Uncategorized

Check Your Passport Expiration

DaninMCI Travel, Uncategorized ,

Many folks applied for USA passports in 2006 due to new requirements. There is also a surge in new applications ahead of the 2018 Real ID Act requirements so fast forward to 2016 and guess what? That flood of new passports in 2006 are expiring and a bunch of new applications is making it a busy time at the U.S. Passport office.  They are urging individuals with passports expiring to renew them now. Renewals will likely take 6 weeks or more.  Also if you are planning travel out of the country remember that you typically need at least 6 months of validity on your passport before you are allowed to travel to most places.

Here is link for more information: https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/information/where-to-apply/agencies.html

 

Win an epic adventure to India – Best Exotic Marigold

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World Market is a cool place to shop for some odd items. They are currently giving away a trip for 2 to India.

Click Here to Enter

World Market’s Best Exotic Marigold Sweepstakes

World Market’s Best Exotic Marigold Sweepstakes2

Rules T&C:

Eligibility: World Market’s Best Exotic Marigold Sweepstakes (the “Promotion”) is open to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States and District of Columbia who are 21 years of age or older at the time of entry (excluding residents of Puerto Rico, and all other U.S. territories and possessions). Void in Puerto Rico and all other U.S. territories and possessions and where prohibited.
How To Enter: During the Promotion Period, visit worldmarketsweepstakes.com, and follow the provided instructions to complete and submit the online entry form to receive one (1) entry.

Entry Limit: Limit one (1) entry per person using only one (1) email address per day.

For the purposes of this Promotion, a day is understood to begin at 12:00 a.m. ET and end at 11:59 p.m. ET that same day. Entries received from any person or email address in excess of the above stated daily limitation will be void. Entries generated by script, macro or other automated means and entries by any means which subvert the entry process will be void. In the event of a dispute as to who submitted an online entry, the authorized account holder of the email address used to participate will be deemed to be the entrant and he/she must comply with these Official Rules. The “authorized account holder” is the natural person assigned an email address by an Internet access provider, online service provider or other organization responsible for assigning email addresses for the domain associated with the submitted address. Multiple entrants are not permitted to share the same email address.

Grand Prize (1): Winner will receive a trip for winner and one (1) guest on a tour of India’s Golden Triangle which includes Delhi, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri and Jaipur. Trip consists of…

– Round-trip coach class air transportation from a major U.S. gateway airport nearest winner’s residence to an international airport near winner’s residence (“Departure Airport”) within the US 50 and round-trip airfare from Departure Airport to Delhi, India;

– Six (6) days and five (5) nights standard hotel accommodations (one (1) room, sharing twin or double occupancy);

– Private ground transportation while on trip;

– Private guided sightseeing trips;

– $148 towards monument entry fees, food, drinks, tips and spending money;

– A $1,000 World Market Gift Card for winner only, and

– One (1) year of movie tickets for winner (awarded as two (2) tickets each week for 52 weeks (104 tickets total) in the form of Fandango gift cards).

– Approximate Retail Value of Grand Prize: $9,060. Actual value may vary based on point of departure and dates of travel.

Winner Selection and Notification: Potential winners will be selected in a random drawing on or about 4/1/15 from among all eligible entries received throughout the Promotion Period by Administrator, an independent judging organization, whose decisions are final and binding on all matters relating to the Promotion. Odds of winning a prize depend upon the number of eligible entries received. Potential winners will be notified by phone, email and/or mail

Contest Starts On: Monday, 23 February 2015

Contest Ends On: Friday, 27 March 2015

This is a long way to fly in Coach but hey it’s free if you win. Good Luck.

Earn 100 airlines miles simple with minimal effort over and over again

DaninMCI Uncategorized

So one of my side “hobbies” in the airline miles game is picking up crumbs. You know the small free 100 miles here or 500 miles there promotions. I will try to put together a series of posts on this as there are many ways but one of the simple ones I do daily is Bing Rewards.  My take on this is that Microsoft would rather have us use the Bing search engine than Google or Yahoo, etc. so they offer a rewards program for Bing searches.

