Night One China Town

 Hey Everybody!


Just back from a fantastic 17 day trip to Europe, so over the next few weeks we will break down the trip and the lessons learned!

I employed all of the strategies we discussed in previous articles on this trip! Lets start from the beginning! 

You have all heard me say this before, if you want to travel cheap....let the vacation choose you. While searching my normal travel reward sites, I found a business class fare from JFK to Madrid for 42,000 miles one way. The fare was on Air Europa (Spains #2 Airline in size).  This meant that for 84,000 miles , my wife and I were flying business class to Madrid from NY. Ive never been to Madrid so BAM! my vacation just found me.......I planned a route from Madrid to Barcelona and then from Barcelona to Bordeaux, France.....I would have been willing to return to NY from any of those locations. But, by chance...I found the same fare from Madrid back to JFK in business class. I was able to book two people rountrip business class for 168,000 miles. To understand this value you need to read further. Most people use their miles at a value of 1/1 which means i booked this rountrip business class for a cost of $1680.00  The cah value of these tickets was over $4000 each. Both flights were booked through Air France Flying Blue Rewards program.

To find these fares, I employed the "repositioning" strategy. I didnt even search for flights from Cincinnati. I searched for flights from Chicago, Orlando, Dulles, JFK and Boston. These are the major eastcoast airports with the most nonstop european flights. I was willing to reposition to any of these airports knowing that i could get there at low cost from Cincinnati. In this case, I booked two one way flights to Laguardia in NY at $100 each. Upon arrival at LGA, we were picked up by the LGA Sheraton shuttle and taken to the hotel at no cost. 





The LGA Sheraton was clean and pleasant. Surpise to me it was located in Flushing, NY or "China Town" NYC. Everything we could possibly have needed was within a two block walk of the hotel, including a Target, several bakeries and at least 100 restaurants. We spent one night at the Sheraton and then took an Uber to JFK the following day for our 10PM departure. 

I can recommend Jiang Nan Fusion meat and seafood dumplings for lunch and Gan Hoo BBQ for a dinner experience.



Next up.....we will discuss the Air Europa Business class experience..........

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