[Travel Hack loading…]
Traveling is one of the best and most exhausting aspects of life.
You get to experience new places, feel the excitement of buying a new wardrobe to fit the local scene, and drool over all of the amazing food that you want to try but probably won’t be able to eat.
Don’t make that face, we’ve all been there.
Scouring Google Maps and TripAdvisor to find THE BEST restaurants with THE BEST food matched with THE BEST prices and then ranking them all.
$: Good for snacking
$$: Good for an average day
$$$: Good for showing off
$$$$: Good for crying about in your hotel later
I kid, I kid.
Traveling is about exploration. Couple that with the holiday spirit and you’re in for a moment of pure magic.
My husband and I had a wonderful trip to Chicago planned for Christmas.
A romantic train ride into the city, a day at the alluring AIRE Ancient Baths spa, Christkindlmarkets, ice skating, and Christmas lights galore.
And all of this under the idyllic winter snowfall.
Romantic, right? We thought so, too. That is, until the winter storm hit and the temperatures were ranging in the negative single and double digits.
Amtrak was cancelling their routes due to blowing snow and 45mph wind gusts, and all of those romantic outdoor activities became something to scoff at in disdain.
So what were we to do?
We had our train tickets, parking, and hotel already booked. I mean, our hotel was nice and all, but not nice enough to spend 3 days and 4 nights in.
My husband suggested that we stay home and make the most of it, but with the weather worse in our city, that meant staying at home in even colder and gloomier weather in a barely decorated apartment.
I cried.
Not only was Christmas ruined, but my birthday was, too.
Having your birthday around Christmas comes with its own complications, but that’s another post for another day.
In typical fashion, I decided that I needed to find another solution. There HAD to be a way to make this better, right?
Yes the weather was dangerous to travel in and the wind was so strong that it knocked the breath out of your lungs, but I couldn’t stay here.
American Airlines has been a hot mess for a few years now (thanks, Covid?). Every trip we’ve taken with them has resulted in cancellations mid-flight and multi-hour delays.
We once sat on a plane for FIVE HOURS because of who knows what and ended up at our connecting airport at 2am — a mere 4 hours before we needed to board our next flight. You better believe we still went to our hotel for a 2.5 hour nap!
As a result, we were given miles upon miles upon miles as a “sorry for the inconvenience” consolation prize. But who wants miles with an airline that’s bound to disappoint?
We vowed to get rid of them.
Surprisingly enough, we both had juuuuust enough of those “sorry” miles to cover our flights to Nashville for Christmas.
Things were on the up and up!
We chose to leave 1 day after the storm settled, with high hopes for clear roads and no flight cancellations. It was the perfect plan.
But what about our hotel?
We previously used our IHG Platinum Elite points to book a 4 night stay in Chicago, and when we cancelled our reservation, those points were refunded.
Thankfully, our Nashville hotel required LESS points and we were able to extend our stay an extra day!
Everything was shaping up perfectly.
The hotel had it’s own spa which was less expensive than the AIRE Baths, it hosted a nightly wine hour, and it was within a short Uber ride to the majority of our sight-seeing interests.
“Christmas is saved!” I thought.
And then, the storm headed south. Fantastic.
In order to avoid the domino affect of nationwide cancellations, we needed to push our flight back an additional day.
This was fine and all, but it wasn’t so fine when our hotel points couldn’t be used from Dec 29–30.
Le sigh.
“Okay, well now we’re flying the 25th–30th instead of the 24th–29th, so what do we do? We can’t cancel our hotel, we can’t shift the dates either, but now we have nowhere to stay.”
Enter: Capital One Travel
The Capital One Venture Card has been a staple of mine for a few years.
I was always saving up my miles for “the perfect trip” that I never ended up buying (can anyone else relate?), but Capital One Travel has always come in clutch for those last minute bookings at a discount.
I recently upgraded to the Venture X card for it’s many perks such as Priority Pass Select, $300 travel credit, and 10,000 anniversary points per year.
As I told my husband, I just want to live a life of luxury. “I know you do,” he replied, and then shed a single tear.
We planned to apply miles to bring down the overall cost and then split the difference, but to my utter disbelief, the hotel was automatically covered by that lovely travel credit perk.
It should have been great news, so why was I in utter disbelief?
Well, in my mind, that $300 was designated for a completely different trip that I hadn’t planned yet.
But alas, I had forgotten that I don’t choose when the credit is applied — the card does. *laughs nervously*
I know what you’re thinking. “Where’s the ‘Travel Hack?”
Well, it’s somewhere interwoven between a lot of mishaps, overly saving, and strategic planning gone perfectly awry.
I guess, in a sense, learning to roll with it is the only hack we need.
“Wait, what? Have I just been Rick-Rolled?”
No, dear reader, you have not. But this is life, isn’t it?
You think you have everything figured out, and then a fly ball comes out of left field and hits you while you’re silently watching an indie film at the local festival.
Everyone’s confused, some people ask if you’re okay, and the rest just look around without saying a word, shrug it off, and then go about their business.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find another way to avoid doing housework.
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