Too many credit inquiries. Too much available credit. Those are the reasons I am used to receiving when I am rejected for a card in this churn game. When I applied for the Avianca LifeMiles card, I was told the following:
Thank you for your recent application, which we are processing on behalf of our issuer, First Electronic Bank. Your request for a credit card was carefully considered, and we regret that we are unable to approve your application at this time, for the following reason(s):
Potential fraud
That’s a first. They only provide an address to follow-up. I will explore other ways and report back. Anyone else get flagged for potential fraud?
Do you care how you look when you’re on the road? While I try to arrive in style by flying business or first, I don’t always have time for a haircut before I go. So long as I am not in an overpriced city like NYC where I have to stylize myself (see Fair Or Foul? Cutting Your Hair in a Hotel Room), I enjoy the local barbershop experience.
Never sit in a barber’s chair without asking the price in advance. In Bangkok, I assumed it would be cheap but found out the hard way how much a terrible haircut can cost (see Cut That Out! Scammed at the Bangkok Barber). I didn’t make the same mistake and was satisfied with paying 36,000 pesos ($9).
Dentist Or Barber?
The barber, a kid who was maybe 20 at the most, did a thorough job. I believe he should have been a dentist because he would take compressed air every few seconds and spray it over my face. Then he would take the clippers and jam them up my nose to make sure that there was no calculus build-up.
Overall
Despite the trauma, I came out looking like 3,869,990,000 pesos.
TPOL’s Tip: The location is Cra. 43F # 11a 28 2piso, Medellín, Antioquia.
While the flight is short, I still prefer to sit towards the front of the plane. There’s nothing worse than being stuck in the immigration line. Accordingly, I paid an extra $60 for the best seat in the house, right in the front of the plane. It does not come with any free drinks or food, but it is nice that the middle seat is blocked off, a leftover bonus from the bogus days of social distancing (Do Not Read: The Lost & Found Year(s): COVID Trip Report). This provided more legroom and space.
When I landed in Medellin, I was the second one off the plane with no wait in immigration. Next time, I will pay an extra $30 for the premium seats which are still near the front. I trust that my legs will allow me to overtake anyone as ambitious as I am to clear Customs.
I keep a list of what I pay and spend in annual fees (see 2023 What I Spent (And Received) in Annual Fees). It pains me to open my wallet for such fees which is why I cancel cards without outsized perks. For other cards, like my Hyatt visa or my Chase Ink, I know I am not going to cancel them because they provide great value. I used to call Chase and say I was thinking about canceling to see if any offers would be made. In the early days, I would receive something. Now, I can’t be bothered to call. The question I have is whether I should call or at least make the attempt. And for those who do, please report any good results.
My $95 annual fee for the Hyatt card paid for this in Milan.
Are you ready for another Travel Lesson? This one is especially annoying but also not completely my fault. With limited time to explore the South Pacific before my Melbourne Residency, I only had time to visit Samoa for two days. There were two things I wanted to see in Samoa- 1. The blowholes. 2. Le Sua Ocean Trench. I didn’t do any research to see if it was logistically feasible to visit both in such a short period.
Arriving in the late afternoon, I spent the first day relaxing at the Sheraton Samoa. which is located on the island of Upolu. The next day I learned that my goal of seeing both was impossible. To see the blowholes, I needed to take a ferry to Savaiʻi, the other island in Samoa. The problem was that it happened to be a Sunday, and there was only one ferry to Savaiʻi which left at 1 PM and returned at 3 PM (see Ferry Schedule here). This meant that I would have to stay overnight there. That was impossible because my flight back to Nadi en route to Kirabti left at 5:15 AM the next day. If it were a Monday, I could have taken the 6AM ferry, arrived at 8AM and then taken the 4PM ferry back. I still would have missed seeing Le Sua Ocean Trench, but at least I could have seen the blowholes, a natural marvel that I had purposefully skipped in Tonga (see Guns & Butter: Tonga Travel Guide) and saved for Samoa.
Before embarking on this adventure, I also made the conscious decision to skip American Samoa (see TPOL Does the Unthinkable, Skips a ‘Country’). There were no affordable flights and it was logistically impossible. While my friend Lee Abbamonte said that there is not much to do in American Samoa besides smell the Starkist factory, the next time I’m so close to a ‘country’ (see Is Hawaii a Country?), I will take advantage of the proximity and smell it for myself.
