The Uber and streaming are pretty straightforward, but I believe the $200 airline credit is for “incidentals” only - baggage fees, change fees, and a few other things. Personally, those are fees I almost never incur. And you have to pre-select your designated airline in the beginning of the year.
And $200 hotel credit is only for hotels booked through Amex’s FHR program, with a 2 night minimum. Another thing most people don’t normally do vs. booking direct or through an OTA. Although I believe FHR provides some pretty good perks as well, like spa or F&B credits on bookings.
I rented a Tesla through Turo, so that should be fun.
Annoyingly my first trek has been changed. There is just too much snow in the North Cascades so they have had to switch it to a trip in Olympic NP. Sure it will be good still but a bit disappointed.
For me it’s easy to get the incidental airline credit with kids and a wife who always checks bags.
The fine hotels benefits are really good as well. Often get a 4th night free, free upgrades that come through frequently, 4pm checkout, free breakfast, usually a $100 food credit.
Also I’ve never used it but if you are one of the freaks who ever pays cash for international premium class airfare, they have an international airfare booking service that I’ve read often delivers huge discounts.
Yeah I just went and looked at the greatest hits. This will be in the enchanted valley area with a day hike up some peak. Not really what I wanted but that’s life in the outdoors. Sometimes you get rekt by the weather.
My plans are essentially unchanged other than the destination of this trek so yep, still looking to go to Olympia Sunday.
It’s kind of silly that I’ll be coming back through Oly all the way to Seattle, staying one night then going back to Oly, but my hotel in Seattle is non refundable, I might want to hang with the ppl from the trip, what would I do on a sat night in Olympia, etc
I assume most Amex users are Delta people, but if you fly United you can aslo deposit $200 bucks into your “Travel Bank” which can then be used to buy tickets. They refund this for some reason.
If you’re looking very easy way to get out of Rome for a day (or even half a day), we went to Bracciano today. About an hour on the train and you feel very far away. Bracciano is a cool little lake town with a big ancient castle. The water/beach is a 20 minute walk downhill and is super, super, super chill. We rented a chair/umbrella spot at Paradiso sul Lago and just relaxed and people watched for a while. The heat and crowds of Rome were getting to us and it was just the perfect excursion.
I have a flight out of Cappadocia early tomorrow morning for Istanbul and the next day I leave for Prague (for some reason it was cheaper this way than doing both legs in one day).
Really seems that two weeks is the sweet spot for me. That’s around the time I get a bit restless and yearning for something else (normally going home).
This is likely a dumb question but I haven’t traveled in forever.
Going to Switzerland, I know I don’t need a visa to enter, but my wife read something that says for the Schengen area, we should be able to give evidence of the purpose of our entry (tourism) and “proof of sufficient financial means”.
Should I bring a printed bank statement with me, and print of like evidence of the hotels / return plane tickets? Or is that just overkill and they’ll just wave us in?
Getting hyped. Haven’t been out of this godforsaken country in too long. Even if we’re flying into an apocalyptic heat event. Doing a few days in/around Zurich and then the rest of the time in the Interlaken area, hiking, swimming, and I’m going to go canyoning. My wife is skipping out on that last one.
Something pretty shitty happened to my girlfriend entering Georgia (the country).
They have a super liberal visa policy and have a list of like 90 countries that are allowed a full year visa free. USA (my passport) and Mexico (her passport) are both on the list. So we were entering (in separate lines) and they just waved me through without asking a question. When it was her turn I noticed that the agent was asking her tons of questions, proof of stay, flight info, return flight, statements, etc. I start thinking “oh no, here we go”. After a couple minutes of that, they ask her to move to a separate line for secondary questioning. Surprise, surprise, all 10 people in the line are non-white.
I was in an area beyond the customs, but could see what was going on, and the line was not moving for 15 minutes and eventually they force me to move onto the baggage claim area, so I can’t help her or see what’s going on. After about an hour, she finally makes it through and says they just asked for a couple papers again and never gave a reason for the delay. I’m pretty sure they just do it to colored people from time to time just to fuck with them or intimidate them.
In Georgia we’ve chatted with other Mexicans, Colombians, and an Aussie couple (white guy and Asian girl), and all the non-whites say that this happens pretty much every time they enter Georgia. And it can’t be a passport thing b/c of the 2 Aussies, they let the white guy thru but questioned the Asian girl.
Luckily the other countries we’ve visited together have been super easy for entering (Spain, Brazil, and Turkey), but it’s always in the back of my mind that at some point we might get screwed just b/c she’s Mexican.