Booking using points is an art and a skill. It also requires luck. Yesterday, I wrote Housing World Cup Qatar: Adventurous or Fyre Fest? I received a comment that Hilton or Marriott awards are available randomly. I had checked before and never had luck. I tried again and was shocked to find a Hilton hotel available for 50,000 points/night. It seemed too good to be true. The only catch was that it was non-refundable. That didn’t stop me from booking.
Before writing this, I checked to see if the rates had gone up. Indeed they have, making my booking all the more sweeter.
Here are some examples of outrageous points prices during the World Cup:
I am leaving for the World Cup in a few weeks (Booked! Round 3 for the World Cup). I am flying there on QSuites, but that is where my luxurious experience ends. When I visited in October, I stayed at the Hyatt Regency and the Grand Hyatt. At 5,000 points the Hyatt Regency Doha may be the greatest value next to the Hyatt in Kota Kinabalu (see Hyatt Regency Kota Kinabalu: The Best Deal in the Hyatt Portfolio). With a suite upgrade and a stay cert, the Grand Hyatt Doha was even more compelling. Searching today, I found that the Grand Hyatt is sold out and the Hyatt Doha is going for $1300 a night. While I was not surprised by this, I was shocked by these options:
Fan Village Cabin Free Zones
2. Cruise Ship Hotel
3. Sambook Ship Dhows
I don’t know what to make of these choices. All I know is that I have to have government-verified accommodations booked in order to be allowed into the country. Fortunately, I am arriving during the knockout stage so if there is a Fyre Fest run on toilet paper, it will happen in advance of my arrival.
Don’t you hate it when you apply for a card and months later see that the same card has a better offer? Sometimes banks will match the offer. Sometimes they will tell you to get lost. I applied for the Chase Ink Unlimited. The offer was 75k URs after $7,500 spent in three months. 2.9 months later, I read that the offer was 90k URs after $6,000 spent in three months. More points and less spend? How could this be? I wrote to Chase on the secure message center, and they instantly credited me the 15,000 points. That was easy and unexpected.
In July, I stayed up all night before succumbing to sleep before waking up again to buy my tickets to the World Cup (see Is TPOL Going to The World Cup?). The time has come for the start of the greatest tournament in the world. The problem is that I had no way of getting there – until now. Last week, I randomly searched Qatar‘s website for two tickets from Miami to Doha. I was shocked that there were two flights with multiple seats available. I was even more surprised that those seats were still available after I battled Amex for a double points transfer (see Amex Transfers Points Twice! The Fight Is On!).
My new problem is how I will get home. Originally, I wanted to complete the 25,000 Mile RTW Trip which still has me in Doha but, as was the case in May, I can’t find any availability from Tokyo to Los Angeles.
Speaking of availability, World Cup Urban Turbans are available at IQKhameleon.com. I will be sporting my US one in the hopes that we get to the round of 16.
Stay Cool in Doha while supporting your team! Buy Now.
This will be the third time I’ve flown Qsuites this year. The first was on the way back from the aforementioned trip to Iraq (see Iraq Homecoming). The second was after breaking my 100 UN country count (see Out of Office: TPOL Breaking 100 in UN Countries Visited, Not Golf). Besides the return flight, these trips all have one thing in common: I have yet to complete the Trip Report!
TPOL’s Guns & Butter Travel Guide is the best way to see as much as you can in as little time as possible. Here’s how it works: A trip is composed of two factors: Labor And Lazy. The opportunity cost (what is given up) for relaxing and being Lazy is gained by being adventurous in the form of Labor and vice versa. The guide includes inefficient activities i.e., tourist traps that should be avoided and aspirational activities that are worth doing but may be impossible to see given the constraints of time and resources.
I have already written the Guns & Butter: Sicily Travel Guide. I thought it would be appropriate, given that I almost made Mt. Etna my home, to write a separate travel guide for this unique place.
When I made the reservation, I imagined that it would be like going to dinner at my grandma’s house or my best friend’s house. I thought there would be bottles of wine, more food than I could eat, and a general inquisitiveness among the owners and the guests for one another. Maybe that sort of place exists, but it surely was not at Casale Poggio del tiglio, which is Italian for DO NOT STAY HERE.
Do stay at Il Picciolo Etna, a nice golf resort minutes away from the old town of Castiglione and the wine tasting of Mt. Etna.
