Tag: Travel Tips

  • Top 5 Things We Love in Argentina

    Just before my trip to Mallorca in Spain a few months ago, I was fortunate enough to return to one of my favorite places on the planet…Argentina! I fell in love years ago working on the Eastern Airlines → American Airlines Latin America transition team with Kathy (yeah, we’re that old)! But I digress…

    The best things about this destination include:

    – North – South, intra-hemisphere flying is gentler on the body, just sayin!
    – They do red meat REALLY well.
    – Red wine (and specially Malbec) is plentiful
    – The Portenos of Buenos Aires are seriously beautiful human beings
    – They do late dining REALLY well (important to Kathy)
    – It has a great New World vibe, but with European flair!

    Folks have been asking about what we love about Argentina and here’s our Top 5 List of things that have endeared us to Argentina:

    #1 Buenos Aires

    So, if you enjoy eating mouth wateringly delicious red meat, drinking elegant red wine surrounded by beautiful people, late at night, then you too will fall in love with Argentina!

    Our journey begins with an urban experience in Buenos Aires. We stayed at the fabulous Four Seasons Hotel Buenos Aires, dined on as much Argentine Parrilla (BBQ) and Empanadas as we possibly could and did not miss our fav (and arguably the best) steakhouse in Buenos Aires, Cabana Las Lilias!

    Just outside Buenos Aires at Estancia La Bamba de Areco is the original Horse Whisperer, Martin Tatta. He is a self taught horse trainer whose bond with his horses is so close that he can talk his horse into rolling over on his back so that he can sit on his stomach, or do handstands on his neck or cuddle up and give kisses! It is truly something to see!

    #2 Mendoza and the Wine Country

    Mendoza is one of the most spectacular places I have ever been and the always beautiful, warm and welcoming Cavas Wine Lodge is one of my favorite places to stay. You are in the middle of a vineyard with the Andes in the backdrop. Travel & Leisure just ranked it #1 Best Hotel in South America and #8 Best Hotel in the World and deservedly so! The owners, Cecilia and Martin are the most wonderful hosts imaginable and they can arrange custom wine tours in the best wineries and vineyards that only insiders know about. Whether you prefer a Malbec or a Merlot, a wine tour is absolutely a must!

    #3 Patagonia
    And while we didn’t squeeze it in to this trip, we can’t help but recall our four night adventure on the expedition ship, the Australis! The only adventure ship that routinely does Argentina and Patagonia, great for amazing cocktails, hike on glaciers, penguin colonies, birds of prey in their natural habitat and breathtaking scenery. The majestic glaciers rival anything one could see in Norway. They also have the best naturalist guides anywhere!

    #4 Salta

    Salta – Region in the northwest part of argentina, truly the real Argentina known for its lush, open grasslands, the Pampas and the Gaucho. It is also home to an emerging wine region pampas new emerging wine region, which now produces lovely Merlots, Malbecs, Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays. While there we love the ever stylish boutique hotel and hidden gem, Legado Mitico. Each of the eleven guest rooms celebrate legendary Argentinians ranging from famous a Conquistador to Eva Peron. The architect owners also have their flagship hotel in Buenos Aires which I love!

    #5 Igauzu Falls

    Situated on the Brazilian border of Argentina, the falls are natural wonder of the world. For those of you who have visited Vic Falls in South Africa this is the Argentine equivalent. It is the largest waterfall system in the world! Great for one or two nights — See the falls, take a stroll through rainforest, and sip Caipirinha Cocktails (Brazil’s national cocktail) while gazing at these breathtakingly beautiful falls. Belmond das Cataratas Hotel combines complete luxury and a magnificent setting! Brazilian falls property at the falls. In the national park is a property used to be a sheraton someone else bought and made beautiful

    Bonus Tip

    It’s Super Easy to Get To!

    Aside from all of the incredible reasons described above, one of the mostly compelling reasons is that getting to Argentina is SO easy on the body because you are flying north to south! It is the same distance as eastern Europe but oh so much more pleasant! Plus, all major airlines fly from all US hubs – doesn’t get easier than that!!

     

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • TSA Pre-Check DOES Expire!

    One of our Savvy friends, JP,  had a terrible surprise last week when he tried to go through airport security to catch a flight. Unbeknownst to him, his Trusted Traveler membership had expired after the 5-year term and DHS had neglected to inform him. Here’s his story in his own words, and PLEASE don’t let this happen to you….

    “It started in Minneapolis.

    After years of whisking through TSA’s Pre-Check line, whether I was flying Delta, American or anyone else, I hit a bump one night and missed a flight to Boston because my boarding pass was missing the crucial Pre-Check marking.

    Two weeks later, I was jetting to LAX with my husband, who flies so seldom his mileage has just crossed into the five-digit range on AA. This time HE got Pre-Check, and I had to doff my loafers and walk barefoot through the X-ray machine.

