Archive for February, 2012

You can enter to win a trip to Morocco from West Elm. Value of the trip is ~$15,000!

KLM is giving away a trip for two to Amsterdam.

Here is this week’s Top 20 from Travel Zoo

For our friends to the North:  BA & RBC are launching a new card tomorrow … the RBC® British Airways Visa Infinite Card.

New cardholders approved between March 1 through May 31, 2012, can earn up to 50,000 Avios to use towards a Reward Ticket on British Airways and oneworld® partners, and a Companion Award Voucher when they spend $30,000 CAD in a calendar year.  The card also offers more ways to earn on everyday spend and double Avios on BA and BA Holiday spend. Cardholders can also redeem Avios on oneworld partners, BA Holidays, and hotel and car partners. The card provides security when traveling abroad with its 31-day Out of Country/Province Emergency Medical Insurance.

Monsieur Alain, dropped me off at the Vakona Forest Lodge located outside the village of Andasibe and a good 20-30 minute drive down a dirt road just off the main road from Tana to the coast. We’ve entered into an ecosystem unlike any I’ve experienced. It is a combination of temperate forest and tropical jungle. The sounds of birds, frogs, and insects lead me to learn more towards the jungle. The Lodge itself is a group of hillside self contained ensuite cabins surrounding the main building in a clearing amongst the lush vegetation. Sorry folks, no hotel points to be earned here.

Just down the dirt road is a place know as Lemur Island. Here a group of six different lemur species can be observed in a semi-wild experience. I’m informed the lemurs were rescued and not able to be returned fully back to the wild. The island itself is in the middle of the Nature Reserve so seems wild enough to me. However it becomes quite clear these lemurs are accustom to people. I hop out of the canoe and am greeted by small Bamboo lemurs. Then the brown lemurs descend upon me in a group of four or five. In moments I’ve got one on my head and one on my shoulder. A Golden Sifka comes around to inspect me as well. For a minute I stop surrounded by these strange primate-like creatures. (I’m in the jungle of Madagascar with lemur on my head – surreal!)

I hop back in the canoe and the guide takes me around to another spot amongst the watery channel of islands. He gives a quick call and then one by one the famous ring tails we know to associate with the lemur family start to appear amongst the grasses. He pulls the canoe up to the island and two Ring tailed lemurs hop aboard and once again decide to inspect my hair care regime. I don’t think they were impressed as they quickly hopped back ashore and darted back off into the grass. Lemur experience number one, tick!

The next morning, Alain greets me at 7am and drive me to the National Park. Along the dirt road we pass through a graphite mine which is beginning to bustle as the villagers begin to arrive for work. As we continue down the road it becomes quite clear the villagers are walking to the mine from the Andasibe village. I confirm this with Alain, who then goes on to state, “long walk.” Long walk indeed; these people walk 10 kilometers or just over 6 miles to work, BAREFOOT. I will have a much greater appreciation when I next pick up a graphite pencil. Unbelievable what these people do daily without complaint

We arrive at the National park, and Nesta my park guide greets me. He shows me we have three options for exploring the park in an attempt to locate the largest of the lemur family the Indri. I opt for the full 8km, 4hr trek through the jungle. I didn’t come all this way to skimp at the best part. We set off into the thick jungle. Nesta is quite a bit smaller than my 6 foot 5 frame and can easily maneuver through the undergrowth. I struggle to keep up as I’m constantly walking through spider webs, darting around tree vines, and lifting the ferns out of my way.

Out of nowhere this loud whale like calling echos through the jungle canopy. Nesta picks up the pace and I struggle even more to keep up. I catch my breath, sweating profusely, wipe my brow and gaze up towards the tree tops. Nesta has found a family of Indri. The Indri is the largest of the lemur species, nearly 3 feet in length and up to 30lbs. Their black and white markings give them a panda-like appearance. I grab my camera and start taking my best NatGeo shots. Clearly I’m an amateur but still relish the thought of being in a truly amazing experience.

Our trek takes us into the depths of the park and out again. In total we find three groups of Indri families tracking them by their distinct calls. Sweating, battered, and bruised I emerge from the bush exhausted, in need of a shower but completely satisfied with my lemur encounter.

That night an American couple checks into the Lodge and I hear them make mention of a cyclone heading towards Madagascar. I use the crawling Wi-Fi to confirm there is indeed a storm forecast to hit the day I’m meant to leave for Johannesburg. Not ideal at all. I arrange for Alain to meet me at 7am the next day in hopes I can get back to Tana in time to get on the South African Airlink flight to Jo’burg. This proves to be no problem; however once in Tana, the traffic is at a standstill. Saturday markets overflow on to the already congested streets making the 20km (12.5 mile) journey take nearly 90 minutes. By the time I arrive at the airport the heat trapped in the non-air-conditioned car makes me feels as through I was in a slow cooker ready to be served. A $20 change fee is applied to my ticket and I’m set to flee the approaching cyclone and begin the next bit of my adventure in South Africa.

There seems to be another offer for $100 off a new Admiral’s Club membership. It doesn’t appear to be valid for renewals.

[Mileage Run]If you live in LAX/SFO/SEA, you may be able to snag a mileage run to MCI (Kansas City) for <3.0 CPM on DL/AA/UA

Here are Priority Club’s Last Minute Rewards for this upcoming weekend.

Pic Sara took of our plane on descent

As eccentric crazies in this travel game we’re typically organized (to some degree).  We use tools like AwardWallet to track our points and miles, KVSTool and ExpertFlyer to make sure we’re getting the most from those miles, and CreditSesame, CreditKarma, and Quizzle as a free way to keep track of our credit scores.

