2014 Year in Review

In terms of travel, 2014 was our busiest year yet. We do not take this for granted and are very thankful for both the opportunity to travel and the experiences and memories made in each place, including in our own home. For documenting purposes and to help us remember this year down the road, here are some stats, notable memories and favorites from this past year, some of which surprised us when we sat down and tallied it all.

Travel Stats

63,101 miles flown.
70 flight segments.
11 airlines.
34 airports.
4 countries. 5, if we count the U.S.A. (not including layovers in other countries)
14 states. (not including layovers in other states)
7 national parks.
59 nights away from home. (not including nights locally at friends' houses or our parents' houses)
4 nights on overnight flights.
2 nights in the airport.
18 airport lounge visits.
13 different lounges.
5 showers taken at those lounges.
14 car rentals.
33 days of driving car rentals.

The Best Of 2014

• The fare that led to a week in Italy.
• Two weeks in South America with family.
• A week in paradise with our F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and falling in love with Kaua'i.
• The fare that led to Austria and Hallstatt, a favorite place.
• Time spent outside hiking and skiing. For the love of fresh air, national parks and friendships.
• Visiting family and friends across the country/world.

The Worst Of 2014

• A 1.5 hour standoff between police and guests in the hotel room next to us at 3 a.m. involving guns, drugs and arrests. Scariest night ever...in Wisconsin of all places!
• Trying to sleep in a lounge in Lima, Peru.
• Getting to the Galapagos and an unpleasant LAN experience.
• Deciding to cancel our $208 Abu Dhabi flights for this coming spring.

Favorites from the Past Year

Airline: Southwest, Air Berlin
Hotel: Park Hyatt in Milan, Italy
Hostel: Hostal Corihuasi in Cusco, Peru
Domestic Lounge: The Centurion Lounges at DFW and LGA
International Lounge: Swiss Lounge in Zurich, Switzerland
Credit Card Offer: 100,000 mile Citi AA Exec
Country: Italy and Austria
State: Oregon
Island: Kaua'i
Domestic City: New York City, NY
International City: Venice, Italy
Town: The Cinque Terre villages and Hallstatt, Austria
National Park: Crater Lake
Famous Sight: The Colosseum and Machu Picchu
Waterfall: Hanakapi'ai Falls, Kaua'i
Hike: too many to choose from! The Kalalau Trail and Hanakapi'ai Falls Hike on Kaua'i, Burroughs Mountain in Mount Rainier NP and Sourdough Mountain in North Cascades NP
Piece of Art: The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci
Bird: the male blue-footed boobies and frigatebirds in the Galapagos.
Sporting Event: Cavs @ Celtics
Memorial: Cannot choose. Pearl Harbor, World Trade Center Memorial, and the Nate Saint house in Shell, Ecuador.
Ice Cream: Gelato at Gelateria de'Neri in Florence.
Picnic: the fresh salami, cheeses, and bread from the market in Austria.
Lunch: Pizza (Anni 50) at Ristorante la Pentolaccia Pizzeria Annicinquanta in Rome and BBQ at Pecan Lodge in Dallas.
Dinner: Carbonara at Antica Trattoria Da Carlone in Trastevere (Rome) and pizza outside at Lucali in Brooklyn, NY.

Wishing you a very happy New Year and many adventures in 2015!

The LGA Centurion Lounge

After Park Hyatts, The American Express Centurion Lounges are probably my next favorite luxury travel experience. Last summer, we visited The Centurion at Dallas-Fort Worth and were hooked. How could we not be with the complimentary food and spa services? I'm not usually one to get manicures/facials/massages in real life (hello, I sleep in airports for fun!?) but will gladly enjoy those here on occasion. And as far as food goes, lounges like this help us to eliminate food expenses upon arriving or departing from airports as well as layovers.

After camping in the concourse and flying the early morning flight to LaGuardia, a visit to The Centurion was in order. This lounge is located outside of security in Terminal B on the third floor. It is open from 5:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays and from 5:30 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. on Saturdays. Unlike The Centurion at DFW, this lounge is smaller and does not offer spa services, shower facilities, a family room or locker units. 

