Vacation Planning

Financial Literacy Month #5

As we get closer to Spring, are you ready to explore the outdoors? April 19 is one of the days that you can go to a National Park for free. Other days this year are June 19, August 4, September 27 and November 11. We have seen a few but have more to see. Last year we went to Mount Rushmore and Badlands. #JillRussoFoster #FinancialLiteracyMonth

Credit Card To The Rescue

For several years, we were planning this big vacation for this year. We would be visiting several European countries over the course of three weeks. Lots of time and efforts was put into the planning and coordinating with friends we would be seeing along the way. Enter 2020 and the pandemic, and we cancelled everything.

That left us with many refunds / credits to pursue. The airlines tickets were amazingly easy, we cancelled, and miles were returned to our account within days. We have a credit for future travel – easy. Hotels were all booked without a deposit – so that made cancellations easy. Excursions were fairly easy to cancel, although we have credits for one to use in the near future (I hope).

Now on to the hard part. We chose to cancel our cruise before the cruise line cancelled the cruise. We did it before final payment, as we did not want to have our money tied up. Now, we needed to get back our deposit plus some extra charges. We cancelled our cruise more than 90 days in advance, so all was refundable. We understood that refunds were taking quite a while and were patient. The credits started to come in and various amounts. No amount refunded was equal to the charges. So, we totaled up what was owed and started to subtract the refunds, but not all the money was returned. (Thanks to meticulous record keeping, we knew what was owed to us and how it was paid for).

Why is this important? Because when all was done, we were not made whole. We were shorted some of our money paid. We ended up filing a dispute with our credit card company. When you use a credit card for payment you have the added benefit for protection. We were able to provide all the details, original charge information and all the calls / emails to rectify the situation. This is important for your dispute case. Then just this past week, the dispute was resolved by our credit card company and we are all set, and we were made whole.

When you find yourself at your wits end and frustrated, know that your credit card company can help you resolve the situation. Remember this only works if you use a credit card for payment.

What Are Your Plans?

Taking time away from your regular routine is good for you.

American’s typically take less vacation than people in other countries. We personally make vacation a priority. It doesn’t have to be some big vacation. It can be a variety of things – from a day off staycation or a weekend away to the trip around the world. Here’s an article by Business Insider about the benefits of vacation.

I have a bucket list of things I want to do and/or see – from 1 day trips and exploring local attractions, to much bigger vacations. For me, I want to see Waterfire in Providence, RI, visit the National Parks all the way to cruising the Panama Canal. What’s on your list?

With Labor Day weekend upon us, what are you planning to do – plan some time that isn’t part of your normal routine and do something different.

Going On The Road

Do you have a summer road trip planned? Maybe you are taking the kids back to school. Either of these situations or jsut in general, here are some tips to keep you and your car comfortable in these dog days of summer.

Read 11 Cool Tips for Comfortable Summer Drive

You might learn something you never knew 0 I did.

Packing Light

We don’t want to pay the checked baggage fee with the airlines, so we try to pack in a carry on.

If I can do it, you can to. Here are some tips on how we pack light:

Pick a color theme – I pick three colors (two neutrals and a color) so that I can mix and match outfits.
Make items do double duty – a pair of sandals can go to the pool and dinner.
Wear you bulkiest clothing – think sweater / coat / sweatshirt vs. packing it.
Consider packing less clothes and doing laundry mid way through the vacation.
Think multiple use items – your phone or tablet can be your camera, e-reader and still be able to check your email vs. all single use items / electronics.

So I wear my sneakers and sweatshirt. We bring a pack a clothesline, clothes pins and laundry detergent to do laundry. My tablet eliminates my need for a camera, book / magazines. I wear my sandals to the pool and then use them in the evening for dinner )shoes take up a lot of room in the suitcase). My pool / beach cover up can be used a as sundresses for dinner. It takes a little organization, but works for me.

Every little thing you can eliminate from your luggage will lessen what you hvae to take and in turn you will have less luggage and avoid luggage fees. One carry on can easily do a week of vacation for me.

Changes Coming To Travel

Thinking about traveling? It’s always on my mind.

Here are some things that you need to know for future plans.

If you are planning on traveling by plane within the US, you may need to upgrade your driver’s license. By October 1, 2020, you will need more than just your driver’s license for identification. You will need an enhanced driver’s license. It’s easy to do, I did this 4 years ago and it was simple. When I renewed my driver’s license, I just brought additional paperwork with me and I was all set. I now have a gold color star in the upper right corner of my license indicating that it’s an enhanced driver’s license. Here’s more information. If you have a passport this will work instead.

