Posted by Seth on June 24, 2010 under Trip Reports | 
I travel a decent amount, but apparently not particularly broadly. I thought my list of 40+ countries visited so far was pretty decent but with my most recent booking I’m also realizing that perhaps I’ve visited as many as I have because they have been relatively easy. And then along came a deal that I couldn’t say no to.
I needed to be in San Juan, Puerto Rico in mid-August. Airfare was running around $300ish round-trip. Not great but reasonable for the route. I was pretty close to booking that trip until I noticed that there was, perhaps, a similarly priced deal that would get me a ton more frequent flyer points. Instead of just flying to San Juan and back I’ll be flying in via San Francisco, Chicago, Brussels, Accra and Philadelphia.
Yeah, I’m going from New York City to Puerto Rico via Ghana.
This won’t be my first trip to Africa – I visited Egypt over Christmas last year – but it certainly will be the first trip into what I consider a “hard” country to visit. Among other things, the list of vaccinations required is pretty significant. Typhoid, Tetanus, Hepatitis A & B, Meningococcal Meningitis and – the big one – Yellow Fever. So on Tuesday I found myself hopping between clinics, getting vaccinated and giving blood to test antibody levels for some vaccines. I’m guessing that I’ll need a few more shots in a couple weeks when I get home, but the big one has been taken care of. I got my Yellow Fever vaccination and the certification card that will serve me for the next 10 years.
I’m not a huge fan of needles, but if this is what it takes for me to explore Ghana, Benin and Togo in August and other more adventurous destinations in the coming years, so be it. My obsession with travel is much, much stronger than my aversion to needles.
Tags: Accra, Belgium, Chicago, Egypt, Flying, frequent flyer, Ghana, New York, New York City, Philadelphia, points, Puerto Rico, San Francisco
Posted by Seth on November 25, 2009 under News |
There was a somewhat surprising announcement out of London this morning from regional airline bmi: they’re making some rather significant cuts to their fleet, destinations and staffing levels. There will be a loss of nine aircraft in total – over 25% of the fleet. Two of the planes beign removed from the fleet are A330s. This essentially kills any chance of longhaul service coming back to the bmi fold.
Destinations being cut include Kiev, Ukraine; Tel Aviv, Israel, Brussels, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Brussels route will be picked up by Star Alliance and Lufthansa Group partner Brussels Airlines. There is no indication that the other destinations will see service restored via a partner or other means. Most of these cuts take effect in the second week of January 2010.
And then there are the job cuts. The carrier expects to trim about 600 employees from their ranks and did not rule out additional cuts in the future. Not good at all for those affected by these cuts.
Looking past the cuts there is a rather glaring question out there: What is left of bmi? Sadly, the answer seems to be not all that much. They still hold a ton of slots at London’s Heathrow airport but even the value of those is dropping lately. Still, with the carrier now quickly rolling into the fold of the Lufthansa group (the new CEO either just started or is starting very soon) it makes a decent amount of sense to shift what few viable assets there are around in the organization to places where they make the most sense. Sure, bmi still offers a reasonably competitive regional network around the British Isles and Ireland, and they also have some decent coverage into the Middle East and former Soviet states. And they’ve got pretty decent connections from Heathrow to other Star Alliance partners. But they’re still a small fish in a big pond and having trouble remaining competitive.
Could the carrier remain as a holding company for the slots, slowly doling them out to other airlines in the Lufthansa group (or selling them for real money)? Few to zero direct operations but most of the routes would still be covered and customers would still have options within the alliance.
Things aren’t looking particularly great over at Donnington Hall. They haven’t been for a while now and it doesn’t seem that they’ll be turning a corner anytime soon. Not good at all.
I’m not panicking about my stash of points in their program. Yet. But I am looking at cashing in a couple redemptions sooner than not just to hedge my bets on their rather advantageous reward chart. The points won’t just disappear but the Miles+More scheme isn’t as rewarding for me.
