Not long ago the thought of going on a cruise made me shudder. I always assumed I would hate cruising quite frankly because of many false preconceived notions. Some of those including: someone else dictating my schedule, stereotypical tourism, forced social interactions, poor quality food, etc. However, MSC Cruises completely changed my mind and I even discovered a way to leverage their loyalty program.

It wasn’t until last year that an affordable price with MSC Cruises caught my attention ($469 per person for 7 nights). So we decided to give it a shot. From my perspective it was an incredible opportunity to visit several Caribbean countries for a low price and if I hated the experience I wasn’t out too much money.

We got incredibly lucky with my first ever cruise experience because MSC upgraded us to a balcony room for absolutely no reason. No travel hacking, no points, no status, NADA. We simply slipped our room key into the door and discovered this gorgeous stateroom with an incredible view.

                                                View from our balcony in Jamaica

The majority of our friends never heard of MSC Cruises and were a bit worried we signed ourselves up for a week of torment since it wasn’t well known in the US/Caribbean market. You see, MSC Cruises is actually an Italian, family-owned cruise line which sails all around the world. At the time we took advantage of such an incredible deal because they were (are) expanding their presence in the US market.

Perhaps I ended up enjoying cruising because of the brand? It alleviated all my previous concerns about just getting on a ship full of North Americans who were only interested in buying cheap T-shirts from tourist traps in every port. From the moment we stepped on the MSC Divina, I felt like I was in the minority because I heard so many foreign languages spoken and didn’t hear one American accent until about 2 hours of being on the ship. We met such interesting people with incredible stories. The food was unique and definitely served with a Mediterranean flair. Think fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, fig jam, etc. at the buffet. It was truly way more of an international experience than any other trip I had previously taken to Caribbean islands.

We loved it so much that we booked two more cruises while on the ship! Of course I needed to figure out a way to optimize our cruising experiences and eventually discovered the MSC Cruises status match offer.

                               Our Christmas 2017 Route

                           Our Upcoming MSC Cruise!

How to Get Instant Elite Status with MSC Cruises

MSC Cruises is the only cruise line that will status match your elite hotel status–not just other cruise lines. So it’s great for people like us who are brand new to cruising, but not travel in general. The benefits aren’t earth-shattering, but they’re nice to have–especially like priority disembarkation at ports that require tendering. You can submit all necessary information and get status matched relatively quickly here.

Pro tip: If you don’t have a top tier Diamond or Platinum status with a hotel chain and are more in the mid-tier range, then match your Marriott Gold instead of the SPG Gold.

Although this is only relevant until the two brands merge on August 1, 2018, don’t match your SPG Gold or you’ll receive MSC Silver. Whereas Marriott Gold gets you MSC Gold. They’ll only do one status match in a lifetime, but status is easy to maintain as long as you cruise every 36 months. A quick way to obtain Marriott/SPG Gold status is by opening an American Express Platinum charge card. There are other MSC Cruises status matching data points listed on this FlyerTalk thread.

The post How MSC Cruises Changed My Mind about Cruising appeared first on Seize the Globe.

Open jaw flights are excellent for experienced travelers to maximize their trip by allowing more flexibility. There are several advantages to booking itineraries with open jaws instead of a traditional round trip option.

The reason why they’re affectionately named, “open jaw” is because if you draw the flight paths on a map it will usually resemble an alligator’s open jaw. At this point you may be wondering why someone would want to book tickets this way. Wouldn’t it just make sense to buy one way tickets if you need something this fancy? Typically the main driving force behind this type of itinerary is price, but there are other advantages that simply allow more freedom to maximize your travels at each destination. It also prevents paying unnecessary change fees should one leg of the trip get interrupted or cancelled.

“Open jaw” can describe one of three different types of itineraries:

Origin Open Jaw

This is flying from one city to another but return to a different airport. Here’s an example of an open jaw flight I just booked for my in-laws’ upcoming trip around the US: New York City (EWR) to Fort Myers, Florida (RSW) to Boston (BOS).This is described as an origin open jaw.

This itinerary saved them money versus purchasing two one way tickets. Plus, it allowed them to visit three different cities and more flexibility to fly on the same flights with my husband and me.

Destination Open Jaw

Another example is flying from one city to another and returning to the original departure city from a different destination. I booked this destination open jaw for my trip to Europe this summer. I planned to visit four different countries with my girlfriend. Based on a few music festivals, we knew we wanted to meet in Ibiza and end in Brussels. 

