February 2016 | Ditching Normal

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Points Planning for Maui Part 2

February 21, 2016

It’s time to follow up on our initial Points Planning for Maui post! To recap our progress so far, both Lacey and I signed up for the Chase Hyatt card and received the “2 free nights” reward. So right now, we have 4 free nights ready to use for Maui (hopefully to be used at the Hyatt Andaz resort). So while we’re still going to work on getting a couple more nights for free in Maui, we’re going to shift our focus toward earning our free flights for this trip. Here’s why…

I’ll start off by sharing a very valuable tip that I’ve learned with credit card rewards programs. …they have targeted offers. This means that the rewards program might randomly email you or snail mail you a reward offer that is more valuable than any other offer that is available to the general public. Sometimes these targeted offers will literally pop-up when you login to your online account. My advice for you is to create an online account for every reward program you may ever use. Even if you aren’t planning on signing up for the program’s card right away, you’re putting yourself in a good position to be possibly targeted for a bad ass offer down the road.

So the next time you’re browsing your favorite points travel sites/blogs, keep in mind that the offers you see on these sites MAY NOT be the best available offer. You might find a public offer of 35k bonus miles and think that’s the only option, but if you create an online account for that card, you just might be targeted for a higher bonus offer.

Why am I telling all of you this? Well, this very thing just happened to me. On January 29th, I created an online account for United Airlines “Mileage Plus Explorer” program. The current public offer for their credit card is only 30k bonus miles. Ain’t nobody got time fo dat! Just yesterday, not even a month after creating my Mileage Plus account, I received a snail mail targeted offer for 50k miles. Yay!

You can see that I initially tore this in half and almost threw it away.

Right away, I had a hunch that 50k bonus miles would get us from Boise to Maui. When I double checked, I found the below flights on United’s website. Looks like if Lacey and I both sign up and receive this reward, we can get to Maui for 45k miles and $11.20 each. So if all goes well, this is how we’ll get our flights. Dropping a $20 spot, instead of the $1400+ it would cost if we were to pay in full, seems like a pretty fair swap 🙂

Right now you might be saying, “well that’s cool for you guys, but what am I gonna do? I didn’t receive the 50k targeted United offer.” My response to that is for you to hop on United’s site right when you finish reading this post and create an account. It took less than a month for me to receive the targeted offer and I’ve heard and read stories of people getting the targeted 50k mile offer right after creating an account.

Another great option right now is the American Airlines 50k bonus offer at this link. Make sure to go to aa.com first and look up flights from your airport to Maui (or wherever you want to go) and make sure 50k miles will cover your trip. I did a quick browse and saw that the 50k AA bonus would get me to Maui as easily as United. Lacey and I already received that bonus in the past (which we’re using for this trip) so we can’t sign up for it again.

So hopefully you now have a couple of solid options to get your free flights. Keep in mind that the American Airlines offer is a limited time offer. It could expire at any time. If you think this is the card for you…jump on it now. Also, the United Mileage card is sponsored by Chase Bank. Chase Bank is implementing a new rule starting in April that will prevent anyone who has signed up for 5+ credit cards in the past 24 months from being approved for any more Chase cards. This is a huge deal to all the points travelers of the world. You can read more on this topic from one of our favorite travel blogs here.

I’ll post another update in a couple months to let you know how we’re progressing with the Maui trip. Like I said earlier, we’re still shooting for another 1-2 free hotel nights for this trip so I’ll keep you posted when we figure out how we’re going to make that happen.

You all should have a good plan by now for how you’re going to do this trip, but please reach out to us if you have any questions.

Good Luck!

Below are a couple pics from our last trip to Hawaii about 7 years ago…just a couple of crazy kids fallin’ in love 🙂

Sick hat bro! …in my defense, Jason Mraz was really popular back then.

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Reviews

“Downtown Boise is dying”….not.

February 15, 2016

Last summer my best friend was in town for a “bridal spa day” at a local spa in downtown Boise. My friend is originally from Boise, but hasn’t lived here in about six years, so she was chatting with her masseuse about the changes that have happened since she moved away. Guess what the masseuse told her? Word for word…”downtown Boise is dying.” All I can say is….that girl is an idiot.

When my friend was finished with her massage and relayed this conversation to me I was…enraged. Maybe enraged is too strong of a word, but I was definitely defensive. I mean, what does this girl think when she drives to work every day through NEW CONSTRUCTION?! In her brain new construction must = dying.

I am probably a bit more defensive than the average Boise resident because we live downtown. I will admit that the Village in Meridian has stolen two of my favorite stores, but that doesn’t compare to the new additions to the downtown scene. The other day Mat and I decided to see how many new projects we ran into just on our walk to the gym-which is only about a half a mile. Downtown Boise is dying? I think not.

Simplot headquarters (read more here) and JUMP (check out our post here).