Posted by Seth on January 21, 2009 under Uncategorized |
When I told a friend that I’d be in Belgium over the weekend he mentioned that he would be going a little bit later this year and asked if I could, among other things, recommend “architecture, historical, Jewish, or cultural spots in Bruges.”
 |
| The Bruges train station. |
Well, I was in Bruges, and the closest I came to any of those things that I think was truly worth visiting is a bar. Does that count that as a cultural spot?
Bruges actually has some great architecture. It is a small town (no more than a 30 minute walk end to end) and it seems to be stuck in the 1700s architecture-wise. The whole town has a great, quaint feel to it that makes it a lot of fun to wander around and try to get lost in. And getting lost isn’t too hard thanks to the many small streets and complete lack of anything resembling order in the street plan.
 |
 |
 |
| The architecture in Bruges is more or less stuck in the 1700s. |
Looking out on the canals of Bruges. |
A quiet conversation and smoke on the canal. |
And there are a couple squares in town with lots of people and beautiful buildings surrounding them.
 |
| Guy on a bike. Typical for Belgium. |
So the architecture and history parts are easy. But what about looking for culture? I am pretty sure that the chocolate museum doesn’t count (and it really is just “meh” overall as an experience). But as the afternoon started to wind down we managed to find our way to ‘t Brugs Beertje.
The place is more than just a bar really. It is a truly local watering hole – far more locals than tourists were inside. And the beer selection was out of this world while remaining wholly Belgian. They have well over 100 beers from 60 different brouerij (breweries) across Belgium. I think that the Delirium Cafe has a similarly broad selection, but it is way more of a “scene” than a place for relaxing conversations with good friends and good beer. By the time we left, 90 minutes after they opened on Sunday afternoon, the place was packed.
 |
| Inside ‘t Brugs Beertje, a phenomenal bar in Bruges. |
 |
| Mmmm….beer. |
There was also the Wall of Beer that we saw. Maybe that is more cultural?
No? Certainly a statue has to be considered cultural, right?
Who knew that the Belgians were such fans of Harry Caray.
A few more photos from Bruges here.
Posted by Seth on January 3, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Several months ago a friend had a reasonably good idea: a Belgian beer drinking excursion in the middle of the winter. In Belgium. Piece of cake. Just buy a plane ticket to Brussels and go drinking. Or not. Sure, that would get me there and I’d get to have my beers with friends, but it just isn’t that great of an adventure.
Looking at various fares to get there I discovered that there were a lot of creative routings that I could pursue and it wouldn’t really require any extra costs on my part. And give the option for greater adventure at the same price, why not?
I’ve got a friend in London that I haven’t seen since her wedding in Turkey back in September. Since I’m going to be so close anyways, planning a stop in London to see her seemed like a good idea. A quick check of the fares showed that adding the London stop was basically the same price as the non-stop flight, so I added that to the itinerary. I’m also in seed of additional pages for my passport as it is filling quite quickly. I’ll be stopping off at the US embassy in London, assuming I have time and can find it, to address that problem, too.
Getting from London to Brussels has many options available, from frequent jet service on a number of airlines to Eurostar service to prop plane service. So many choices. How to pick just one? By random aircraft and airports served, of course!
It seems that the flights between London and Brussels were about the same price as flights from London to a number of other cities near Brussels, including Antwerp, Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Luxembourg. Hmm…Luxembourg. I passed through a few years back, but never stopped off to actually see the Grand Duchy. Now I’ve got the perfect opportunity to do so. And, again, no real extra cost for the extra stop. Awesome. Even better is that the flight is operated from London’s City airport, which is supposed to be quite fun to fly out of. Book me a window seat for that flight!
Add on a quick train trip from Luxembourg to Brussels and now I’m ready to meet up as expected for good Belgian beer. We even are throwing a side trip to Bruges into the mix, again on the train. Why? Because it is there.
So my easy NYC-Brussels-NYC trip became somewhat more complicated Newark-Heathrow, London City-Luxembourg, Brussels-Newark routing, with trains added in between to connect the dots. A bit more complicated, to be certain, but way more fun, too.
