sizes might make sense, but the ones that I do have, have already proven better. If anything, I’ll probably side more toward the smaller sizes.

Have you tried using packing cubes? Share your experience in the comments.

Monday Roundup: Citi Prestige, Disney Star Wars, Bastille Day

By Leave a Comment

Welcome to the new week! Here is your Monday Roundup – those great posts that you might have missed with the craziness of the weekend.

  • Citi has announced additional changes to their Citi Prestige Card, I think, meant to show value, with the negative changes that include dropping the 1.6 cents per point redeemed for travel on American Airlines down to 1.3 cents, and the taking away of the golf benefit. Nick isn’t convinced this is good news. I’m still on the fence here.
  • Disney is launching an immersive, all inclusive Star Wars hotel. It sounds awfully cool, the question is, can you wait the 2-3 years it will take to build it?
  • The best place to enjoy the Bastille Day Fireworks.
  • If you haven’t been to Lake Como, this may make you put it higher on your list.
  • Have you ever been to Ulaanbaatar? I sure haven’t, but I would love to visit Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia some day. Here are Lucky’s initial thoughts.
  • Not terribly miles and points related, but Microsoft is giving a ton of ebooks away – grab them while you can!
     

Electronics Ban Expansion, Qantas Heritage, Travel Scholarships, Singapore Long Haul

By 1 Comment

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

Tagging Miles:

Time over Experience – A Changing Dynamic

By 8 Comments

I’m not traveling this year as much as I have in past years. The big reason is that I have less vacation time than I have had in the past. While that seems like a pretty big impact, there’s something else that has also impacted some of my travel choices. Ultimately, I’m choosing time over experience of in flight products.

Background

Over the past few years, I have made an effort to fly on tons of new (to me) airlines, aircraft, and products (e.g. you get a different experience on an Emirates 777-300ER than a 777-300 than an A380 for example). In some cases, doing this has led me to fly out of my way, given me long layovers, and sometimes forced stopovers that I would not otherwise have chosen. You might argue that I was doing the exact opposite of pursuing time over experience of in flight products. 
 
A perfect example is my trip from last year, where we flew from Washington, DC, to Chicago, so we could fly the Japan Airlines 777-300ER to Narita; but we wanted to go to Bali, so we ended up needing to transfer to Haneda’s airport (where I was able to get my shoes shined, which was nice), so we could fly on a sub-par JAL 777 product to Bangkok, where we then got a second mileage award ticket to fly onward to Denpasar-Bali on the new Thai 787.
 
That trip out got us 2 new airline products, the Japan Airlines 777-300ER and the Thai 787. But boy were we exhausted when we finally got into Bali!
 
Time over experience

Last Year’s itinerary.

 
Then for the way home, we flew from Denpasar-Bali to Singapore (which is one of two routes that seems to have the hands down best award availability out of Bali), spent a night in Singapore, then visited the Singapore Airlines Private Room, and flew the Singapore Airlines A380 Suites up to Hong Kong, had a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong, and then flew Emirates to Dubai and onward to Washington-Dulles.
 
The way home essentially got us back on Singapore Suites for a 3-4 hour flight, and back on Emirates, which we do enjoy flying. In the past, we’ve flown via Bangkok (the other fairly good award option out of Bali), and connected to Thai’s A380 to Frankfurt, further connecting to Lufthansa First Class (with a stop at the Lufthansa First Class Terminal). In truth, I think the Emirates option ends up being better, because you arrive earlier in the day.

Cut to the Present

In January, my wife and I had 5 days to take a quick trip. In the past, we’d do something crazy like go to Singapore for the Weekend. This time, we returned to the Westin Playa Conchal in Costa Rica. We had no regrets, we even got the chance to check out the new United Polaris lounge. The key shift, was a focus on time over experience; in this case, it was time at the destination, over a more exclusive in flight product and less time on the ground.
 
Later this month, we’ll be returning to Bali, and it’s less than ideal, but we had jumped on a $500 American Airlines economy ticket from Washington, DC to Hong Kong, via DFW, on the 777-300ER; and immediately upgraded it to Business Class with Systemwide Upgrades; we did this a few years ago. At the time, we hadn’t decided where we would go, we just saw a great fare and so we booked it.
 
We ultimately decided that we’d go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia–a country neither my wife nor I have been to before–onward to Bali, and because we could find award space back, a night in Singapore at the Grand Hyatt, which is quickly becoming one of my preferred hotels in the region.
 
Time over experience

Conclusion – Pursuing Time over Experience

So, last year, our trip had 4 legs between origination and destination, and another 4 legs for the way home. This year, our trip has 3 legs for us to get to Malaysia; we’ll spend a couple of days there, then a short 4 hour flight to Bali, a few days there, a short 4 hour flight to Singapore, an overnight there, and 3 legs to get home. I’ll be curious to see how the added stop in Kuala Lumpur changes things up. One other aspect, is that for this trip, we will have no more than 3-4 hour layovers. In fact, most of our layovers will probably be cutting it tighter, at under 2 hours, except for one in Hong Kong, due to flight schedules.
 
All of this was spurred after reading Daniel of DemFlyers talking about how saving $50 used to be a priority, but now the non-stop is the priority. I totally agree; time is so incredibly finite; ultimately, I value time over experience now more than I used to. As I’ve said on a different topic; you can always make more money as a weekend entrepreneur or otherwise; but making more time is harder.
 
Have you noticed a change toward more efficient travel?

Qatar Transit Visa, Reselling, #FT4RL, Inside the new Trump Hotel DC

By Leave a Comment

Author’s note: On Tuesday, 8 November, the US elected a new president (in reality, the result was announced in the early hours of 9 November). It happened. I have an opinion, I hope everyone has an opinion. Apathy has no place in democracy. That said, a good friend once shared with me that having a single theme or voice for a blog provides a better reader experience. I agree with that. TaggingMiles is first and foremost a Mile and Point blog, covering the gambit from Travel to Reselling, but anchored in Miles and Points. I hope that this has been and will continue to be a brief respite for our awesome readers.

Travel:

Reselling:

  • Matt tried to quit reselling, and realized that there’s another way to play the game. He has excellent insights, that I think are important for resellers, observers, and folks thinking about entering.
  • Just in time for the holiday season, Dia has put together a gift discounted gift card promotion wiki. There’s lots of good deals identified, and Dia will be updating it as new deals become available. This is one to bookmark!

Miles and Points:

  • Dia wrapped up her 5th Family Travel 4 Real Life (FT4RL) – here are her thoughts. I missed it, but everything I have heard has been exceptionally positive. I’d definitely recommend you keep an eye out for when she announces FT4RL6!

Tagging Miles:

Suitcase Giveaway, New TATL Routes, Chase Sapphire Reserve Competitor, Reselling

By 1 Comment

The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Do This Now:

Travel:

Miles and Points:

Reselling

Tagging Miles:

Note: Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. The owners of this website may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links and advertisements posted on this website. For more information, please see our Legal Notice.