Clearwater Analytics & Boise’s new underground transit system (read more here)

One Nineteen (see it here)

Hyatt (read it here) and Boise’s Boutique Hotel-Hotelier

Not to mention more projects just down the street….

The Afton (For real, we would love to live here)

Payette Brewing (We are hoping this will be our Maclarens *HIMYM reference*)

The Fowler aka “Roost”-Boise’s first mixed use apartment project! 159 apartments, live work units, retail and more. Where Old Boise becomes New Boise.

Coming soon directly across the street from our condo…Embassy Suits Hotel, Hilton Hotel and Parking structure, thanks to Gardner Company. Read about it here.

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Tips Travel

Travel Prep Part 1 – Public Transportation

February 6, 2016

Anytime someone tells me they have a vacation coming up and I ask “got everything dialed in for your trip?” and they answer “meh, we’ll figure it out when we get there”, I wanna blow my brains out. Not because they don’t have a bunch of events/excursions/tours booked, but because they haven’t put thought about ANY of the details that could literally make or break their trip. Packing, food, transportation, hotels, dining, site seeing, etc. are all things you can have figured out before you head to your destination.

Being that Lacey and I are super OCD when it comes to this topic, we’re going to share our thoughts in a multi-post, Travel Prep, series.

First up – Public Transportation

Alright, so let’s say you’ve just arrived at your destination (by using our best practices for booking a free flight of course 😉 ). When you walk off the plane and out those airport doors to a city you’ve never been to, do you have a plan? If not, you’re already wasting precious vacation time and you’re likely feeling super awkward and uncomfortable…not to mention standing out like a sore thumb as being a dumb shit tourist. Not only does it totally suck to be in this position, it also lets any scam artist know that you’re a easy target.

We’ve all been there, I know I have. It is an overwhelming and embarrassing feeling. Well here’s the good news, you never have to go through this again if you spend a little time before-hand doing some public transportation Travel Prep.

Start by doing a Google search on your destination city. Get an idea of all forms of public transportation available. Do they have a metro? Do they only have buses? Do they have both? I know most cities have taxi/uber services, but why spend $50 getting to your hotel when the metro costs $2? Spend that extra cash on a celebratory “we’re here!” bottle of booze at dinner that night.

Buses in Paris will drop you off right outside the Louvre.

Did you pick your preferred form of public transportation? Now find out if you can pre purchase a travel pass online and have it mailed to you. Overkill? Maybe, but this will help you avoid a confused walk around the metro or bus station looking for a way to purchase your ticket. You’ll already have your pass in-hand, ready to use, like the rest of the locals. Even though it’s pretty easy to find a ticket machine at a metro or bus station, I’ve run into many cases where the ticket machines are out of order OR for some reason they only accept certain types of payment. Just a couple of the reasons to buy your pass before your trip if it’s an option.

Taking this a step further, most transportation services now have YouTube vids on how to use/swipe their cards at the station. Watch these vids a few times to get super comfortable with the process so by the time you get to the station you’re a pro. No more holding up lines while you get stuck at the subway turn style.

Below is an example vid for Chicago’s Ventra Card. Kind of a silly video, but at least you’ll feel dumb in the comfort of your own home instead of in a crowded train station.

Ok, great, so you made it to the train station and through the turn style gates. Now what? None of the giant signs have the name of your exact stop on ’em…shit! Are you in the right place? Where do you go? What train are you supposed to get on? Again, the feeling of being an awkward dumb ass rushes over you. But wait, you can avoid this hiccup too!

Here’s where the internet comes in handy again. Once you’ve decided which form of public transportation you want to use (before your trip), look up their daily routes and departure/arrival times. You’re looking for a map similar to the one I found below for our upcoming trip to Rome. I know that we’ll be starting at the TERMINI station and that we’ll need to get to the S. Pietro (St. Peter’s Basilica) stop. The Ottoviano/S.Pietro stop will NOT be on the main signs in the TERMINI station. Instead the signs will have the final destination of that route on the sign. So for the example below, I will be looking for the red line to Battistini. I know that our Ottoviano/S.Pietro stop will be the 6th stop along the way.

Making this even easier, nowadays there are TONS of public transportation apps you can download that will help with your trip. These apps will give you all of the routes and arrival times. Here is a really cool public transit app that we’ve been using lately. You can also do a simple AppStore/Google Play search for “Your City + Public Transportation”.

Simple enough right? For a lot of you, this might be common sense. For the rest of us that drive cars everyday instead of using public transportation, this can be intimidating. It definitely was for me. By spending just a few minutes researching this stuff before your trip, you can take the stress off of a big portion of your trip. Being in a new city is overwhelming enough with all of the new sites and sounds, the last thing you want to worry about is getting lost. Spend less time being lost and confused and spend more time enjoying your trip!

Train Station in Riomaggiore, Italy the day after getting engaged!

I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any questions.

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