Travel Lessons
Based on the flights available, the only thing I could have done not to have these regrets would have been to skip Samoa completely and spend the two nights in Fiji. Alternatively, I could have stayed longer in Samoa and American Samoa and skipped Kiribati. Given the outsized points redemption, 20,000 Avios and $37 versus $1484 out-of-pocket one-way, and isolation of Kiribati (see Extra Sweet Spot: Fiji to Kiribati on Avios), that would have been a mistake.
One thing is for sure, like my almost getting stranded experience in Cabo Verde (see Stuck on a Deserted Island? TPOL’s Trouble in Cabo Verde), I will devote at least two days on each island with an attraction that I want to see. This will account for logistical mishaps that may occur.
Overall
I have to fly all the way back to the South Pacific to visit both Savaiʻi and American Samoa. I will do so on my next residency in Sydney, Australia (see Why A Second Residency?) which is scheduled for the winter of 2025.
What is your favorite part of trip planning? Mine is putting together my Excel spreadsheet showing how much I saved versus how much someone who purchases Rimowa Luggage would spend. I have a dedicated page on my blog for these works of art (see Bus-Ted: TPOL Points & Cash Summary). As I was filling in the cells for this trip, I went to Hilton.com to see the retail price for a stay at Zemi Beach Anguilla. The cost of the stay would have been $4,076.99 for three nights. While that is shocking, what was more offensive were the taxes.
It’s an additional $866.76 in taxes, almost as much as one night. Money must not mean anything for those fancy luggage folk.
From Anguilla, I was open to the possibility of going to another island, so long as it was convenient. When I went to Skyscanner.com and searched nonstop to anywhere, no options came back. When I went to Anguilla’s Wiki Airport page, I was overwhelmed by the number of options but underwhelmed by the non-points airlines that serviced the airport with nonstop flights (see Wiki Airports: Finding Flights to the Unbeaten Path). Curious, I wondered what a flight would cost from Anguilla back to Puerto Rico. To my surprise, Silver Airways offers nonstop service for only $138. In one hour, I could be back home, ready for golf the following day. On top of that, I used my annual Capital One Venture X travel credit to pay for the flight.
I signed up for the Hilton Business Amex, met the minimum spend of 4k to receive the free night and met the minimum spend of 15k in a year to receive another free night. The aspirational redemption to maximize these certificates was at the Zemi Beach House Anguilla. What better way to spend my birthday than on a tropical paradise (see Intro: Birthday Bash Trip Report)? After reading the introduction to OMAAT’s review, I was persuaded that I should increase my stay from three nights to five nights to take advantage of the fifth free night which Hilton offers for points redemptions of that length. I went to the app and saw there was availability. I booked it.
After reading the entire review, I went back and canceled the extra two nights and contemplated saving an additional 110,000 Hilton points by staying for two nights total. Ultimately, I went back to three. While the hotel looks nice, I don’t know what I would do for five nights. Lucky mentions walking on the beach. I can do this in my backyard in Rio Mar on one of the nicest beaches in the world, Las Picuas. Lucky also describes the restaurants in the hotel and says how expensive they are. What is worse than night after night of racking up a huge restaurant tab? Lucky also mentions renting a car. This is supposed to be a lazy trip, not one for exploration. Unfortunately, my ability to remain lazy lasts for a few hours, making a car rental compulsory. Finally, in my Travel Lessons, I write, “TPOL’s rule is to stay a maximum of three nights but preferably two nights in any city. Four nights in Tenerife is an eternity (Guns & Butter: Tenerife Travel Guide (Disappointed Edition).” Why write the rule if I’m not going to stick to it?
Thank you Lucky for saving me 220,000 Hilton points.
There aren’t many direct international flights from Puerto Rico. My favorite one is Iberia to Madrid. I’ve flown it many times (see Una Vez Mas). Recently, Avianca started flying directly to Medellin. Remarkably, basic economy tickets can be purchased for as low as 7,000 LifeMile points. With an abundance of currencies that convert to LifeMiles, I figured it would be worth spending more for a business class flight. But, no matter what date I checked, I saw zero business class availability. How could this be, I wondered? Wondering did not provide a solution. Instead, I mustered up the courage and called Avianca to find out. Lately, the customer service has been quite good (contrast Avianca’s LifeMiles Chat Sucks: Are You Surprised?). I learned there are no business class seats on flights from Puerto Rico, and there are no business class seats on flights from Medellin to Miami, the next stop on my birthday trip.
Ultimately, I spent 19,680 LifeMiles + $20 for a ticket that includes both a carry-on and checked-in bag. For a 2:40 minute flight, I can endure coach while saving my points.
I will be going to Colombia more often on this route.
TPOL’s Tip: According to OMAAT, Avianca will fly business again.