It’s very cheap to fly within Europe, but the biggest expense involves actually crossing the pond first. So buying two one way flights across the Atlantic simply isn’t economical. That’s when I used the multi-city search option on ITA Matrix to find the following American Airlines itinerary. It was almost too perfect. I got an open jaw flight to Europe that perfectly fit our schedule AND fly using my elite status with American? That, my friends, is a gift.

So I booked Detroit (DTW) to Ibiza (IBZ) and returning from Brussels (BRU) back to Detroit (DTW). This example isn’t as clean of an open jaw flight path due to the connections, but you get the idea.

Double Open Jaw

Finally, the double open jaw is a bit more advanced to book and usually requires some type of phone call to the airline instead of searching on something like Kayak. However, your results may vary. These involve two totally separate departure and arrival cities. Example: flying from Chicago to Dallas and then continuing from Houston to Miami.

Although I didn’t plan it this way, my Europe itinerary I just detailed actually turned into a double open jaw due to my flight from PHL to DTW getting cancelled. So I asked American Airlines to re-route me to Buffalo, New York (BUF) where my husband was traveling on business (with a car) and we drove the four hours across Canada together to return to Detroit.

Essentially the easiest way to describe an open jaw itinerary is saying that an airline will take you from city A to city B but it’s your responsibility to get yourself to city C. At the end of the day open jaws are usually recommended for more experienced travelers. The point is to save money and maximize the number of destinations you can visit without sacrificing trip time. The best strategy is to first search a combination of round trip and one way itineraries to establish your baseline. Then see if you can improve with multi-city searches or open jaws. Finally, determine if the transportation to get between the different destinations is worth the savings of the open jaw. Hopefully this will help you the next time you need to book a more complicated trip.

I created all of the example maps in this post with the Great Circle Mapper.

The post What is an Open Jaw Flight? appeared first on Seize the Globe.

This past March I took my husband on a trip to Dubai for his spring break/our anniversary. I had close to 300K American Airlines AAdvantage miles and there was a looming devaluation on the horizon thanks to the finalization of their merger with US Airways. Since we are currently paying for his MIT graduate school tuition, we really didn’t have the money to even go on spring break. He even chose to forego joining his classmates on a week long trek through Brazil due to low funds. That’s when we decided that it was time to see if we could put some points/miles to work with an award redemption.

Sean said to me, “Find the craziest destination you can and let me know how we can swing it.” So I started brainstorming and one of the first destinations that popped into my head was Dubai. Could I possibly manage to fly two people on a poor student budget in first class to Dubai and back and use points to pay for the whole thing? My first step in searching for award availability was to go to use AA.com and see what my options were.

American Airlines is a member of the oneworld alliance which includes other airlines such as:

• Air Berlin
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• LAN
• TAM
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas
• Qatar Airways
• Royal Jordanian
• S7 Airlines
• SriLankan Airlines

For example, this means if you are based in the United States and an AAdvantage member that you can fly with any of these airlines and still earn miles that credit to your frequent flier account. You can also redeem your miles for award travel on either of those airlines. If you hold elite status with any, then you get reciprocal benefits when flying on oneworld carriers.

I found British Airways flights that connected in London Heathrow, but I wanted to avoid that because even flying on an award ticket with British Airways/through LHR racks up RIDICULOUS fees (fuel surcharges). I’m talking $1,600+…so much for a “free” flight, right?

I definitely did not want to book those because it defeated the whole purpose of my mission. Now here is what you do if you want to find other oneworld alliance award flights that may not display on AA.com. Their website only displays award flights for Air Berlin, British Airways, Qantas, Finnair, and Royal Jordanian. If you want to research other airlines then head over to the British Airways website.

Now I know I just told you to avoid British Airways for award flights due to astronomical fees, but bear with me. Their website displays other oneworld partner award availability like Qatar Airways, JAL, and Cathay Pacific. All you do is register for a free Executive Club frequent flyer account in order to access this part of the site.

Here, I found Qatar Airways flights in business class that matched our desired dates. So I called American Airlines and spoke with one of their award redemption representatives to ask how many AA miles it would cost me for two round trip first class flights. She informed me that the aircraft flying this route was the BRAND NEW A350 and that it only had two classes onboard: economy and business which still had lie-flat seats. Perfect! It would cost 67,500 miles one way per person. So 270,000 miles total plus $94.60 in taxes/fees for Boston to Dubai roundtrip with a connection in Doha. I had enough thanks to plenty of American flights, credit card sign-up bonuses, and my Citi AAdvantage Executive MasterCard!