The bar area looks similar to the one at DFW, was fairly quiet during the morning, and slightly busy in the evening on our visits. Each Centurion has their own food and drinks menu, and the cocktail list for LGA can be found here. Matt enjoyed the "Big Apple" before the departure home.

There are a couple of areas for plane-spotting, a favorite pastime of my husband's.

Comfortable seating can be found throughout the lounge from reclining areas with charging stations to tables and chairs in the dining area.

Oh and the food. Seriously. This has to be my absolute favorite part of The Centurion Lounges as a whole. I do love to eat after all. Breakfast is served from 6am-11am and lunch/dinner are served from 11am-8pm (Sunday through Thursday) and 11am-6:30pm (on Saturdays). The food menu at LGA can be found here.

Personally, my favorite breakfast items were the frittata, the crispy french toast with caramelized apples, and the citrus salad with ginger syrup. The eggs benedict with spinach and sriracha hollandaise looked pretty and I tried it, but personally it was not to my taste and texture preferences. I discovered that after one bite. But those other items, I could eat again and again.

After enjoying the long weekend in NYC, we gave ourselves a a few hours to hang out at the lounge and eat dinner before the flight back. There is something to be said about arriving early to the airport and relaxing before hopping on a plane. We love it, but then again we love the entire traveling process from start to finish. 

The lounge was fairly quiet and empty on a Sunday evening. There were 25-30 people there at most, so we had our pick of seats.

We selected one of the love seat loungers in front of a TV to kick back, watch the Packers, and of course, eat.

The meal was one of the best I have ever had in a lounge so far, and a decent salad bar always gets the thumbs up. From me at least.

In contrast, M started with dessert first. I think he had at least two of those chocolate mousse jars and a handful of brownies accompanied by a Boston lager.

For the main meal, I selected roasted baby brussel sprouts with pistachios and basil, fried chicken with a honey lemongrass glaze, ginger rice with green onions and avocados, and Italian burrata on crostini with lemon vinaigrette and basil. It was tasty, especially the burrata on crostini. I put at least five of those things down (I am originally from Wisconsin after all). SO so good... Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water.

Hot chocolate and another helping of the burrata on crostini followed for a scrumptious dessert. 

Domestically, The Centurion Lounges cannot be beat, and we highly recommend them, but this one could definitely use shower facilities. The shower facilities or lack there-of were the only disappointment because we were hoping to shower after the overnight in the airport. 

Oh for the love of travel and free food... I'm already counting down the days until our next Centurion visit.

Lounge Access: Any American Express cardholder can access The Centurion Lounges with a same day boarding pass. Lounge access is complimentary for Centurion and Platinum cardholders and their accompanying spouse (and children under 18) or two guests. For all other cardholders, there is a $50 one-time pass per person. In our opinion, it wouldn't be worth the $50 per person unless perhaps you have a long layover at DFW and can utilize the meals and spa services. Even so, as much as we love these lounges, for us personally we would not pay the fee. Additional information on accessing these lounges can be found here.

NYC Budget Breakdown

The question we get asked often: how can you travel that much? Our answer is always this frugal travel hobby, but the practicality of how that happens for any given trip can be difficult to explain. So this is an attempt to do just that.

Yes, we've been fortunate to book some amazing fares at ridiculous prices (Italy, Hawai'i and Austria), but for us there is more to trip expense planning than just saving and finding a good deal, especially when traveling frequently. In the past, we have posted some partial expense breakdowns (or maybe more accurately "point/miles" breakdowns like this South America example), but have never made public the entire trip budget. There's a first for everything, so we post this to show that a weekend in an expensive city can really truly be done on an affordable budget.

Find it hard to believe? Let's look at the numbers and expenses from our three day weekend trip to New York City for two people. This trip is valued at $2,023.32, but the actual cost out-of-pocket was only $162.46.

