Click on this link here for a chance to win a trip to Ireland or several other prizes in the Irish to Core contest. Must be 21.
Good luck or is it luck of the Irish to ya.
Travel
Win a Trip to Downton Abbey in England
Masterpiece Theater and PBS are giving away a 5-day, 4-night trip for two adults from the U.S. to Great Britain. Includes a visit to iconic Highclere Castle for private tea with The Countess of Carnarvon, author of Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downton Abbey, etiquette trainingfrom The English Manner, and guided tours of filming locations in the beautiful Oxfordshire Cotswolds, such as Bampton, Shilton, Cogges, and Swinbrook, and the downstairs set at Ealing Studios in London. Round-trip (economy class) airfare out of a Delta Air Lines-operated gateway city at the time of travel to London Heathrow Airport and accommodations at a Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel. Travel must take place July 26, 2015 to July 31, 2015. Also receive all five seasons of Downton Abbey on DVD, the official companion book, A Year in the Life of Downton Abbey signed by cast members.
Click HERE to enter daily through March 15th.
United Mileage Plus X – Earning miles on local shopping with United Chase card
I don’t get a kickback from United or Chase on this. Just news.
So United has a new mile earning scheme where you download the phone app to your smart phone. Once you install it you log in with your mileage plus account and then it will find nearby retailers that participate. When shopping you type in the total spent at the register into the phone app and have the merchant scan the bar code on your phone to award the miles at 0.5, 1x,2x, 3x or 4x depending on the merchant.
If you have a United Mileage Plus credit card and it will link your United MileagePlus X app you are suppose to earn an extra 25%. Click this photo below to link over the site for me info. See my thoughts below…
This seems like a good idea and promo video shows it working so smoothly. So here are my main concerns:
- Poor Wifi or cell signal at the point of purchase may slow the app or make it useless. I’ve experienced that with Shopkick.
- Merchants or checkers may not know how to process or scan the phone.
- The pain to use the app for small purchases doesn’t seem worth it (well worth it for large items though).
I hope it works well.
I can see myself using it for large purchases at Lowe’s however they only award 1/2 mile per $ where as it I buy it through the United shopping site online and do in-store pick up (Even while standing in the store) I earn 2 miles per $. Not to mention that American pays 3 miles per $. They need to fix this issue and make the miles match the online shopping portal offers. I know they may not be run by the same company behind the scenes but they need to match. Lowe’s is the lowest by the way and I didn’t see Home Depot on the list.
They have a bunch of restaurants like Cheesecake factory, Texas Roadhouse, etc. that have good 3 or 4 mile per $ earning but how does that work. You have to give your phone to the waiter so they can scan it? Seems like trouble but maybe I have trust issues.
I could see this being really good in a couple areas:
- Manufactured spend folks (you know who you are). I assume gift cards will fly out the door at some of these places since you enter the data on your phone manually.
- Amazon is on the list for 1x through online spending through your phone (at least the Android app shows it). Some how this will let you buy gift cards or something. Not sure how it works yet.
- Restaurants for 3x or 4x plus your credit card miles at 1x or 2x plus your dining program miles in a few cases.
Anyway it’s a new part of the miles and points game. Should be interesting. Below is a screen shot of the merchants but this is a list of all of them. Basically the app finds them based on your location so that should help if it works any better than Shopkick which I like (Where it has reception).
Why MCI (KCI) isn’t my favorite airport
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:
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.
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
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.
Extra TopBonus Airberlin miles for booking online
AirBerlin’s Topbonus program has a promo right now where you can earn an extra 1 mile per Euro spent booking on airberlin.com.
Many airlines give you a extra mile per dollar or euro, etc. for booking with a credit card but this is an extra mile for booking and paying for extras on their website in addition to the flying or BISM “butt in seat miles” you’ll earn on the flights. You have to register on airberlin.com with this link and then you need to be logged into the site when booking. Not a bad way to earn a few extra Topbonus miles. This promo is good through 3-31-15 and you have to register.
This does not appear to be targeted but that is a possibility. Also I don’t get any credit, kickback, etc. for these links. Just FYI.
If your not a member of Topbonus already it’s not a bad program and is part of the One World Alliance so the rewards flow over to or from American, British Airways, etc.
I would suggest you log in first in another tab before you click the link or it will prompt you to do so. Once you click the link you will get this super happy German lady urging you to sign up for the promo. Click it once your logged in and it will confirm it on the screen.
Maybe not the biggest deal in the frequent flyer world but it all add up. If you plan to book with Airberlin you can’t hardly lose on this I don’t think.
Reasons I like airport lounges
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.
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.
Euro =1 / USD =.85 time to head to Europe
My wife and I have a trip planned to France in February. We’ve had it booked since last Spring so that we can take advantage of some good Winter US Airways Dividend miles reward rates. Since I booked it I’ve watched as the Euro has weakened against the dollar now down to about 1=.85 which is really going to help on shopping and eating I hope. We already have our hotels booked on mostly points but I hope this will really help. It actually may encourage us to shop more than usual and help the Euro. We’ll see.
Anyway this is a good time to go. KLM and several other airlines are running some really good deals on travel right now. It also seems that Delta and United have been doing a little price battle as well. I can’t say now will be the cheapest but it ain’t bad. Much better than a couple years ago.
Quick tip. Save 10% on British Airways bookings
Little known benefit still remains in 2015 for Chase BA card holders.
You can save 10% on purchased tickets through the BA.Com/Chase10 link.
Some details:
10% off when you book through ba.com/Chase10:
- discount is off the total cost of the fare (including taxes, fees, and carrier charges)
- choose from any of British Airways 180 worldwide destinations or OpenSkies from NY to Paris.
- travel in any cabin — World Traveller, World Traveller Plus, Club World, First, Eco, Prem Plus, Biz Bed
- book up to eight friends and family members travelling on the same flight
This offer has been around for at least 2 years and should go through at least 12-31-15 according to BA. I’m not sure how great it is compared to other OTA deals but hey 10% might help. The big challenge is they must be on BA operated flights from what I understand.
CliQbait 