Earlier this month we enjoyed our first Mediterranean cruise. We flew to Bari, Italy and boarded the MSC Poesia. Our itinerary took us to Italy, Greece, Croatia, and Albania. Much like the first time we cruised with MSC Cruises, we received an upgrade to a balcony stateroom–which is just an insane benefit! This time we even got so lucky to experience private dining because our assigned table only sat four and no other couple made an appearance the entire week.

Mediterranean Cruise vs. Caribbean Cruise

There are definitely stark differences between a Mediterranean cruise and a Caribbean cruise.

For one, Europeans operate on an entirely different schedules than North Americans.

• They notoriously eat dinner later in the evening.
• On Caribbean cruises we always request second seating which typically occurs around 7:00 PM and the first seating takes places at something ridiculously early like 5:00 PM (for the old people). When we discovered our dinner assignment was for first seating we were initially upset, but then quickly realized first seating was at 7:00 PM and second seating was scheduled for 9:00 PM.
• This meant the disco and the night life started later. Which also meant that people woke up much later in the mornings.
• This meant better availability in the relaxation room and gym. Plus no lines disembarking the ship in the morning.

Smoother Sailing

• The Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Aegean seas were also much smoother than cruising the Caribbean.
• We barely felt the ship move at all the entire week. We even joked that the ship just floated between each port.

Better Mobile Coverage

• Since the destinations are located so closely together we also found that we had great cell phone reception long after we departed ports and were cruising at sea.
• Read more about how we use our T-Mobile service while traveling abroad here.

Katakolon, Greece

The first stop of our Mediterranean cruise after departing Bari was Katakolon, Greece. The reason why cruise ships stop here is due to its close proximity to Olympia. We chose to forego a 45 minute one way bus ride to see the ancient Olympic stadium in order to explore the small port city. Instead we rented an ATV (€30 for the day) and drove to Agios Andreas beach.

Then we continued to the Mercouri Estate and Winery for a quick wine tasting. A cheaper option to visit these places is to buy a €6 ticket on the Katakolon Fun Tourist Train. We decided on the ATVs because we wanted to visit each place on our own time instead of being constrained by the train schedule.

Mykonos

The next morning we arrived in Mykonos which is an incredibly popular tourist destination amongst the Greek Isles. This stop really felt like the true Mediterranean cruise experience. We originally pre-booked a motorbike online a few weeks in advance. We wanted to drive it around the island like we previously did in Koh Phangan and Cozumel. However, we learned that since we did not have a motorcycle license annotated on our US driver licenses that we could not rent a motorbike in Greece. Therefore we opted for another ATV. Only this one was much more powerful (450 cc) than the ones in Katakolon and cost €80.

We drove to Kalo Livadi Beach.

Followed by Kalafati Beach and ate lunch at Petrino Aquarius.

Our last stop was Super Paradise Beach. It was apparent that Mykonos definitely boasts a solid nightlife. We were bummed that our stop did not include an overnight visit and definitely want to return for a longer visit in the future.

Athens

We rarely book cruise excursions. In fact, the only time we booked one was in order to swim with wild stingrays in Grand Cayman during our first MSC cruise. Other than that we either rent motorbikes, ATVs, or use public transportation to explore the ports ourselves. In this case we arrived in Pireaus port and took the X80 city bus to Athens in order to visit Acropolis. This only cost us €6 each for a round trip ticket to see the ancient city. Plan for about a 45 minute journey each way.

Sarandë, Albania

I really did not expect a whole lot from Albania when we booked this Mediterranean cruise. I anticipated a developing and recovering communist country with a small port city and not much else. Honestly, I set the bar quite low and Sarandë absolutely blew my expectations out of the water. This time we decided to explore with the two other couples we befriended on this ship. We found the closest ATV rental and haggled a bit to rent three for a total of €120. Here we drove 45 minutes to the Blue Eye. Followed by another 45 minutes to Mirror Beach (aka Pulëbardha Beach).

The Blue Eye

Mirror Beach

Dubrovnik, Croatia

This next day we stopped in Dubrovnik. My first time visiting the city, but second time to Croatia. Here we simply wandered around the Old Town Walls and ate at a delicious, picturesque cafe. Despite not using the Euro, Dubrovnik is definitely more expensive than what I experienced in Split two years ago. Game of Thrones fans are sure to love visiting King’s Landing, too.

Venice, Italy

We stopped in Venice as our final destination before returning to Bari. Unlike our peaceful day trip to Venice during our last trip to Italy, this visit was unbearably hot and chaotic. So much so that we decided to sell our water bus tickets to Saint Mark’s Square at a €10 loss to a random family in order to seek refuge back on the cruise ship. We much preferred to keep our wonderful memories of Venice from the winter intact than sully our experience battling the huge crowds in the sweltering heat. In the end I snapped some fabulous photos from the deck when we departed. To be honest, ending our Mediterranean cruise relaxing by the quiet pool just made the most sense.

View of Venice from the MSC Poesia pool

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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.