Now, here’s what they cost for the cash buyer:

Qatar Airways Boston to Dubai

I asked her to place it on a five day complimentary hold so I could confirm the dates and times with my husband. That’s yet another thing that I love about American Airlines. Giving a complimentary five day hold is so convenient and makes the planning way less stressful (unlike Delta). Plus, if necessary, it gives you additional time to earn, transfer, or purchase any additional miles you may need for the redemption.

When it was time to book she waived the phone booking fee because the flights were not visible on AA.com. Anytime a flight is available for online booking and you reserve a flight over the phone with a booking agent they charge you an additional booking fee. Make sure you remind them of this if you find a flight through the British Airways website!

Lastly, it was time to take care of the lodging. We needed five nights in Dubai and we decided to first look into using Hilton Hhonors points for the Conrad, but we decided that we didn’t like the location of the Conrad and wanted to stay near the Dubai Marina area. That’s when I found the Sheraton Jumeirah Beach Resort and like our Le Meridien stay in Thailand we took advantage of the buy four nights and get the fifth night free promotion. For the dates we needed it was 56,000 SPG points for five nights (including the free night). It was a no brainer. Luxury resort in the perfect location right at the base of the Palm right in the Dubai Marina? Done.

So there you have it. A newlywed couple paying for MIT graduate school managed to pull off a luxury vacation on one of the top airlines in the world on a brand new A350 and enjoyed five free nights in a gorgeous Starwood resort in Dubai. That’s why I love taking advantage of points and miles!

The other special thing we loved about this trip was the fact that it was Qatar Airways’ brand new launch of the Boston to Doha route. The inaugural flight was the night before ours and despite how fresh it was the Qatar Airways employees did a fantastic job from check-in to landing. The flight blew away all expectations with multiple course mouth-watering meals, complimentary pajamas, slippers, gifts, incredible wine, and of course…the glorious full night’s rest on the lie-flat beds. Our experience was so phenomenal that we’ve already booked another business class award ticket with them for next year: Johannesburg to Boston!

Doha to Dubai in First Class

The post How I got $25,000 worth of airfare and 5 Nights in Dubai for Only $94.60 appeared first on Seize the Globe.

The AAdvantage Gold packet that I recently found in my mailbox

First let me tell you a quick story of what happened to me last weekend while I was traveling to a three-day music festival in Las Vegas. Then I will explain the three different elite status levels, how to obtain them, and subsequently their benefits.   So there I am, sitting at the gate, awaiting to board an American Airlines flight headed to Las Vegas. My two friends and I planned this trip 6 months in advance and were feverishly chatting to one another via Facebook about our excitement. Then one friend notified us that her flight had been CANCELLED and rebooked on a new flight that would land well over 24 hours after her anticipated arrival. She already spent over 40 minutes on hold waiting to see if there were any earlier flights and she was beginning to panic. I decided to try my luck at resolving the issue. My flight was scheduled to board in the next 15 minutes, so I had to act quickly. So my friend sent me her record locator number and I dialed the AAdvantage Gold Service Desk. This is how it went:

Agent: Hi, Ms. Keltner. Thank you for calling the AAdvantage Gold Service Desk. How may I help you today? Me: Hi, there. I am currently traveling on an itinerary to Las Vegas, NV this evening and about to board my flight. However, the friend who I am supposed to meet there for our vacation just had her flight cancelled. Her record locator is #XXX1234. Can you please help find her a flight that departs first thing tomorrow morning? I need her to land in Las Vegas as soon as possible. Agent: I can certainly check on this for you. Please hold.

< Brief hold >

Agent: Ms. Keltner, I was able to change Ms. Knapp’s departing flights to the first flight tomorrow at noon. She will be in seat 2A and then 2B for her connecting flight. I apologize for the inconvenience any of this has caused you. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Me: 2A and 2B? Are these really small planes or something? Agent: Her first flight is on a smaller aircraft, but for her flight from DFW to LAS she will be in First Class.

This all happened in under 8 minutes. Needless to say, that agent saved the weekend and no one in our party was going to miss any of the music festival! Not only that, it was resolved quickly and efficiently and she was even upgraded to First Class without me requesting it. Mind you, I did not even pay for her flight. It was a completely separate itinerary, but they still honored my request as a Gold member. Pretty sweet! Once again, proving that it never hurts to ask!   Now for the information regarding the American Airlines AAdvantage elite status levels. There are three different levels that members of the AAdvantage frequent flier program can qualify for: Gold, Platinum, and Executive Platinum. You have one full year from January 1st to December 31st to qualify for an elite status that lasts you the entire following year. Then the membership period lasts from March until February of the following year. Therefore, the earlier you qualify, the longer you have those benefits without having to re-qualify because you begin receiving elite benefits immediately after qualifying. For example, if you qualified for AAdvantage Gold in May 2014, then you would reap the benefits of that elite status until February 2016. The easiest way to initially describe this is through visuals. I pulled these from my own AAdvantage account to show as examples.

