I don’t fly Delta a lot, but when I do I’m reminded about how much I like them. This year I only had 10 segments on them, all domestic, and overall I enjoyed my trips. This short 560 mile trip takes a little less than 2 hours.
This older 737-8 had four rows of 2-2 seating up front and 23 rows of 3-3 economy seating. Thankfully I was upgraded to First Class due to my Alaska Airline status (yes Virginia miracles still happen). Continue reading
Beer’s around the world can make you do crazy things.
When you’re at Walt Disney World and have a free afternoon at Epcot what should you do? Have an Around The World Pub Crawl of course. Back in early November when my family was there I had to take the opportunity to tick this one item off my bucket list. Yeah I know kind of cheesy, but at least I didn’t buy a t-shirt to commemorate the achievement. Here’s my accomplishment in all it’s glory. For all you beer aficionados, no I didn’t take notes of what I drank. Sorry.
Yup this was breakfast
Ok let me start off by saying in the grand scheme of things my issues are minor at best. But when you travel too much like I do, you’re sensitive to wanting a good night’s rest and a good start to the day.
Also in this case the hotel immediately gave me a room refund once I complained. So for that I’m happy, but did it really make me happy?
I had a one night stay at the aLoft Ontario/Rancho Cucamonga this week. I specifically stayed here to take advantage of two sweet Starwood promotions that I could achieve in a one night stay. One was the 2500 Starwood points for using keyless entry and the other was 2015 Starwood points in 2015. For me to earn these points I needed a stay at a hotel that had keyless entry. This hotel fit the bill, but was 80 miles roundtrip from where I was working. But for 4515 extra points it was worth it, or so I thought. Continue reading
I had another really great stay at another BRAND new hotel. This time I spent the night at the five month new Sheraton Mesa Hotel Wrigleyville West. If you’re not a baseball fan you might not know that the area around Wrigley Field in Chicago is called Wrigleyville. Since this hotel is in the parking lot of the Spring Training home of the Cubbies (sorry maybe next year, I was rooting for you) they’ve adopted that name at their Spring Training home in Mesa, Arizona too.
I’ve flown Virgin America a handful of times from the Bay Area, but all of my flights have been to Las Vegas or San Diego and only in Coach. I was needing to head to Dallas and found a First Class fare $50 cheaper then any other airlines coach ticket, even Southwest!! Well what’s a person to do, fly in the back of the bus for more moolah or fly up front for less. Let’s think about it for maybe two seconds. I immediately bought my ticket to Dallas Love Field on Virgin America from SFO and away I went.
I’m always excited to try out a new hotel brand, so when I’m in a city that has one I’ll do my best to check it out. On a recent trip to Dallas, Texas I was able to do just that and stayed at the Element DFW. Element Hotel is one of the new/hip extended stay brands made for the 20-40 something traveler. It offers rooms with full kitchens, separate sleeping/sitting areas and modern lobbies with a communal vibe and a nod towards environmentally friendly building supplies and green hotel habits.
I had a quick trip to the American Express Centurion Lounge Las Vegas. A few months ago. I was excited to finally make my first visit. On previous jaunts through LAS I was either running late or traveling via a different terminal so having time and being in the right terminal finally had its privileges.
Hilton is finally expanding their keyless entry program and I’m excited to have a chance to try it out at the Hilton Kansas City Airport. At the moment I’m under the impression they have 23 locations worldwide that offer this feature, where until a few weeks ago it was a whopping one hotel. I didn’t pick this property because of this but I’m happy I get to check it out. Plus thought the end of November you get a bonus 2500 Hilton Honors points for using it. Here’s a link to the promotion. I’m hopeful that I’ll get the bonus points, it seems you don’t need to register for the promotion, just check in via the mobile AP, so cross your fingers.
Back in June Hyatt offered a really great status match opportunity (its way beyond dead now). If you registered for the promo and in eight weeks stayed 12 nights not only would you get their top tier status (Diamond) through 2016 but you’d also get four upgrade certificates.
For me this promo was available at the perfect time. I had already qualified for top tier with Hilton and Starwood and I enjoy those brands, but I was looking to diversify a bit and try out other hotel chains and see what they had to offer. But, being spoiled if you can call it that these days, I was used to free Wi-Fi, free breakfast and on occasion great upgrades based on my status. So starting at the bottom with zero status was not happening.
Travel, Miles & Points From Both Sides of The Pond
Exploring open roads without breaking the bank
Home of Lukas Kondraciuk Photography
Living wide and eating well.
by Anna Trestain
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