The Red Carpet is for me!

I finally broke the 100,000 mile threshold with United's Mileage Plus plan!! And I have 30 Elite Qualifying Segments. Which makes me a "Premier" member. And you know what that means? Of course not, so I'll tell you.

1. I am now exempt from baggage fees. $15 for the first bag? $25 for the second? Over weight fees? Not here. I will pack as outfits as I want, and fill my bags with as many souvenirs as I choose, and I will never be charged. (Yes, I know if you're military on orders, they won't charge you.)

2. 25% more miles. Oooh, I have 100,000 miles already, and they are making it easier to get more... This is kind of like how movie stars get swag bags full of stuff they already have. Ha! Anyway, so now my 1000 mile flight now earns 1250 miles. AND it includes Lufthansa flights, which is my favorite airline.

3. Priority wait and standby. Have you ever flown standby, and wondered how you kept getting bumped farther and farther down the list? It's because Premier passengers like me are requesting to fly standby, and pushing you down the list. Don't hate. I spent more than my fair share of time hanging out in LAX because I could not get on a standby flight. It's my turn.

4. Premier check-in and boarding. You know that line with the red carpet? That's for me.

5. Automatic and free upgrades to the next class of service, if available. So if there is an empty seat in First Class, I automatically get it, even though I bought the back-of-the-plane-and-the-seats-don't-recline seat. And I automatically get Economy Plus, no matter what, if the plane has it (those are the extra-legroom seats).

6. And best of all, all these little luxuries apply to anyone flying with me!! If we're on the same itinerary, we all get bumped up. I told you I would never forget my friends on my rise to the top!

And you may think it's all because I've been flying back and forth to see James, and while that's part of it, that's not even close to the majority of miles I earned.

I have the Chase United Visa DEBIT card. So even my debit card transactions earn me miles. I also have the Chase United Visa CREDIT card.

I shop at Vons/Safeway, and with their Club Card, I earn miles there too (I had to link my United Mileage Plus number to my Von's card).

If I'm buying something online, I check the United Mileage Plus Mall - some of those stores earn 10 to 1 on the miles (spend $20, get 200 miles). A great deal if you were going to buy it anyway.

And finally, I do exclusively fly on United. They are usually the cheapest anyway, and they have the best schedules and fly into nearly every airport. I always check eBay for a United coupon before I book. People are always selling those vouchers they get for getting bumped. I can pay $20 and get a $100 voucher. It's like trading a $20 bill for a $100 bill.
Be careful of changing your itinerary, the fee is now $150 to do that. For you. Not for me. I'm Premier baby. I can change it whenever I want.

Roll out that red carpet!!!

Boston, Massachusetts

I switched my flights from Sunday morning to Monday evening, giving me enough time to get my tourist on. I called my friend Will (a Brookline resident), and asked him to scout out a B&B for me to serve as my base of operations. The Boston In A Day tour was going to be a blitz. After the fiasco with the Sea Crest Resort, I was ready for anything.

The Bertram Inn was beautiful, marvelous, and fabulous. Good job with the recommendation, Will! I could live here. The staff was extra friendly, even Googling directions to Harvard and printing them out for us. Our room was adorable. It looked like something on Martha Stewart, and we all know Martha Stewart is my imaginary friend. It was perfect. And guess what? The price was the same as that ghetto Sea Crest Resort I stayed at the two nights before.

I started my tour at Quincy Market, on the recommendation of one of Jenn's wedding guests. She said it was a good place to find all kinds of food, street performers, and shops. I walked around for a little bit, then noticed the "Cheers" sign - a replica of the set of the TV show "Cheers" (duh). I almost stopped in for a bite there, but they had directions to the real Cheers, about a mile away, with walking directions. And I was off!

Lucky for me, the path to Cheers is also the path of the Freedom Trail. If you really intend to do Boston In A Day, you must include the Freedom Trail. It's a red-brick inlay into the cement sidewalks that snakes through the city. Once you find it (I found it outside Quincy Market), start walking.

The Freedom Trail is history overload. There a so many historic sights along the. The Latin School, King's Chapel, the Robert Shaw & 54th Regiment Memorial (of "Glory" fame), Frog Pond, Boston Common, lots of statues of famous dead people, and lots of creepy, soggy graveyards. Ew. The Robert Shaw Memorial was my favorite part, a particularly poignant reflection on the Civil War.I made Cheers the last stop on the Freedom Trail. I think the trail went farther, but who wouldn't stop at Cheers? The outside is just like on TV, but the inside is not. This is the place that inspired the TV show. I got decent food, and great service. It is a tourist trap though, so there are catchy names for their cocktails, and at least 2 souvenir shops. But who can resist going to Cheers? So the tourist trappiness is forgiven. Plus, I needed another pint glass for my collection.

I walked back to the Quincy Market, though I'm not sure how. I went through Chinatown, my favorite stop in any big city, even though we were lost when we found this one.

Back at the B&B, Will & Alyssa came to show us around a bit, and we took the T (the subway) right back downtown. We hoofed it to the North End, which is "Little Italy" in most other major cities. Dinner at Giacomo's Ristorante was the recommendation of another friend. It was good food, decent price, but a little bit too... ??? No reservations, no credit cards, guests have to wait outside in a line, it was far too cramped... they were creating their own hype. Excellent business practice, crappy experience. We felt rushed, especially watching the other people waiting outside in line. The food wasn't THAT good. Doesn't an authentic Italian meal take hours, with plenty of time for wine and dessert?