Basically you sign up and after using it a big you become a “Gold” member with all the benefits that includes which is minor except they offer a deal where you can turn in 385 Bing Points for 100 airline miles or hotel points.

Here is a copy of my Bing dashboard

Bing Rewards Dashboard

Once you sign up at Bing.com (please use my link if you don’t have a Bing account as it counts for my Invite Friends 100 points). You will see a small medal looking deal at the top corner when you are signed on.  As you can see above I did 15 points worth of PC searches (2 searches = 1 point) today. I haven’t done the Mobile app searches and I did the bonus “Shape Up” search for the day. It sounds like a lot but what I’ve found is that I can open up Bing.com and click on the news ribbon one at a time for the searches. A minute or two of browsing the news headlines and I’m done for the day.

Typically you can get 25 a day at least and about every 15 days you have 385 Bing points. You can redeem them for other things but what I like to use them for is United or US Airways miles and to keep my Hawaiian Airlines account from expiring.

Bing Rewards Redemption Center

I don’t really value the IHG points as much and I don’t fly Virgin America much. Basically what happens is you redeem through the site. They send you an email shortly after that gives you a link and coupon code for the miles. I find that they post fairly quickly but not right away.

So it’s only 100 miles you say, not worth it. There is not much time involved unlike the survey sites and it seems to go on for the long term. At a 15 day churn that’a about 2,400 miles a year without using multiple accounts or any special bonuses they run from time to time. Not bad for just checking out the news or doing a few searches. I spend maybe 2 minutes a day on this if that. You could spend more I guess. No toolbar to download and it moves with you from computer to computer.

Again if your interested please sign up through my link so I can get a few credits. It maxes me out at 500 points so it’s not a huge windfall but it all adds up. Thanks.

Why MCI (KCI) isn’t my favorite airport

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I recently moved back to my home town Kansas City. I grew up in the area. My family is from here so that is sweet. We had been living in St. Louis for the past 16 years so I got used to STL and saw that airport move from TWA to AA and then de-hubbed which is sad.

My memories of MCI (or known locally as KCI) are of the many trips that I or family members took. I remember my Dad filling out an old paper Mutual of Omaha travel insurance application at the airport as my Sister flew off to Europe in High School. I remember picking up my Sister and her Husband at Midnight one New Year’s Eve maybe 20 year ago there. I mostly remember how open the airport was. It was designed to be a TWA hub airport where you could drop off at the door and be just steps away from the gates. Great idea (at the time). Unfortunately 9-11 happened and now the small gates aren’t so open anymore. They have added security checkpoints and you can’t just walk in and out of the gate areas down the long hallways. They took out the AA lounge and many other features.

I will still love “KCI” but it’s a pain now. The gates are jammed packed:

2014-08-03 08.54.01

There’s not enough seating, the restrooms are tiny and it’s just no fun. Like this photo above where you can see into the bar through the big windows but you can’t actually go into the bar. Everyone looks so happy.

Arrival isn’t much better. Although the planes unload the luggage near the gates into the TINY luggage carousels it always seems to take forever. To make it worse they always seem to want to load multiple planes onto the same carousel like most other airports do.

It’s not all bad though and you get used to any airport I guess.  Besides now we have Spirit Airlines ! Which ain’t half bad for a short haul domestic airline with a 35 pound bag limit on checked luggage !

I’m sure Kansas City will spend a ton of money to remodel it one day. I can only hope they would rebuild it further South since it’s so far North out of the city.

2014-10-08 11.12.51

Another little known triva fact about KCI is that it’s near where a famous Bonnie & Clyde shootout took place at the Red Crown Tavern and Tourist Cabins back in the day.

http://www.emissourian.com/news/state/article_94853afa-b316-11e0-ac3e-001cc4c002e0.html

Which reminds me of the Brantley Gilbert video

Review of the 2015 Kansas City RV show

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2015 Mid America RV Show GS Events

So my wife, my 19 year old son and I went to the 2015 KC RV show over the weekend. Not a bad show but I wasn’t overly impressed.