Our families give us weird looks, but its ok … they’ll happily reap the benefits from our crazy.  It works until you forget about someone.  Someone that missed United 1K by 1500 EQM, or someone that has never had a credit card … and is a victim of identity theft.  The former was fixed with a quick discussion and education of all of the benefits they were missing out; rest assured she’s made United 1K three years straight now … the latter, is my current challenge.  Here goes …

Last week and this week I’m working from home (yay!)   Sara is out on the road and I’m home with our pup.  Last weekend I had an uneventful flight up to Massachusetts to see family and friends (I hadn’t been in almost a year) and stayed at my parents.  We opted Saturday night to head out to some fine international cuisine at The Olive Garden (insert laughs).

View from our seats at altitude

My brother told stories of his three month trip to Japan (I sent him over using 50k AA miles in business class on JAL flight 1 & 2 using a promo they had in the fall), and my mother chimed in saying she wanted a credit card to get her 50k points.  Last year I got her and my stepfather 30k SPG each and they’re hooked.

The plan when we got home was to pull credit for my mom, stepfather (who was convinced his score was higher than my mothers), and two younger brothers.  My mom, stepfather, and youngest brother were all fine.  My other brother has no checking account, no credit cards, and no debt … here come the problems.

Our first attempt to get a credit score was through CreditSesame, but they were unable to retrieve a report.  CreditKarma asked a bunch of questions that made no sense in the verification process and we couldn’t figure it out (I bet you can figure out where this is going …), and Quizzle was much the same.

The final thing was to go to TrueCredit and do a pull from there.  Much of the same and in the end we can only get the report mailed to us at an address that we’ve never seen before … yup, he’s a victim of identity theft.

To add insult to injury, my brother suffers from a mental disability.  Each of these calls to different credit agencies, and visit to the police department will have someone else in the family having to verify their identity.  Hopefully we’ll have some progress within the week.  I’ll be posting a full update along with all the steps we’re taking to get through this and resources we’re using.

About a decade ago the same thing happened to my mother, except it was much easier for her to get to the bottom of it all as she had an established record.  Apparently lightning can strike twice to a family.

The winner of the United RCC pass is Steve Boyko who posted at February 25, 2012 10:39 PM.  Steve, please email me at rick@frugaltravelguy.com with an address to send it off to.

And now for some deals …

If you’re one of the first 35,00 to sign up, you can get 20% off at Virgin America! It doesn’t say how many they’ve had already.

Peachy Airport Parking is offering free parking until Mar. 31 at their ATL location.

Free Platinum status with Accor Hotels is back.

Condé Nast Traveler is giving away a $25,000 dream vacation!

bloomspot is giving away a trip to Beverly Hills.

Starting March 15, Hyatt will be dropping several airline partners from earning miles for stays and redeem Gold Passport points for miles.

It’s tax season and while we’ve already seen a bonus big bonus offer from Southwest, Mommy Points has summarized all of the offers currently out there! Check it out

These successes are so inspirational to me. They keep me going when the naysayers pop up. Imagine what it’s like to do this trip — the sights, sounds, and smells that cost just a few bucks and a few points on a more-than-adequate credit score. Enjoy going along on Josh’s trip by reading his Success Story. It could be you!  Here’s the story …

Wanted to send you this note for your Sunday success story segment.

My wife and I were looking at going to Europe this fall and doing a multi segment trip. I was going to use SkyPesos left over from the SunTrust bonanza of 2010. Last week we decided upon an MSP-CDG-BOD-FCO-MSP routing with a JFK layover coming home from FCO.

Delta wasn’t showing good (or consistent) award availability on all segments and I had only 248K SkyPesos  left to burn. I finally found a decent booking, but it was repeatedly coming in at 305K with $280USD in taxes. I knew I had some Membership Rewards points I could transfer to Delta in order to make it work , but there currently is not any transfer bonus going and didn’t like the idea of going this route on a 1:1 transfer. I finally decided to check out Air France’s availability to see what the pricing would be for the CDG-BOD-FCO segments. I was able to find much more availability than what DL’s site and customer service was saying to be available. After calling DL customer service to price out an award booking of MSP-CDG and then a segment from FCO-(JFK)-MSP, I was able to put the itinerary on hold as it had priced out at 215K SkyPesos and $140 in taxes. I then went to MR’s site to utilize the February Air France FlyingBlue transfer bonus of 25% and transferred the points into FlyingBlue miles.

The next day, when the miles had posted in my FlyingBlue account, I called DL to book my held itinerary. Alas, they had only held the reservation for that day and not the typical 2 day hold I have experienced before. We then priced out the same exact flights I had previously held and was quite surprised when the total booking come up to be 150K SkyPesos with $92 in taxes. Pleasantly surprised with the DL flights, I went to book the AF flights and solidified all the flying needed for this venture.

We are staying 5 nights in Paris, 2 nights in Bordeaux, then finally 9 nights in Rome (with a one night excursion to Venice or Florence by rail). We’ll be utilizing SPG points for the Paris nights, Expedia BRG vouchers to lower the cost of our Bordeaux nights, airbnb.com for the Rome nights and Priority Club points for the Florence or Venice overnight.

All in all, I had read quite a bit on people utilizing partner sites to find award availability and didn’t think it actually worked until I tried this here. Very much glad I spent the extra 90 minutes to do the research and as always, appreciative to the valuable info found here on the blog.

The flights priced out, with taxes, at just a hair over $7K, the hotel nights in Paris and Bordeaux would have cost me $1600 and we would never have been able to afford this trip by paying out of pocket.

Looking forward to even more savings when booking our CAI, BKK, CNS round the world trip in 2014!

Josh.

A day off from Miles and Points today. This was just too close to home and too hard to pass up.