Are you planning on traveling to Europe? Right now US citizens can visit most of Europe for 90 days or less without a Visa. Well that’s changing. Starting July 1, 2021, European travel will require approval from the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). This is for enhanced security requirements. Apparently, you can use this authorization multiple time during a three year period. Here’s more information.

Happy traveling!

We’re Back From Our Anniversary Trip

This year we celebrated our anniversary with a Pacific Northwest cruise.

Back in the early summer, I wrote two newsletters about planning our fall vacation. We are back and wanted to share the trip with you. Here’s the link to the two earlier newsletters – first and second issues to remind you of the details.

We took a Pacific Northwest cruise out of Seattle with stops at Astoria, Oregon, San Francisco, California and Victoria, BC and few days in Seattle too.

With all this planning and paying ahead, we spent very little on the actual vacation. Mostly everything was paid (or paid with points / miles) in the months before as our budget permitted – hotel, cruise, airfare, attractions and some meals were included. We selected hotels with breakfast included, bought City Pass’ (discount admission to attractions) and walked and/or public transportation. Lots of steps – over 21,000 in San Francisco in one day!

Yes, there was a lot of research and planning, but this step saved us money and we have fun – lots of money!

Here we are at the Space Needle. To view more photos, visit our Pinterest page.

Planning Our Fall Vacation

What to do in each port? That’s a difficult question. So much to do and so little time.

If it’s a new place, sometimes we just want to take a tour to get an overview. That’s the case for the first and last stop of this cruise. We are taking a cruise line shore excursion to see the coast and in another city we are doing a whale watch.

Yet another city, San Francisco with a two day stop (we have been there before), what to do? Our original thought was to go to Yosemite for the day. We even worked out the details to make it work for us. But now the wildfires may derail this plan.

For us, the research is critical to saving money. First, what do we want to do? To start, we look at the cruise line shore excursions for ideas. If we find something that appeals to us – great! Then the research begins. What other companies offer this excursion? The research piece begins with for these other companies:

Is there a cruise guarantee? Do you get your money back if the cruise line doesn’t come into port?
Will they guarantee you will make it back tot he ship in time?
Will they pick up and drop off at the pier or very close by?
What are the companies reviews like (both on the website and with outside companies)?
What is the cost and what does it include?
Are there discounts?

These are important questions that we need the answers to.

Some of my favorite websites are Trip Advisor, Viator, Cruise Critic and more. I should tell you that Cruise Critic is the best. You join the chat room for your specific cruise and this puts you in touch with others sailing with you. This is a great resource, as we have shared private tours many time by joining others (and sometimes we have booked the tour and are looking for others to share with us).

All these are factors in determining what to do in port.

Planning Our Fall Vacation

Those of you that are regular readers, we have an upcoming vacation for the fall. I am going to take you through the planning this week, to see how we save money.

Our airfare, hotels and cruise are booked and paid (a while back). We always fly in a day or more before a cruise (never want to miss the ship). Since we are arriving late the night before, we are staying close to the airport.

Getting to the the ship in the morning, we have several options:

Back to the airport and take the cruise transfer
Make our way on our own
Alternate transfer

Our choices was the alternated transfer. This was our thought process, we have never been to this city and wanted to see some of it. We didn’t want to get to the ship too early and wait there to board. We found a cruise transfer tour company that will pick us up at the hotel and give us a 3 hour tour of the city and drop us off at the pier.

The savings for us:

No rental car needed
Tour company will take luggage on tour
Hotel pick up with pier drop off

Yes, this is more than the transfer alone, but we have never been to the city (I don’t count changing planes here years ago a visit). This way we will be familiar with the city before we spend the weekend after the cruise.

Travel Made Easier

You know we love to travel. Personally, the $85 I spent to get TSA Precheck was well worth it. It is so much easier to not have to take out your toiletries, electronics and/or take your shoes off. Note, that not all international airports recognize this status. Although, recently in London’s Heathrow airport and they did stamp my boarding pass on connecting flights and I was pleasantly surprised.

We actually had to wait weeks to get an appointment with the local (30 minutes away) office of IdentoGo. Then you wait more time to get your TSA Precheck number. Yes, it’s well worth it to not have to take off your shoes.

But by later this year, it will be easier. IDEMIA, the company will be offering the interview process through select Staples locations to start – 50 locations to start. How convenient will that be? When my renewal is due, this should be so easy.