So here are the mistakes I made going to the show:

I left my Good Sam’s card at home by mistake. You’ll want to take this to any RV event. At this one I could have gotten $10 off the admission for our group. It was buy one get one free at $10 a person if you had your Good Sam’s card number. I tried to call them to get the number while waiting in line but was on hold for like 20 minutes. My Son and Wife had enough waiting at this point.

Don’t take your 7 foot tall Diesel pickup to the Bartle Hall / Barney Allis / Municipal Auditorium (Identity crisis) parking garage as it’s is less than 7 foot tall. We got lucky and parked in another garage but we would have waited in line at the garage to only have to get the line of cars to backup and let us back out, Yikes.

So mistakes over we paid $10 each to get in. Up the escalators to a giant room for of about 50 fifth wheel trailer toy hauler models. About 50 regular trailers and “5’ers” that aren’t toy haulers and I’m guessing 20 motor homes.

Lost in the middle was a vendor area that must have had about 30 to 40 vendors. I’d guess 15 are trying to sell me house roofs, house windows and other home improvement junk. Why? Not sure. A few booths had campgrounds and a few RV related items but I was rather disappointed in the vendor offering. A local Ford dealer and RV dealer Olathe Ford had some pickups on display as well. I guess I’m too poor to trade in my 2010 F350 on a new F250 or 350 as they are like $65,000 now.

We toured a bunch of trailers. We have a 2012 model 28 foot Forest River Cherokee that we bought for about $13,000 last year so it was interesting to see the new models of various brands. Latest trends seem to be the open rear porch on the toy hauler models. It also seems that the bunkhouse model trailers continue to get more popular all the time. My youngest son is 19 and 6’5”+ so the bunks don’t interest us much but they would be great for families with little kids. They tend to run a little less than the regular models from my experience.

I liked the 2015 Newmar Dutch Star motor home the best. It’s over $300k but it actually seemed nicer than the $600k for the Londonaire model we saw. I don’t know that I would buy a new one but I could see myself in a nice used Dutch Star at a campground far away. Dreams I guess. If they could just figure out how to get unlimited high speed internet for a normal price I could live on one and continue my current job I think.

We bought some soda and 3 pretzels for $22 and finished up the show. It was kind of crowded but not bad on a Sunday afternoon. I’m sure Saturday would have been crazy.

My opinion is that they should work harder to have more vendors selling more RV related items. I think an ATV or scooter dealer would have been popular to see.

The trailers on display should all have a small table near the entrance so you can set your drink or food down before you go into the rigs. Just me I guess.

I’ve never been to the big shows like the Tampa show but I thought it was fairly average. If you are in the market to buy a trailer for sure this would be a good place to go. A motor home it would be OK if you have driven them before I guess. Will I go back next year? Maybe but I won’t forget my Good Sam card next time 🙂

Here are a few photos from the show.

2015-01-18 13.39.18

2015-01-18 13.40.54

2015-01-18 13.39.21

Earn Airline Miles for Booking Hotel Rooms for Others !

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rocket miles logo

I’ve know about Rocketmiles for a long time and have been a user since May of 2013. It’s a fairly simple way to earn extra airline miles on hotel stays and you get at least a 1,000 miles for your first stay if you signup though this link.

Rocketmiles can be earned in various programs including:

Rocketmiles Book Hotels Earn Thousands of Frequent Flyer Miles

What I didn’t know until today is that you can earn miles for booking hotel rooms for others. Just log into your account or join, book the room, and enter the actual guest’s name who will be checking in as “primary guest”. If you are booking for a company, you can contact Rocketmiles and ask to be put in touch with a “Corporate Account Manager” who can explain how to fully take advantage of Rocketmiles for your business (or your own personal account if your a person that books hotels for others, are you listing personal assistants of the world?).

Not bad. Oh and if you don’t belong to Rocketmiles already I would appreciate you signing up through one of my links as I do get some referral miles after your first stay booked through them. Thanks.