We picked up biscotti at Modern Bakery for the guy who told us to eat at Giacomo's. 3 lbs of biscotti is a lot of biscotti. (James put it in his carryon to bring back!)
Then we got gelato for ourselves at a little place across the street from Modern. You can't miss it. There's a big sign that says "Gelato". Ha. Let me tell you, I would kill a squirrel for gelato. And for gelato from North End, two squirrels.

With full bellies and light spirits we decided to kill our happiness with a walk through the Holocaust Memorial. It was eerie, and we could all do without the simulated coals burning below our feet.

Across the street was the Bell In Hand Tavern, which dates back to 1795. But it also a pretty happenin' place nowadays. Except for the fact that the windows were wide open, allowing the less-than-courteous cigarette smokers outside to share their smoke with us. We had a few rounds of drinks, and I was happy to be enjoying the evening with Will and Alyssa. It was getting late, and time to head back to our beyond-cute B&B, so we took the T back to Brookline, and bid adieu to our sleepy-head friends.

Of course once we got back, I didn't want to sleep, so I went out to the Sunset Tap & Grille, because they had 200+ beers on tap. We don't even drink beer, but a place like that must have pint glasses, right?! Of course they do, and so we went. (The picture only shows one set of taps, there are many more.)

My feet hurt from walking, we experienced a ton of history, we went to where everyone knows our name, we had great food with great friends, and we ate gelato in the North End. I am super excited to say that I feel like we saw a lot of Boston, and we hadn't even been there a whole day!

Here are a few links for you.
The Bertram Inn http://www.bertraminn.com/
The Freedom Trail http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/
Giacomo's Ristorante http://www.frommers.com/destinations/boston/D39702.html

North Falmouth / Pocasset, Massachusetts

I must apologized for the generic pictures in this blog. I forgot my camera!!

THE HOUSE AT POCASSET

Now THIS is what I would have hoped for in a visit to Cape Cod. I didn't stay here, although alot of the events of the weekend happened there.  This is where the bride, groom, and their families stayed.

You can rent the whole house for a full week at $2500, with discounted rates for military personnel. Based on availability, you can also get single rooms from $75 to $150/night. Fabulous!

http://www.thehouseatpocasset.com/.

SEA CREST OCEANFRONT RESORT AND CONFERENCE CENTER aka MOTEL 6 ON THE BEACH.

I arrived at Boston Logan at 6:50am, after my red-eye flight from Santa Barbara, via Los Angeles. I drove straight to the Sea Crest Oceanfront Resort (and Conference Center), hoping they would have an empty room and allow me to check in. You know, like they said they would when I made the reservation. I got there around 9am, and of course they had no empty rooms. Not only were there no empty rooms, they had no idea when my room would be ready. When I asked if I could just have the first room that was ready (after all, I was standing right there), I was told there was no way they could do that, and I would have to wait for my room. I wasn't asking for an upgrade. Just a common courtesy extended to guests paying $155 + tax a night. Anyway, I was denied, and fell asleep in my car in their parking lot until 1pm.

The front desk manager was horribly abrupt, confrontational, and quite rude. I will never stay at this place again just for her demeanor alone. But wait, there is more.

Sea Crest Resort does not look like the website suggests. It smells like mildew, and there is an old dank feeling to everything. The beds are literally 18 inches off the ground. The cheap bedcovers were that unexplainable material that begs the question, "When was the last time this was washed?" This place is a Motel 6 on the beach. And it's not even a nice beach! Spend your money on one of the plentiful and gorgeous B&B's in the area. The Sea Crest Resort is a heap, and they took $350+ from me over the course of the two nights I was there. Do you know what $350 is? It is more than a round-trip ticket from Santa Barbara to Seattle.

Steamboat Springs, CO

We drove up to Steamboat for a volleyball tournament.

The trip overall was... OK. A 3 on my scale of 1 to 10. Granted, any international trip automatically garners at least a 7, and domestic trips get a 2 point deduction for lack of effort.

I'm not in a hurry to get back to Steamboat. It is a very pretty place, like Breckenridge or Vail or any other winter resort in the summertime. But it offers nothing that the other, more convenient, resorts don't already have. Steamboat is also very tourist-trappy. The market it as a family-friendly resort town, but it isn't even that. There were lots of people loitering about on Saturday night. It seemed more of a college town than a family getaway.


The weekend was July 12-13. They did have a hot air balloon festival that weekend. Great if you've never seen one before, but who hasn't? We did do a dawn horseback ride on Sunday, complete with a real cowboy as our guide. The morning ride was beautiful, especially with the hot air balloons in the background.


We stayed in a condo rented through Mountain Resorts. It was nice and clean, well kept. But not worth the cost as far as I am concerned. When the local La Quinta has rooms for $85/night, and we are paying $$$hundreds for a condo, I start to worry about value. We shared the condo with a couple of volleyball players (friends of James'). And while these two are my absolute favorite friends-of-my-husbands, the quarters were a bit cramped. Better to have separate hotel rooms, with maid service, of course.


The weekend was not a total bust. I can't complain about the company I had. I've got great memories of the dawn trail ride. But if you are ever considering Steamboat vs. Breckenridge/Dillon/Vail/any other Colorado Resort, I'd choose the alternative.