    Thinking there could be no further indignation, I was subsequently denied Pre-Check on the way home from LAX – a fate I would wish on no person. Unmarked lanes lead to nowhere; airport employees randomly direct travelers while moving stanchions and creating lines to nowhere. It was exasperating.

    After a long series of Facebook rants and indignant text messages to my friends, it occurred to me: TSA Pre-Check advertises its program as five years for $85.

    I had expired.

    No advance notice, no renewal form, no nothing. I just stopped getting access. Mildly incensed, I visited the TSA web site thinking there would be an easy-peasy renewal process.

    Nothing.

    As it turns out, whether you qualified previously or not, once your Pre-Check status expires, you go back to square one. Fill out a form, stand in line, go through an interview … and wait.”

    So there ya have it! Thanks JP!

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • When bad stuff happens to good people

    CoveredYou never think it will happen to you, until it does. Our good friend Sally was on a 14½ flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg last year. Somewhere over the South Atlantic, she felt a bump in her leg, which she quickly surmised was a blood clot. To make a long story short, her worst fear was realized and she landed in Joburg a few hours later with a diagnosis of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). She was rushed to a local hospital, where she stabilized, and then, thankfully, her MedJetAssist medical evacuation policy kicked in.

    We’re huge fans of MedJestAssist for the following reasons:

    • They arrange medical transfer for you, the member, regardless of medical necessity
    • They allow you to determine to which medical facility to be moved
    • They arrange medical transfers back home to the United States, as well as internationally (if desired)

    The rules of this annual membership program are if you are hospitalized 150 miles or more from home and meet medical transport criteria, MedjetAssist will arrange air medical transfer to the hospital of your choice in your home country, from virtually anywhere in the world. All you ever pay is your membership fee, which for most travelers is $260.

    After a few days in the South African hospital, Sally was assigned an emergency-medical team that included a travel nurse. She was repatriated back to Washington, DC, accompanied by the nurse. Her life was saved. Period.

    If you’d like more information about this very cost-effective program, click here for more details.

     

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • Travel Insurance 101: Don’t Get Stuck!

    Travel insurance is one of those things in life that you probably don’t think about until you need it. I know that I never bothered with buying trip insurance in the past, but when I jumped into the world of African photo safaris in 2007, I quickly learned how important it can be. Here’s a quick primer on our top 5 reasons why we think you need travel insurance!

    CoveredReason 1 – You are forced to cancel your trip due to illness. If you’re unable to travel, or if anyone on your trip can’t travel, OR if a family member of any member of your party becomes ill, You’re Covered (Keep this in mind, too, if you have aging parents)! This is especially important since non-refundable deposits for big trips are made months in advance, and sometimes up to a year!
    Real Life Story 1: Sean tripped down a flight of stairs (we don’t believe there was any drinking involved?!)
    and injured his back making it impossible for him to sit on a plane to South Africa for 14+ hours. On his doctor’s advice, he cancelled his trip, had the trip coverage, and got a full refund!

    Reason 2 – Your flight is unbelievably cancelled or you miss your connection. If your trip is interrupted for any reason and you have to make alternate arrangements these any change fees or rebooking expenses, You’re Covered!!
    Real Life Story 2: Jack and Jackie were on their honeymoon as Superstorm Sandy pummeled the east coast. Their flight home was cancelled and they had to add 4 nights at the airport hotel to their honeymoon, and then also had to purchase new tickets on another airline to get back to NYC. All of their expenses for this Trip Interruption were reimbursed!!

    Reason 3 – On your trip, if you have an accident (even a small one) and you need local medical care, or more dramatically, you need a medical evacuation back home, You’re Covered! If you have an unfortunate accident or some unfo Real Life Story 3: Our dear friend Louise was on a shore excursion on a cruise in Spain, tripped on a curb, and broke her hip (and she’s not that old!). She needed surgery, but wanted to have it done back home in Texas. In order to repatriate, she had to charter a private air ambulance at a cost nearly $50,000 — She wasn’t covered!!

    RiskReason 4 – Your perfect destination is destroyed by a hurricane! If a natural disaster occurs in your destination and you are unable to travel there, You’re Covered!
    Real Life Story 4: Larry was planning to vacation in Ecuador but the recent earthquake caused his trip to be canceled. Guess, what? He got a refund, since he was covered!

    Reason 5 – You arrive but your luggage, sadly, does not! If your luggage is lost or delayed, you’re covered!
    Real Life Story 5: Alexandra spent hours agonizing over the perfect travel attire and accessories. Realizing she was the only person at baggage claim without baggage, she was crushed, but she was covered! After spending the afternoon shopping and replacing a few smart outfits, her original fabulous wardrobe arrived the next day!