Buy a Benz get 25,000 United MileagePlus Miles

DaninMCI Uncategorized , , , , , ,

benz UA

Here is a car offer if your in the market for a new Mercedes. If you buy a new Mercedes and use a certificate from United they will give you “up to” 25,000 MileagePlus miles. The key part is the “up to” statement in the offer. In my personal valuation I find that United miles are worth roughly $10 per 1,000 so I figure this is worth “up to” $250. I would assume you would still get a good price and other discounts from Mercedes for the purchase. You might even be able to pay for part of the car or down payment with a airline credit card for more miles. It seems like a good idea but disappointing in the “up to” part depending on your loyalty level with United. They should just make it a flat amount for all members.

benz ua 2

Basically you log in with your united log in and it comes up with a form to confirm the amount you will get.

benz trucar

Once you enter your info you will get the ticket that you can print and take to the dealer.

benz ticket

Notice how I blocked out my control number “as if”.

After you click the print form it takes you out to a Mercedes shopping site basically.  But what’s weird is that the rules say it must be a new purchase or lease but the site shows you pre-owned or certified models. I assume you might be able to use it more flexibly based on the local dealership.  So is it worth it? Not really unless your in the market anyway. My wife is after me to get her a new Mercedes but I’m just not all that impressed with the CLA or C class models I could afford. A used or certified model might fit the bill but it seems like a little work. Interesting offer though. What do you think?

benzThis offer was received in an email and seems somewhat targeted. You have to have been a United member for 6 months at least to get the full offer.

Here is the other fine print in the email:

Terms and conditions

Mercedes-Benz terms and conditions
The bonus mileage offer and incentives are only available to members who are eligible MileagePlus members at the time of an eligible transaction. An eligible MileagePlus member is a U.S. resident and has been enrolled in the MileagePlus program for at least six (6) months prior to the time of accessing the bonus mileage offer and incentives, or if less than six (6) months, has flown at least one (1) flight eligible to earn miles since enrollment. To receive the miles or incentives, the MileagePlus member must log in tounited.com/mercedes using their MileagePlus credentials and print out a Savings Certificate to present to the dealer for the applicable car of their choice. In order to be eligible for the bonus mileage offer or other incentives, the member must obtain a Savings Certificate prior to the transaction. Upon completion of the sale or lease, these bonus miles will be posted to a member’s account approximately 6-8 weeks after the date of completion of the eligible transaction. These offers are not valid for any purchases already completed. A member may only take advantage of the offers on Certified Pre-Owned Mercedes-Benz vehicles one time per calendar year. Mercedes-Benz and MileagePlus reserve the right to change or terminate this offer, in whole or in part, at any time, with or without notice.

Miles accrued, awards, and benefits issued are subject to change and are subject to the rules of the United MileagePlus® program, including without limitation the Premier® program (the “MileagePlus Program”), which are expressly incorporated herein. Please allow 6-8 weeks after completed qualifying activity for miles to post to your account. United® may change the MileagePlus Program including, but not limited to, rules, regulations, travel awards and special offers or terminate the MileagePlus Program at any time and without notice. United and its subsidiaries, affiliates and agents are not responsible for any products or services of other participating companies and partners. Taxes and fees related to award travel are the responsibility of the member. Bonus award miles, award miles and any other miles earned through non-flight activity do not count toward qualification for Premier status unless expressly stated otherwise. The accumulation of mileage or Premier status or any other status does not entitle members to any vested rights with respect to the MileagePlus Program. All calculations made in connection with the MileagePlus Program, including without limitation with respect to the accumulation of mileage and the satisfaction of the qualification requirements for Premier status, will be made by United Airlines® and MileagePlus in their discretion and such calculations will be considered final. Information in this communication that relates to the MileagePlus Program does not purport to be complete or comprehensive and may not include all of the information that a member may believe is important, and is qualified in its entirety by reference to all of the information on the united.com website and the MileagePlus Program rules. United and MileagePlus are registered service marks. For complete details about the MileagePlus Program, go to united.com.

See additional MileagePlus terms and conditions.

11552 ET01
Don’t miss the latest emails; add MileagePlus_Partner@news.united.com.
This email was sent to danluttrell2002@yahoo.com by United Airlines.
Please do not reply to this email. We cannot accept electronic replies to this email address.
Email mileageplus@united.com with any questions about your MileagePlus account or the MileagePlus program.
To contact the sender, write to:
United MileagePlus
900 Grand Plaza Dr.
Houston, TX 77067

© 2015 United Airlines, Inc. All rights reserved.
 A STAR ALLIANCE MEMBER

1000 bonus Delta Skymiles with Gilt

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gilt groupe delta email

 

Delta has an offer out that seems to run along every once in awhile where you can get 1,000 miles after speinding $50 with this link: Gilt Groupe. Just register for that to earn the bonus. I don’t get a kick back for this link btw.

