Average Guy Travels

  So, you have read the blog and found some super saver tickets to Europe for next year but you have no idea what you will need on this trip! In this installment we will go over a couple of items Lisa and I have found incredibly useful and now we won’t go without them.   When I first travelled to Europe about five years ago, I was super thorough and looked up the plug I would need in each country, purchased them and carried 4 plugs with me for the trip!   We’ve come a long way baby! Now you can buy a universal plug that changes itself to fit every European receptacle. During our most recent trip, we found that most modern hotels were equipped with bedside and bathroom USB plugs allowing for seamless charging of your devices overnight. We split our time between hotels and Airbnb’s so we need the universal plugs. This year we were in Ireland, Italy and France, last year Ireland, Austria and Italy.   This plug has never let us down! This is an absolute must ...

  How do I use my points?   Ok, If you have followed the blog so far, I have told you how to earn points and how to maximize your points earnings with specific credit cards and programs. Now its time to look at how we use those points to get the maximum value. I will include some graphics in this post to help you understand. Lets talk about the Capital One Venture X card, for this example we will imagine I have a point balance of 45,000 points. This means with Venture X I have spent $22,500 without any bonus awards. There are several ways to use these points and we will discuss the value in each one. In this post the terms miles and points are interchangeable.   https://capital.one/3XHAQXQ     1.        Venture X will allow you to take a statement credit for any travel related expense and deduct it from your points balance. Example…..I purchased a roundtrip ticket on Delta Airlines using my Venture X for $225. I will be aw...

  Did we finish the discussion on repositioning to save money?   Repositioning is described best as the practice of utilizing low fares at the countries largest airports to save money. I live about 15 miles from the Greater Cincinnati Airport and although Im pretty happy with my flight choices, CVG is a medium airport and does not get the low fares and direct flights that an IAD (DC) or a JFK (NY) or an ORD (Chicago) get. When I fly to Europe from CVG, I am always shipped to a larger airport and then loaded onto a nonstop flight to my final destination. This presents three issues, first, it gives the airlines one more chance to lose my bag when transferring planes. Second, I am at the mercy of the airline for what the fare is to get to the larger airport. Third, I will more often than not have at least a three hour layover as I wait for my international flight. So unless you listened to me and got a Capital One VX with Priority Pass and have lounge access….you are in for...