    Bonus Reason 6 – You lose your job! Many policies allow you to file a claim if you lose your job and are unable to travel. And there some travel insurance policies that allow you to cancel for any reason, which is great if you worry that your crazy boss might cancel your honeymoon because he needs you in the office (yes, that has happened!)

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • 7 Rules for AmEx Membership Rewards

    Amex-Membership-Rewards-featHey you American Express cardholders, many of you out there have a lot of questions about how to use all those Membership Rewards® points you’ve been collecting. I figured it was time for Savvy Navigator to share his ground rules on how to Burn Off all those AmEx points sitting in your account. Because you’ve been asking for it, here’s the definitive How-To Primer on the most important Rules of The Game:

    Rule #1 – Collecting Membership Rewards Points: If you collect Membership Rewards points, you can either

    A) Use the points to book flights directly with Amex or

    B) You can transfer the points into your mileage program of choice, generally at a 1:1 ratio.

    I think Option A (using points to buy tickets) is generally a bad idea and not good value relative to the alternative, so Option B is the way to go! Further, if you pay attention to the program and time it just right, some airlines offer periodic bonuses for direct transfers into their programs, such as to BA, which recently offered a 30% bonus.

    Rule #2 – Link your accounts in Advance: Once you’ve set up the airline frequent flier accounts that we will discuss below, please make sure your frequent flier accounts are linked to your Membership Rewards account ahead of time. Once linked, most points transfer instantaneously occur.

    Rule # 3 – Timing! Remember, DO NOT transfer the miles into the frequent-flier account until you know the transfer partner has the seat availability you need. Yes, it becomes a chicken-and-egg scenario, but the best way to manage this is by having 2 browser windows open at once – one with the Membership Rewards page, and the other with the award flight-booking page. If you see the availability you desire on the airline page, transfer the minimum number of points you need. Then you can complete your transaction. What you want to avoid is transferring the points and then not being able to grab the seats. Once the points are transferred over to the airline, you CAN NOT transfer them back to AmEx.

    Rule #4 – My Favorite Program: Air Canada’s Aeroplan – Having an Aeroplan account to book award seats on Star Alliance partner airlines is very practical. Even though I rarely fly the airline these days, I use the Air Canada Aeroplan to book flights on United, Lufthansa, Swiss, South African, and the other alliance partners. Another good option for Star Alliance availability is transferring points over to Japan’s ANA, which also seems to have good availability on its Star Alliance partners.

    Rule #5 – For oneworld: Use British Airways Avios – For flights on the oneworld partners, having a British Airways Executive Club account is quite practical. When I transfer miles into BA’s program, I get access to American Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific, LATAM (LAN/TAM), JAL, and the others in the alliance. And for what it’s worth, the BA Avios short-haul awards within Europe can be booked with very few miles.

    Rule #6 – For SkyTeam Delta Air Lines: – If you’re desperate to grab award seats on Delta or its SkyTeam partners, it’s fairly easy to transfer the points into Delta’s SkyMiles program. There is one caveat, though, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to transfer use your miles at Delta. But if you want to book flights on Delta’s partners, I’ve had better success lately sending the miles over to KLM’s Flying Blue program, Virgin Atlantic, Korean Air and Alitalia (which seems to have good award seat availability on their parent company, Etihad).

    Rule #7 – Don’t Forget Emirates:  This airline is a great redemption outlet for flights from the USA and Canadian gateway cities to points East – And especially Africa, India, and Asia.

    Lastly, here are some examples of Membership Rewards points transfers to their airline partners:

    • Air Canada Aeroplan points for flights in business class on Air Canada and Ethiopian Airways from New York to Johannesburg, via Toronto and Addis Ababa. The redemption rate was on 75,000 per person + $9.10 in fees!
    • Last year I transferred Membership Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic Upper Class seats from London back to NYC, for 80,000 each. The taxes and fees, however, were higher due to the way the UK values awards seats vs. the USA, where they are much lower.
    • We found flights next summer for some Savvy friends using Aeroplan for seats on Lufthansa from San Francisco to Helsinki, via Frankfurt. These were in economy and less than 40k each, per person, each way.
    • Most recently, some Savvy Navigators were planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands and found round-trip business class flights from New York to Quito, Ecuador on Panama’s Copa Airlines. Round trip Business class was 75,000 miles and the fees were about $100 per person.

    Be sure to try out these tips, and let us know how you do. If you need help, get a hold of us and we can assist in helping use those miles! We’d love to help you! Just fill out our information form and we’ll set up a time for a conversation.

     

     

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • When Should I Book my Award Seats?

    We were chatting today with one of our subscribers who was asking about the best time to book flights using her frequent-flier miles. Most airlines open up their award seats 330 days ahead, so our friend was literally counting off the days in her calendar to figure out the optimal day this year to book her flights in 2016.