 

Gilt Groupegilt groupe skymiles number

Here is the fine print T&C:

*Offer available to all active SkyMiles members. Advanced promotional registration required. Receive 1,500 bonus miles on your first purchase from Gilt Groupe or Gilt City of $50.00 or more, excluding taxes and shipping until January 12, 2014 OR 1,000 bonus miles for your first purchase from Gilt Groupe or Gilt City of $50.00 or more, excluding taxes and shipping, made after January 12, 2014. In addition, new Gilt Groupe or Gilt City members with SkyMiles accounts will earn 1 mile per dollar spent with Gilt Groupe or Gilt City for purchases made on http://www.gilt.com and http://www.giltcity.com for so long as this promotion is active and such member is a SkyMiles member in good standing with Delta. Miles are earned only on base amounts spent on merchandise or, in the case of Gilt City, vouchers, excluding any amounts attributable to taxes, credit card fees, shipping and delivery charges. Miles are non-transferable. Miles will not be granted, or may be revoked or debited from a member’s SkyMiles account if purchases or amounts spent with Gilt Groupe or Gilt City are cancelled or item(s) are returned. Offer may be suspended or terminated at any time. Offers are subject to change without notice. Other restrictions may apply; void where prohibited. Offer valid for new Gilt Groupe or Gilt City members only. Promotion is not valid on any Gilt Groupe or Gilt City mobile sites or apps.

 

Also this offer depends on how much you value Delta miles as there are some other coupons out there that may or may no work with the bonus.

Gilt City National

 

You might also want to pay with your Citi card to get extra gilt insider points on top of the miles or other coupon.

citi gilt

Reasons I like airport lounges

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The first time I gained access to an airport lounge was the Delta lounge at Miami years ago on a long layover. It’s a nice little lounge with a great view of the airfield. It was special. I was scared to eat the free food and couldn’t believe how clean the restrooms could be in an airport.

airport lounge public domain

Many like airport lounges for the free wifi, free drinks, access to expert airline staff, free food, etc. There are many ways to gain access. You can be an elite member of an airline or buy your way in with expensive day passes. You can also be a member of a third party lounge network like Priority Pass or you can have a high annual fee airline branded credit card. The cheapest is to be the guest of a person with access that can get you into this “secret” world.

So why do I like airport lounges? I like them for the ability to relax with mostly normal humans in an area with comfortable seats, usually somewhat quiet and with restrooms that aren’t crowded and/or gross.

As much as I like all that one of the best parts of airports and airport lounges is people watching. I won’t include photos here but think Walmart with mass transit. At the gate or on the plane you’ll find all kinds of people from folks with $2,000 business suits to middle aged men in cartoon character pajama pants.  It’s an interesting cross section. When you get into the lounge you tend to lose the cartoon pants (mostly) but you have a cross section of business travelers, elite jet setters and what I see as older semi or totally retired frequent travelers with disposable income. It’s interesting to talk with people to see where they are going, where they have been or why they are there. It’s just fun.  Sure some of them are picky or some may act like snobs but most aren’t bad. Even if they don’t like the wine selection or the coffee machine. It’s still light years away from the terminal gate areas in my experience.

Next time you find yourself in a lounge or even stuck outside the doors and can’t get in. Take a minute to look around you and study the people. It’s fun to watch.

Admirals-Club

West Coast to Hawaii for $159 – Yikes

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Right now Alaska Airlines has a super cheap sale for West coast to Hawaii for as cheap as $159

http://www.alaskaair.com/content/deals/flights-hawaii.aspx

Flights from San Jose to Honolulu seem to be the cheapest and the window for travel is short into March but still a great deal.

Right now it’s 9 degrees with a 20 mph wind out of the North where I live. This is so tempting.

Hawaii Sale Alaska Airlines