AA Gold Qualification Requirements

AA Platinum Qualification Requirements

AA Executive Platinum Qualification Requirements

Courtesy of AA.com: AA Qualifying Points Chart

The post Why I Love American Airlines and the AAdvantage Program appeared first on Seize the Globe.

Even for the novice travelers, most people are aware that the American Express Platinum charge card is notorious for excellent travel benefits. I plan on writing a series of posts specifically pertaining to this unique card. It happens to be one of the favorite cards I have in my own wallet and there are numerous strategies to maximize all the benefits it has to offer. To kick it off, I am going to address the $200 airline fee credit because this is one of the most overlooked and underutilized features.

For those of you who are American Express members or thinking of applying for a Platinum Amex here are some basic things you need to know about the $200 airline fee credit:

• You are entitled to $200 of airline fee credit per CALENDAR year. Not the anniversary when you opened the account–January 1st of each year
• You must specifically enroll in this benefit and indicate which airline you prefer (American, Delta, United, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Frontier, Soutwest/AirTran)
• You may do so by calling the number on the back of your card or going here
• Consider applying for the Platinum Amex in late Q3 or during Q4. This way you have the ability to earn two x $200 credits in one 12-month period!
• I usually sign up for an airline that I do not have an associated co-branded credit card or elite benefits
• This is intended to cover incidental fees such as checked bags, overweight baggage fees, in-flight refreshments, pet flight fees, seat assignment fees, etc. when you use your enrolled Platinum (Business or Personal plus Centurion) Amex
• Keep in mind that one can expand this benefit even more by also having the Business version

Here are a few strategies in which you can maximize the full $200 every year and slash that $450 fee in half instantly (just with this one benefit):

Use your enrolled Amex to purchase airline gift cards.

• Purchase small amounts at a time. $50 to be conservative. However, members have had success with higher values. (Delta – increments over $50 will not work)
• Wait for the transaction to post and you will see the credit appear in anywhere from 48-72 hours (I have been told the longest was a week, but I have never experienced this)
• Do this four times and you now have $200 worth of gift cards for your airline of choice
• My experience is that American and Delta will limit you to three gift cards per transaction. So if you purchase in increments of $50, that is $150 off your next ticket
• You can also use them to purchase day passes for lounges that you do not normally have a membership nor access to
• Confirmed gift card reimbursements reported: American, Delta, Southwest, Alaska Airlines, US Airways
• United must be done through the Gift Registry
• Unfortunately, no dice for Hawaiian Airlines or JetBlue

Other reported reimbursement successes include: United award cancellation fees (required calling Amex), JetBlue Even More Leg room fee, Hawaiian Air Premier Club membership ($200/$250), and more.

There are those who have experienced actual flights getting reimbursed. However, these were under $100 (i.e. inter-island Hawaiian flights, etc.). Rare these days.

Lastly, for those that were given a credit with American/US Airways for the loss of access to the Admirals Clubs/US Airways Clubs back in March, you can use the $100 – $500 (highest reported) in the same manner. ***Note*** This is IN ADDITION to your original $200 airline fee credit. American Express always does a nice job when it comes to retention offers or even creating new member benefits whenever something like that happens. For instance, they not only offered additional airline reimbursement fees that I just mentioned but also MR bonuses (as reported by TPG), and Amex is even in the process of building dozens of new American Express Centurion lounges throughout the country. These lounges put every single domestic lounge to shame, to say the least, with benefits including free massages and manicures, premium meals created by famous culinary experts, and signature cocktails. These are the types of lounges that won’t make you bat an eye at losing access to the regular domestic carriers’ lounges. Current locations are DFW and LAS with SFO, MIA, and LGA to be finished in the coming months.

Please also remember that in addition to initially specifying your airline of choice, if you would like to change the airline for the following year you must call and do so. Otherwise your airline preference will remain the same. This may be done ONCE per year.

Lastly, each airline listed has its own specific thread on FlyerTalk that discusses this very topic. That means you have the ability to research other fliers’ experiences prior to you deploying your own strategy.

Please feel free to leave questions in comments section. I have maxed this offer two years in a row plus the American/US Airways credit earlier this year.

The post Platinum American Express $200 Airline Fee Credit appeared first on Seize the Globe.