Big Picture Overview and Breakdown

NYC Trip Expenses	Value	Credit	Actual Cost
2 Bus/Light Rail Rides	$4.50	-	$4.50
2 SW Flights MSP-MDW	~$100	2,214 points/Companion Pass/Travel Voucher	$0
Overnight in the Airport	$0	-	$0
2 SW Flights MDW-LGA	~$230	6,121 points/Companion Pass/Travel Voucher	$0
Centurion Lounge - Breakfast	$30	-	$0
Metro Card for Matt	$31	$31 Offset using Barclays Arrival Card	$0
Metro Card for Amanda	$30	Extra Metro Card + Balance from Friend's Visit	$0
Hyatt Place - Fri Night	$415.45	$415.45 - Free Night Cert from HP Giveway	$0
Matt - Coffee	$2.25	-	$2.25
ATM Cash Withdrawl Fee	$2	-	$2
Grimaldi's Pizza - Dinner	$20	-	$20
4 + 20 Blackbirds - Pie/Coffee	$8	-	$8
Hyatt Place - Breakfast	$0	-	$0
Hyatt Place - Sat Night	$530.21	$530.21 - Free Night Cert from HP Giveway	$0
Bryant Park - Ice Skating	$0	-	$0
Tom's - Coffee/Cocoa	$6	-	$6
Magnolia Bakery - Treats	$8	-	$8
Lucali - Dinner	$30	-	$30
Top of the Rock	$58	-	$58
Hyatt Place - Breakfast	$0	-	$0
Metro Card - Added Funds	$4.05	-	$4.05
Shake Shack - Lunch	$14.16	-	$14.16
Bellman Tip	$2	-	$2
Centurion Lounge - Dinner	$45	-	$0
2 SW Flights LGA-MDW-MSP	$449.20	Travel Voucher/Companion Pass	$0
2 Light Rail Rides	$3.50	-	$3.50
Overall Value	$2,023.32	Actual Cost	$162.46

The Specifics

Getting There

As far as flights go, it's no secret that we love Southwest Airlines and using the Companion Pass (posts on that here and here). Matt's Companion Pass ends with the arrival of 2015, so this was his last hurrah with it before the roles reverse, and he becomes the companion on my pass for 2015 and 2016. It is almost always a no brainer for us to fly Southwest over the other legacy carriers when it comes to domestic flights as one of us always flies for free (we use points for the "paying" passenger). The only exception to that rule would be using British Avios to book one-way saver flights under 650 miles on American ... but that is a whole different topic.

So unlike Buddy the Elf, we did not pass through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest, through the sea of swirly twirly gum drops, and walk through the Lincoln Tunnel to get to NYC. Instead, we used a combination of Rapid Rewards points and leftover travel vouchers from when we were bumped in Portland last May (that trip cost breakdown here) to cover our flights there and back.

Lodging Accommodations

New York, specifically Manhattan, can be a very expensive place to stay on any currency (cash or points), so being able to use free night certificates was helpful. We had each won a free night at any Hyatt Place by participating in a Twitter promo back in August. At the time, Hyatt had just opened up their 200th Hyatt Place location. To celebrate, they were offering 200 free nights over the course of several days for travelers tweeting Hyatt photos with #HyattPlace #HPEntry, and both of us were selected as winners.

The cost of a hotel room at the Hyatt Place Midtown-South for the days we stayed were an astronomical $415.45 for Friday night and $530.21 for Saturday night. That is crazy ridiculous. We would never pay that expense out-of-pocket but gladly stayed there with free certificate(s) thanks to Hyatt. Our room was on the 25th floor and the views of the Empire State Building were incredible.

Eating

"We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup."