Do
Play Golf
With the possibility of purchasing a villa slightly higher than it was half a day before, I needed to see what Italian country club life was like.
The 10th hole, a par 3, is the most magnificent hole on the course because it stares directly at Mt. Etna, an active volcano. I fired off a beauty with my hybrid and watched it sail right at the mountain.
Buy a place here. Although it was fun to go through the process of becoming an Italian homeowner, I should have listened to my Italian who said, “This is a stupid idea.” (see 1 Euro Italian Villa: Would She Be Mine?).
A lawyer and his foolish client.
The romanticism of owning an Italian villa wore off when I visited the town and saw what was available. Here’s what 40k gets you:
Forget the idea of owning a villa and focus on exploring Castiglione.
Do
Continue wine tasting at these places:
Etna Nocciole
Tornatore
Barone di Villagrande
Gambino Winery
Il Buongustaio
If the vineyards are closed, go to Il Buongustaio, a small deli and wine store. It’s the best.
Watch Out
As we were zipping down the mountain, trying to keep up with other Pandas that were driving at higher rates of speed, a man stepped into the middle of the road with a small sign that he raised in the air. We thought it was construction and began to slow down. Stopped, our Panda was approached by two police officers. One asked for our documents and the other stood behind the car. We gave him our American driver licenses and registration. After fifteen minutes he came back to the Panda, handed us our driver licenses and said have a good night (see Mount Etna, Sicily Wine Tour: Fun & Games Until Police Stop).
Overall
I have been to Mt. Etna twice. While I won’t be living there full time, I would go back for the food and wine.
It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I don’t feel fine. In fact, I am quite angry to announce that I am now on TikTok (follow me here). How did we get here? I have no idea. Like the midterms which had 300+ election deniers on the ballot, my devolution from scholar to influencer has been years in the making. Like the state of politics, the reason for my decline is social media. Instead of reading a well-written, extensive blog post about my time in the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia (see Salt Flats, Bolivia: The Definitive Guide to Going), today’s audience prefers a five-second clip of me running through said flats composed with a trending audio clip.
Transferring points to travel partners is a one-way street. We all know this. I am conservative when it comes to transferring points because I would much rather have MRs, URs, or TYP in my bank account than in a partner account. In need of a flight to Doha for the World Cup (see Is TPOL Going to The World Cup?), I needed 38,000 more Avios points. Unfortunately, Chase and Amex did not have a transfer bonus at this time, which can be as high as 40%. Annoyed that I didn’t transfer more points when there was a promotion, I begrudgingly hit ‘confirm’ to initiate the MR to Avios transfer. Instantly, I received an error, “Your transaction did not go through. Try again later.” Since award availability can disappear instantly, I tried again right away. This time the transfer went through. However, I noticed that my MR balance had dropped substantially. I checked the account activity and saw that 38,000 points were deducted twice from my account. A feeling of nausea came over me as I contacted Amex via chat. It came as no surprise that they were utterly useless and did not accept accountability for their mistake. Indeed, the first agent tried to get rid of me by telling me to call back the following day to see what could be done. Another agent told me to contact British to see if British could reverse the transfer despite knowing that British would not be able to do so.
Angry typing leads to misspellings.
By the time I chatted with the supervisor, I had spent over an hour pleading my case. My urgency for booking my award ticket was hijacked by my quest for justice. Alas, there was no justice. Amex awarded me zero points and did not wish any mercy on my soul. The fight will continue!
At first, I was impressed that Amex owned up to the error. While I would rather have points than money, I was pleased that they were doing something about it proactively. Then I checked my statement and found this on my Marriott Bonvoy statement:
$0.14! I know that Bonvoy points are worthless, but are they this worthless? Despite what Amex said in this email, they have not taken care of everything for me. Now, I have to call and complain again. Add it to the list of gripes that I have against the world of which I have no motivation to pursue (see Complaints: How Long Till You Let It Go?).
I am glad I didn’t receive my Vietnam visa. It reinforced that I need to endure to live and travel to places of this affluence, infrastructure, and organization. Marriott Tang was a pleasant preview of this.
Stay
The 10th hole, a par 3, is the most magnificent hole on the course because it stares directly at Mt. Etna, an active volcano. I fired off a beauty with my hybrid and watched it sail right at the mountain.
