If I'm lucky enough to celebrate 80 years on this planet I hope somebody throws me a party - hint, hint. Over the weekend, David and I drove down to Austin to celebrate his mother's 80th birthday with friends and family. I booked us into the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa for one night using 20,000 Hyatt points. My Globalist status meant we were entitled to some nice perks - waived resort fees, free breakfast, free parking (on award stays only) and an upgrade to a st

Soooooo...you've got that AwardWallet membership all fired up and you're ready to start accumulating miles, right? Crickets... For those of you still with me, I'll summarize how David and I accumulated enough airline miles to enjoy comfortable seats to and from Europe this June while spending very little cash. For a full trip summary, see my previous post About That OCD. If you click on the picture, it will take you to the sign-up page. Thanks for using my referral link. You'

I've been on countless group tours, and 99% of them have been wonderful. A giant shout-out to my friends at US Integrity Touring for the excellent work they do with performing groups of all types. If you're considering a performance tour to Europe you should definitely give them a call! When you're on a group tour, every little detail is planned for you. Some folks love that, some folks tolerate it, and it drives some of us crazy. My first 10 or 12 trips to Europe were with c

As usual, I'm late to the party, but when I go, I go big. I discovered travel hacking in late 2014. Since then, LOTS has changed in The Hobby, as some people insist on calling it. There is a big debate among points/miles collectors about sharing information in a public forum such as a blog like this one. Some folks insist that sharing even publicly available information is a big no-no (as if the THREE PEOPLE who read my blog are going to kill the deal). Dave and I started thi