As far as food goes, we utilized The Centurion Lounge access at LGA for complimentary brunch the day of our arrival and dinner the day of our departure. We ate a big breakfast, which was included with the hotel room on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. So really, we only had a few meals to cover. During the day, we treated ourselves to coffee, cocoa, and baked goods paired with some leftover fruit on Friday and Saturday. For dinner, we had pizza both nights, and on Sunday, we shared a burger, fries, and a shake at Shake Shack for lunch. Overall, we spent about half of the total expenses on food ($88.41). And really, if we would have cut back on our coffee and treats, that amount could have been less.

Seeing the Sights

"First we'll make snow angels for two hours, then we'll go ice skating, then we'll eat a whole roll of Tollhouse cookie dough as fast as we can, and then we'll snuggle."

We did so many things, but most of what we did was free, with the exception of the Top of the Rock. Ice-skating in particular was one of the activities high on my NYC to do list. For the most part, there is a cost associated to skate at the various rinks in the city (think Rockefeller, Central Park). However, it is completely free to skate at the Winter Village rink in Bryant Park (rentals are an additional charge), so we had a winner!

Fun Fact: Ice and hockey skates are one of the few sporting goods items that are approved by TSA for carry-on items (based on this list here). Don't ask me why, but they are... so I packed my skates in the carry-on to skate for free and had no issues getting through security at either airport!

Getting Around

In addition to walking miles upon miles (12 on Friday, 15 on Saturday and 8 on Sunday), we used public transportation to get around. Ninety percent of the time, we tend to use the bus and light rail in our own city to get to the airport, unless we need to get there quick. In that case, we use credits from Uber or Lyft to cover the ride. Otherwise, we use the Barclays Arrival World Elite MasterCard for purchases that allow us to credit back or offset charges that are coded as "travel." This includes costs such as utilizing the subway and bus system in New York as long as the total is over $25.

Side Note: The Minneapolis hometown favorite "US Bank Flexperks" is much less, well, flexible. It earns at a comparable rate (2%) but redeeming starts at expenses booked on its website for $400 and increments of $200 more from there. The Arrival doesn't need to go through a certain website to redeem and starts at $25, so it works much better for us and our travel habits.

Call us crazy, but we definitely are not the only frugal travelers out there. On this trip alone, we saw a points blogger at the hotel (also using her free HP night certificate), and Matt noticed another traveler from last year's Chicago Seminars with his family at Penn Station, likely on a family trip. 

With that, our travels for 2014 came to an end, and we are looking forward to what 2015 might bring.

Christmas in NYC

Last weekend, we spent a magical three days experiencing Christmastime in the city - New York City to be exact.

When we planned this trip in early September, our friends Jared and Skyler were also planning a Christmas babymoon for the exact same weekend!! Apparently, we think alike. ;) We explored on our own everyday but did see some of the sights together. It was the perfect balance, and we loved spending some quality time and enjoying the city with these dear friends.

Some NYC highlights:

THE Rockefeller Tree. So. many. lights.

"Santa!! I know him!" // Seeing Santa at the Macy's on 34th. (To avoid the lines and long wait, we reserved Santaland Express passes.)

The Seinfeld Restaurant.

The F.R.I.E.N.D.S sights.

Public transportation. Matt loved taking the subway, buses, and seeing Grand Central Terminal.

Strolling across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Eating one of the most memorable meals ever outside with Jared and Skyler. So much laughter, happy tears, cold hands, and best pizza of our lives at Lucali in Brooklyn. 

Greenwich Village. The buildings. The cafes. And of course the F.R.I.E.N.D.S apartment on Bedford and Grove.

The tree lots on the sidewalks. The window displays. And everything all lit up for the holidays.

The 9/11 memorial.

The night views of the city from Top of the Rock.

Witnessing 3 engagements! One every day. The first was an evening proposal at Rockefeller Center on the ice rink. The second and third were both at Central Park.

Meeting other travelers from Long Island, Omaha, Maine, Buffalo, and a couple from Great Britain - one of the engagements we witnessed and took photos for afterwards.

And no surprise we took some a lot of pictures. Sometimes adventures are just captured better in photos than in words, and to be completely honest, I am feeling a little lazy right now to write more, so enjoy.

Until next time NYC.