2015 Travel Year In Review

Well, it's the last day of 2015, and we've had another amazing year. Click here for the 2014 recap.

Since my father's an Asian math nerd, according to his excel spreadsheet, I have:

1. Flown approximately 33,825 miles this year (vs. 51,422 last year)
2. Taken 23 flight segments (vs. 26 last year) with only 2 longer than 8 hours
3. Flown out of 14 airports (vs. 16 last year)
4. On 2 different airlines (vs. 6 last year)
5. Traveled to 4 foreign countries (vs. 6 last year)
6. Earned United Silver status

The biggest takeaways were that we really decided to stay "local" this year oftentimes driving instead of flying. Further, unlike 2013 and 2014, we only left the country a few times in 2015. Once was a spring break to Cancun. Then we had our annual trip to visit extended family Israel (stopping in Belgium on the way home). The other was our early Christmas trip to Costa Rica a few weeks ago.

On the hotel side, we have:

1. Stayed 52 nights in hotels this year
2. Across 20 different cities
3. In 14 unique hotel brands

Our most frequent brand was Westin (18 nights across Orlando, suburban Chicago, Cancun, Kansas City and Scottsdale). We re-qualified for Starwood Platinum status, and matched to Hyatt Diamond and Hilton Diamond statuses for 2016. And we didn't realize until just now that this year we went to see baseball games at the stadiums for each of the World Series teams, the Kansas City Royals and the New York Mets.

 So as we close out the year, here's a photo snapshot of our favorite lapchild adventures this year.

W Ft Lauderdale - Stacking SPG Bonuses

Hotel Details Hotel:
W Ft Lauderdale
Dates: December 3-7, 2015
Rate Paid: $216/night
Suite Upgrade: Complimentary
Suite Rate: $737/night
Base Points Earned: 2,835 SPG points
Total Points: 19,380 SPG points

As some of you may know, it's actually quite difficult to rack up a lot of Starwood SPG points. The traditional ways are as follows:

1. Credit Card Spend. Spending on your American Express SPG credit card (earning mostly 1 SPG point per dollar, except we get 2x for Starwood hotel spend).

2. Hotel Stays. They only give you 3 SPG points per dollar (excluding taxes).

3. Welcome Amenity. And if you have Gold or Platinum status, then you can elect a welcome gift of 250 or 500 SPG points at full service properties.

4. Green Choice. If your stay is for 2 or more nights, then you can elect to forego housekeeping and earn 500 SPG points per day.

So on our most recent stay at the W Ft Lauderdale, we were lucky enough to book at a very attractive corporate rate, getting us a standard "Wonderful room" for just $195 + $21 in taxes per night. But on the day of our check-in, my father saw on his SPG app that our 4 night reservation had been upgraded to a 2 bedroom residential suite!

The W Ft Lauderdale is a multi-use property. There's the traditional hotel side, but it's also linked to a residential condo side where the units are larger, have better fixtures and are equipped with a full kitchen, dining room table, livingroom, 2 bathrooms and washer/dryer in addition to the expansive master bedroom and spa style shower.

The kitchen included stainless steel appliances, including a fridge, oven, dishwasher, appliances and standard silverware and cooking utensils.

Of course, no 2 bedroom suite would be complete without a panoramic ocean and causeway view from the 50 foot balcony.

Regular Earnings
The hotel stay started out great and for our loyalty, we'd earn a few thousand SPG points.

A. Credit Card Spend - 2,140 SPG Points ($1070 spent x 2 SPG)
B. Hotel Stay - 2,835 SPG points (Room + Food/Beverage spend x 3 SPG)
C. Welcome Amenity - 0 SPG points (chose 4 days of free $25/day of breakfast credit)
D. Green Choice - 1,000 SPG points (for 2 days of skipping housekeeping)

Total SPG points earned were 5,975 for the stay which are worth $149 to us (2.5 cents/pt).

Promotional Bonus Earnings
It was also wonderful that we were able to sign up for some special Starwood promotions that would boost our SPG point earnings for our paid stay. In this case, the promotions overlapped, so they "stacked" to further our points-earning.

1. Stay for More - Earn 2x Starpoints + 500 Starpoints

So with this promotion and our 4 night stay, we'd double the base points for our stay, which would be another 1890 SPG points (2x base rate) + 500 SPG points, totaling 2,390 SPG points worth $60.

2. Blogger - Earn 2,015 SPG points

This promotion is called the Blogger promotion, but in reality, there's no social media / online qualification required to register and earn. Since we signed up for this, we'll earn another 2,015 SPG points (worth $50).

3. SPG Keyless - Earn 2,500 SPG points for using SPG Keyless

SPG Keyless is a new feature that only works with Element, Aloft and W hotel brands. Since we were staying at the W Ft Lauderdale, our stay could have unlocked an extra 2,500 SPG points! Unfortunately, my mother's iPhone was still running the IOS 8 so the SPG App didn't have the SPG Keyless feature on it. And my father's phone was a Blackberry, so we weren't able to earn this promotion.