    Rather than using this manual method (as preferred by the Luddites), we here at Savvy Nav use this snappy online tool that automatically counts the days for us:

    Date Calculator to Add or Subtract Dates

    For example, if we know that I need to book the first flights for our vacation next year that begins on June 11, 2016, the calculator tells me that I need to start researching on July 17th of this year.

    It’s pretty fool-proof and for those of you that are good little planners, it’s a great tool. Give it a try. And if you need help, holler!

     

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • Travel Insurance Basics

    Do you ever purchase travel insurance? I never did until I started sending folks on African safaris. Over the years I saw numerous benefits of having the coverage, and I now believe that it’s something very important when planning a big trip overseas.

    So why buy it? Many foreign luxury trips require non-refundable pre-payment for services, lodging, and excursions. Things happen in the world that are beyond our control, and despite the best planning in place, life happens. Like many of you, I have aging family members with health issues, so this is the primary reason I buy coverage for all my trips.

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    Here’s a quick and easy travel insurance primer on what’s important to consider when buying travel insurance:

    Cancellation: If you need to cancel your trip due to health issues – your own, your traveling companions, or close family – then you receive reimbursement for everything already paid out for deposits, land packages, airline tickets, or anything else.

    Trip Interruption: Stuff happens. Hurricane Sandy left some of my favorite honeymooner clients stuck in Johannesburg. They had extra hotel nights and had to buy new airline tickets home. All their expenses were covered. And then, airlines do lose baggage…

    Medical Evacuation: Your health insurance plan here at home might cover overseas medical expenses, but it most certainly does not cover medical evacuation. If you’re in a remote part of the world, then you’ll want the peace-of-mind that you’ll be able to get home expeditiously and efficiently to seek medical treatment.

    Apr 10

    We like to think of ourselves as experts on this topic, and Savvy Navigator’s parent company offers travel insurance. We’d love to help you determine the best coverage for your next trip. Just click on this link for a free travel insurance quote!

     

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • AmEx Membership Rewards

    Over the past several months, several times a week, you’ve been receiving the Your Daily Escape email series. These little morsels are designed to whet your travel appetite and inspire you to plan your next trip. Always off-the-beaten-path and original, our goal here at Savvy Navigator is to show you the way that we love to travel – luxurious in our choices of where we sleep at night, but adventurous and authentic during the day as we explore the world.

    Today we’re launching a new series, Today’s Travel Tip, which is designed to complement Your Daily Escape. Today’s Travel Tip promises to be short, sweet, and very relevant to the travel-planning process. We’ll share travel tips that you won’t find anywhere else, curated by Jeff and his team of savvy travel experts.

    Today’s email is being broadcast from the Ethiopian Airlines business-class lounge in Addis Ababa. Why are we here, you might wonder? Here’s your travel tip:

    Transfer your American Express Membership Rewards points to an Air Canada Aeroplan account. Air Canada is a Star Alliance member and has the best availability on its partner airlines such as South African, Lufthansa, Swiss, and more!

    So we’re passing through Ethiopia, on our way to Johannesburg South Africa, flying business-class, lie-flat seats, on brand new 787 aircraft. The in-flight service on Ethiopian is really good, and our trip today only cost us 80,000 miles and less than $100 in taxes and fees.

    Savvy Navigator now has a team in place to help you find award seats using your miles and points. If you’d like to learn more about this service, drop us a line and we’ll show you the way.

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    Jeffrey Ward

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  • Avoiding the Dreaded Middle Seat

    If you’re like me, you hate sitting in a middle seat in economy. OK, in the spirit of full disclosure, I despise sitting in economy in general, but sometimes it’s just the way it works out.

    One way to ensure that you always have your beloved aisle or window is to proactively check your aircraft seat map before you check in. You really need to get into the habit of pre-reserving the best seat possible as soon you’ve finalized your reservation. The tool I always use to help with this is SeatGuru.com.

     

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    Here’s how it works… After you’ve made your reservation, select the option to pre-reserve your seat. If you don’t have elite status with the airline, the seat reservation might cost you a few dollars, but in our opinion it’s ALWAYS worth it. Go to SeatGuru, enter your flight details, and the seat map for the type of plane the airline is operating that day will show up. Then go to your reservation in the airline’s website and cross-reference the available seats with the seat-map guide at SeatGuru. This might seem confusing, but once you’ve done it a few times, it’s pretty easy.

    Screen Shot 2015-06-05 at 07.41.13

    This way you’ll always get the best seat possible, and remember, if you show up at the airport for a full flight with no seat assignment, you risk getting bumped.

    A little advance planning for your summer travel will pay off in a big way in ensuring more comfortable travel. Still confused, send us an email and we’ll explain.

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    Jeffrey Ward

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