How/why we booked Le Méridien Resort and Spa Koh Samui:

Continuing from my Thailand Honeymoon – Part 1 post that detailed the first half of our trip…

Full disclosure: the honeymoon was super high on the priority list. To put it in perspective, we booked the tickets four weeks after our engagement and before I put a single wedding dress on my body. Our strategy for flights was a little out there for most people, but since Sean and I like to maintain several different types of elites statuses we wanted to turn it somewhat of a mileage run as well. I have status with oneworld carriers and Sean is Star Alliance Gold originally through Aegean, but now also using Turkish Airlines. That is a whole different blog post altogether, but if you want to learn a little about the details you can read my old post here (it’s outdated since Aegean restructured their loyalty program shortly after). Therefore we knew we wanted to travel on a Star Alliance carrier so we could not only rack up tons of miles for Sean to maintain his elite status, but also for the fabulous lounge access during our connections.

First lounge stop of the trip. United Airlines Red Carpet Club at NRT

As for the hotels, we decided to split the duties for choosing our lodging. Sean selected the resorts for the first week and I decided on using Starwood (SPG) points to book our second week. The reason why we did this is because Thailand is very inexpensive. Although we could have stayed in Conrad and W hotels the entire time we simply did not wish to spend all of our points because it would not be the best value of redemption. The Starwood property I chose was the Le Méridien Koh Samui Resort and Spa. Sean and I have stayed at several SPG properties and both hold Gold elite status with them. Sean once missed earning Platinum status by 2 nights one year and that’s hopefully a mistake we’ll never overlook again. Our elite status not only gives us extra points each time we stay at a property, but it frequently means free upgrades to suites at check-in. Additionally, the Starwood Preferred Guest program is one of the few travel loyalty programs that allow spouses to transfers points between accounts for free!

After I confirmed the availability of our preferred dates on spg.com, I called Starwood in order to hold our reservation because I did not have enough points in my account to cover the stay. The rate was 12,000 SPG points per night for the standard room and the fifth night was free. When I called the Gold Service Desk and spoke to a customer service representative, he helped me both transfer points from Sean’s account to cover the balance and put the reservation on a 7 day hold until the transfer fully processed. The agent on the phone asked me about the purpose of our trip and after I told him it was a honeymoon he made sure to document that in the reservation. This piqued me interest and I proceeded to ask him about the potential of getting a complimentary upgrade since I noticed that I could not book a suite for that particular week. He gave me a blanket statement that there’s always a possibility when there are special events like honeymoons involved. That’s when I really started to investigate. You see, honeymoons are an incredibly memorable time in people’s lives. Hotels absolutely love going above and beyond for honeymooners in order to establish a brand loyalty. Hotel chains know that if they can make a good first impression on your honeymoon then it is very likely that you will return to either the same property or similar resorts within their portfolios for future trips such as anniversaries.

From there I took it a step further and decided to directly contact the resort’s General Manager. I used a combination of researching on TripAdvisor and LinkedIn to locate her name and contact information. Then I sent the following e-mail:

Hi Xxxxxxxxx,

I recently booked an award booking for my upcoming honeymoon at Le Méridien Koh Samui Resort & Spa in April 2015. We were really looking forward to booking the Plunge Pool suite, but  unfortunately it was not an option for an award booking. I am an SPG Gold member and my account number is xxxxxxxxxxxxx and the reservation confirmation number is xxxxxxxxxxxx (15 – 20 April 2015). We are beyond excited to be celebrating our honeymoon at your property. We just wanted to connect with you and see if anything could be done in terms of an upgrade to the plunge pool due to our Gold status and since it is our honeymoon? Please let us know! We absolutely cannot wait to begin our marriage at your beautiful resort.

She responded within a few hours and said that she would be happy to help. She explained that I would need to follow up with her as our check-in date approached because I had contacted her 7 months in advance and did not have enough visibility to predict the capacity of the hotel. Additionally, she also told me how to properly secure the Plunge Pool Suite option using additional points in case we felt more comfortable knowing it was confirmed beforehand. I decided to risk waiting to see what type of complimentary deal SPG could offer instead.

Over the course of the next few months of wedding planning, I periodically kept in contact with the General Manager and was feeling pretty good about the situation. I knew that no matter what happened, we still had an incredible honeymoon planned and an entire week in the Gulf of Thailand and three other resorts to visit!

Final Stop: Le Méridien Resort and Spa Koh Samui

It was hard to believe that our honeymoon was close to complete, but we still had five more nights to enjoy at this gorgeous SPG property! Everything at this resort was calm and serene—even beginning at the check-in process. After taking a short ride from Mantra, we arrived at Le Méridien and were escorted through the breathtaking outdoor lobby to wait in a comfortable lounge area and served mocktails. After a few minutes of decompressing from the hotel transfer, a front desk employee approached and began to inform us about the resort’s amenities while checking us in. Unfortunately, the General Manager was traveling in Bangkok but she made sure to annotate our reservation with a complimentary upgrade to THE PLUNGE POOL SUITE.

We couldn’t believe it actually worked. Here we were with the opportunity to stay five nights in a private, luxury suite for free thanks to the SPG program! Needless to say, it was a spectacular stay. The staff was incredible and they really took time to take care of the details. This included complimentary drinks for our elite status as well as surprise room service desserts to celebrate our new marriage. Since the previous week was non-stop adventure and exploring different resorts, we took the few days to just relax together and enjoy the glorious pool and island of Koh Samui.

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