Just booked our first post shelter in place trip! We’re going to spend a weekend in Pacifica (beach town south of SF) in August with some friends. Now we have to figure out how long we’ll be in the Bay Area for, since we could also throw some kind of casual wedding event (since the big party was cancelled), take wedding pics in our outfits we won’t otherwise wear, and/or deal with our storage unit in San Jose.
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OMG, thank you for this thread, I hadn’t done any research lately and the prices are so good right now. I ended up booking $500 round trip tickets NYC -> Tokyo for 2022. 
I figure odds are good that we’ll reschedule them to 2023, but hey, no change fees…
I desperately miss traveling.
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Holy Sh!t that’s a good price!!!
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I feel like I really should think about booking a flight somewhere just to take advantage of these good prices.
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Right! It was on our wishlist anyway so I jumped on it. 
It involves a short layover in Montreal so hopefully border stuff will be…more possible…by then.
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New life goal is to go on a World Cruise 
20+countries over 100+ days only $$$$$
I think I need a special brokerage account for all my travel plans.
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Well, I have no chill. We booked a week in Denmark in September because the flights were so cheap - SFO > BILLUND for $318 each on SAS.
We get partner travel perks because SAS is a Staralliance partner and Aaron is Premier 1K (highest level United status).
Now we just have to come up with a plan other than “ride the train”.
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I’m a medium advanced travel hacker but here’s my episode on getting started.
I mostly utilize the Reddit - Dive into anything community. Happy to answer questions.
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Oh I love Denmark! If you are interested in also doing a long bike ride a friend of mine and I rode our bikes out from Copenhagen and found all the “hidden giants” if I can find the article on them I’ll post it. I want to see it was a 30 mile ride all outside the city and lots of fun.
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Oh, yea, we’ll definitely cycle. 30 miles isn’t really a long ride for me, so please give suggestions!
Thanks 
This article says it’s 40 miles. We ended up hoping on the train once we reached the farthest out one because we were exhausted so only 30 miles.
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There are flights from NYC to Lisbon for ~$350 from August-Decemver… The flights go through Toronto which feels like an extra layer of potential issues. But I am tempted.
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ugh, yea, transiting through a 3rd country in a different region is tricky with things shifting around. Also I hate Air Canada if that’s the carrier. But canada does have high vaccination rates and I think is less likely to re-shut down transit thru?
Have you looked into TAP Portugal? They have a LOT of low cost service to Portugal.
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I spent all my summers growing up on Lake Winnipesaukee. So beautiful there.
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Mr Pug as well. We have turned it into a new family tradition and I love it.
Esalen is reopening! Trying to convince my wife that we need to spend a weekend there in July.
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I am starting to put together a travel hacking plan to try to get our next expensive vacation (Disney & short cruise) paid for through points and cashback bonuses.
- Estimated trip cost = $10,000
- Discounted Disney Gift Cards = -$1,176 (7 GC valued at $1050 each for only $882 each) Can use Credit Cards to buy these and hit spend requirements if needed.
- Chase Sapphaire = -1410 ($800 statement credit minus $95 annual fee *2 one for me and one for Mr Pug)
- AMEX Blue Cash Preferred = -$400 ($200 statement credit with $3k spending in 6 mos plus 20% cashback at amazon up to $200, I wonder is Prime Now/Wholefoods will count. If so this is easy, if not I’m sure I can find a way to hit this spend)
- Disney GC = -$20.37 leftover points from last time I got the Chase Disney Card. Will need to cancel this and reapply later
- In a few months, I’m going to try for the Capital One Venture which I have never been able to get so it’s not a sure thing but that would be another -$1,000 if the current bonus deal is going on and I use it for a travel statement credit. I could book the cruise with this card, that would count I assume.
- JetBlue Plus = 60,000 points which should get us 2 roundtrip tickets and would save about -$850 (we’re going to fly during school break because of my sister’s kids being school aged. If they end up not joining we may go during a much cheaper time of year)
- I think this gets me half way there and then I’ll start looking into my next move.
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I’m very envious of people making travel plans! My first real trip will most likely be my cancelled London UK trip I had planned with my mother whenever we are allowed to go.
And I need to do some US road trips. I seem to be drawn lately to Texas so see a friend and do south. She is outside San Antonio, and I would like to visit Dallas, Houston, and Galveston too.
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