4. Big Brand Bonus - Up to 11,000 SPG points for staying at all 11 Starwood Brands this year

Last year, we achieved my father's personal goal of staying at all 9 Starwood brands, but there was no official (or unofficial) reward for doing so. This year, however, they acquired 2 additional brands (Tribute and Design Hotels) and announced a bonus reward of up to 11,000 SPG points if you stay at all 11 of them. Fortunately, they also reward people who fall short by giving them 9,000 points for hitting 9 of them and 10,000 points for getting to 10.

For 2015, this stay at the W Ft Lauderdale will be brand #9 for us, allowing us to earn an additional 9,000 SPG points (worth $225).

Conclusion
Regular Points Earned = 5,975 SPG points
Total Bonus Promotional Points Earned = 13,405 SPG points (worth $335+)
Total Points Earned = 19,380 SPG points (worth $485+)

SPG Fan for Life

Every morning during our stay at the W Ft Lauderdale, my parents and I would use our Platinum benefit amenity of free breakfast at the W Cafe.

While it wasn't a traditional sit-down, waiter-service restaurant, my family enjoyed being able to quickly grab some food so we could maximize our time actually enjoying Florida instead.

To start each day, we head down to the W Cafe and were met with happy smiles from their warm and engaging staff. For having SPG Platinum status, we were given $25 of breakfast credit every morning. Of course, the prices were appropriate for resort hotels, but it was plenty of credit to keep my family well fed.

We typically ordered two ham/cheese croissant sandwiches (which they heated up for us) and a few Odwalla fruit smoothies.



But the best part of breakfast was when I got to chat with the friendly staff, Yai and Hector. They kept complimenting me for being so sweet and adorable, and it definitely brought out my very best smiles for them. They'd ask me how my day was going, how old I was, what my favorite food was. It was a nice way to start each day and for me to practice my toddler conversational skills.

Well, on our final night at the hotel, we received a surprise knock on our door. A server came in with a tray of milk and freshly made cookies as well as a large stuffed white alligator.

And there was a hand written note with my name on it.

Well, as you can imagine, I was super happy with such amazing customer service that really made me feel like a VIP. I told my father the W was my favorite hotel and that I'd be loyal to Starwood forever (or at least as long as they're around before being acquired by Marriott). Thank you, Yai and Hector!

Everglades Holiday Park

Our first full day in Ft Lauderdale, we drove about 45 minutes west to the Everglades Holiday Park.

My mother had no idea what to expect aside from my father constantly repeating, "It's a Holiday Park. Probably for Christmas."

He knew full well we'd be seeing live alligators, but he knew even better my mother would have never agreed if she knew the truth.

So we arrived around 11:30AM to the Park and the parking lot was quite empty, save maybe 7-8 cars. We had our pick of parking spots and went up to the main building.

The ticket office was located inside the Gift Shop. It looked like a rustic old fishing bait & tackle shop that my grandfather would frequent on his days off. But at least they had flat screen monitors and signs for the Airboat rides.

Having an AAA membership card saved us 10% on our tickets, which cost $28/adult and $15/child (ages 3-11). As you can see, the ticket gave us an hour airboat tour through the Everglades where we'd see animals in their natural habitat, and then the 15 minute Gator Show where an expert would handle alligators in captivity (usually rescued after being found in someone's residential backyard).

The next airboat was scheduled for 12PM, so we decided to walk around a bit. Unfortunately, there's not much to walk around and see aside from the main building, the parking lot and the boat docks.

When it was time for our boat ride, they called us all to meet by the gazebo by the dock. I was first in line, so I followed the guide down the pier towards our airboat.

We boarded with about 8 other people and we were on our way down the wonderous canals of Florida. Venice, you shouldn't be threatened.

Pretty soon, we saw our first alligator floating along to us. This one was about 8 feet long and was missing a back leg after being in a fight with another alligator. With only 3 legs, they nicknamed this one "Tripod."

We also saw some lazy iguanas hanging out in the tree branches.

There were plenty more of those iguanas and other local birds, but I was fascinated with the green leaves along the water's surface. Apparently, these are not lily pads, but I can't remember what they actually are.

We were able to do a few fast runs down the wide canals and get some wind in our hair. After seeing about 3-4 more alligators, we started our way back to the dock as it was almost time for the Gator Show.

The "show" was less of an entertainment spectacle and more of a tutorial about how they rescue these alligators and care for them in captivity.

Apparently, alligators have a natural fear of humans and stay away from populated areas. But when a human feeds an alligator, it associates humans with food and starts moving towards populated areas, including people's backyard swimming pools. When the authorities are called to remove these "pests," the protocol is to put them down (since they no longer fear humans and now pose a threat).



So when these Gator Boys are called, they capture the alligator alive instead of allowing the authorities to kill them. Since the alligators cannot be re-released into the wild (they'll just return to human populated areas), they keep them contained on site and care for them.

The Gator Boys also do "tricks" with the alligators, though they claim that none of the alligators are trained. They just know that these humans are not threats to them.

I'm not sure if the alligators are happy living like that, but I suppose it is better than being put down. They're kind of sweet when you get to see them up close...though I still prefer baby tigers.