Europe Day 2: Amsterdam, Canal Boat Tour

Monday July 15, 2019

It was a very short night. We got up at 9:30 am and had to be checked out of our room by 10 am. After gathering our stuff together we sat downstairs in the Bistro area again for coffee and breakfast pastries. We got another day pass for the tram then moved on to our next hotel, the Holiday Inn Express City Center which was at the Mr Visserplein stop closer in towards the middle of the city. Our room here wouldn't be ready until 2 pm but they were happy to store our luggage so we could go sight seeing for the day.

Today Hubs and I had booked a canal boat tour with PureBoats. There  are a multitude of canal boat tour operators in Amsterdam. Some of the larger boats are "Hop On, Hop Off" tours which stop at the major landmarks with audio commentary. What appealed to me about this tour was that it was a small boat that would offer a more personal experience and it included snacks and drinks.

We took the tram again a couple more stops towards Centraal Station and got off at the Dam stop. We then wandered through the Jordaan neighborhood before finding our boat.

Chris was our skipper as well as our guide. He was excellent! He was an interesting person himself, born in Malaysia to Kiwi parents, he attended grade school in New Zealand, high school in the Netherlands, university in Great Britain, the worked as a cheese seller in France before coming to the Netherlands. He was planning to move to Australia but his girlfriend didn't want to move so, instead, he bought a 100 year old sailboat which he restored and now lives on. His love is boats. He commented that the boat we were in was the oldest boat of its kind on the canal right now. The current owners restored it and it's lovely except that it won't go in a straight line.

Including ourselves there were 9 other passengers - a couple from Moscow, a couple from Munich, and a family of 3 from Minneapolis.

Rather than pointing out the local attractions Chris told us more about the history of the city and some amusing stories.

We passed a houseboat that had been an Airbnb... that is until a group of American teenagers threw a party and tipped it over! You can see the waterline on the outside of the boat where it had been submerged.

...then there was the spot where, just the week before, a "talented" French woman had accidentally driven her rental car into the canal, sinking BOTH her car as well as the boat that was tied up on the canal. There are areas of the the canal where there are no barriers, just sidewalk, then canal.

There are Dutch elm trees which line the canals on both sides. The city founders planted them to there 400 years ago because their roots go straight down and stabilize the banks.

The Dancing Houses of Amsterdam

They tilt as the foundation shifts

After our tour, we wandered around looking for more substantial food and found The KoepelCafe.

Here I tried the Bitterballen, a Dutch snack.

By the time we were done it was early evening. We checked in with G to see how her first day had gone and asked if she wanted to hang out with us before we left town in the morning. She did. We went back to the Hostel and met up with her, then back into town for dinner.

We found a restaurant on the square at the Rembrandtplein stop. We sat outside which was a mistake as we got too cold. Hubs and I both got grilled meat items. Quite frankly, my dinner of lamb chops was horrible. Dry and over cooked. We wandered around a bit more after that and found a little bakery for dessert.

The building in the background is home of the Dutch National Ballet

where G danced while she was in Amsterdam

Again, it was 10 pm by the time we got back to our hotel. We had a nice surprise waiting for us in our room. I had let the hotel know that Hubs and I were celebrating our wedding anniversary in Europe.

The view from our room...

Amsterdam is beautiful!

Europe Day 1: Amsterdam, the Longest Day

Saturday July 13 - Sunday July 14, 2019

Our first day was the longest day. Actually, it was a 36 hour day that started on Saturday July 13th...

I got up at 7:30 am on Saturday to shower and finish some final packing details, then it was off to the Johnson County fairgrounds to drop off G and my entries for the fair. The fair runs July 14th - 20th this year. G and I both found friends willing to pick up our entries at the end. G entered two drawings in the Junior Fine Arts category. My only entry was my Persian Tiles Eastern Jewels Afghan in the Crocheted Afghan category. This is my State Fair entry too so I was fortunate to find someone to pick it up from the County Fair and drop it off at the State Fair.

Once our entries were dropped off it was GO time!

We had an uneventful flight from Indy to Newark that was just short of 2 hours. G and I barely had time to grab some Auntie Anne's pretzels from the slowest pretzel stand in North America before boarding our flight to Amsterdam.

Our flight to Amsterdam was 8.5 hours. We flew Economy so it was a bit uncomfortable but all in all uneventful. I spent my time watching a documentary (Free Solo, highly recommend it) and trying to sleep. I never could get comfortable enough to sleep though.

For this international flight, we were first offered beverages... and hey, did you know, you can have complimentary beer and wine on an international flight on United? We then had dinner. G and I  got the spinach and mushroom manicotti with eggplant. Hubs got the chicken in parmesan sauce. About an hour before landing we were offered a light breakfast of yogurt and a croissant.

We landed in Amsterdam Schiphol Airport at 7am Amsterdam time... so 1am "real" time.

The first thing that struck me was how quiet and empty the airport was. There was no line at passport control. We went through an exit at Customs that said "Nothing to Declare" and found ourselves out of the gate area. Just like that. No paperwork. No one to talk to... we were in Amsterdam!

Next order of business was finding an ATM. I used my Schwab debit card to withdraw some Euros. Schwab does not charge a transaction fee and will refund me any ATM fees so it's essentially getting the exact exchange rate this way and not having to pay any currency exchange fees.

We then purchased train tickets from the airport to Amsterdam Centraal Station for 5,50 Euros each. Centraal Station is like Grand Central Station for all the trams (trollies) in Amsterdam. We purchased one day passes for 8,00 Euros each, then found the #14 line which would take us to the Hostel we would be staying at, hubs and I for the night, and G for the entire 2 weeks.

Again I was struck by how quiet and empty Centraal Station was...

Yes, it was pointed out to me that it was 8am on a Sunday morning but still.... there was so much silence.

And there were bicycles. Hundreds and hundreds of bicycles...  but no people.

The Stayokay Hostel was a short walk from the Zeeburgerdijk tram stop. Check in was not until 3 pm but they were happy to store our luggage.

Stayokay Hostel

Our plans for the day were to go to the A'dam Lookout and have lunch at the Moon restaurant. I prepurchased tickets for the A'dam Lookout using my Citi Thank You points. G and I also paid an additional 5,00 Euros each once we got there to ride the Over The Edge swing located on the A'dam Lookout's skydeck. It is billed as Europe's highest swing and goes back and forth at a height of 100 meters over the edge of the A'dam Tower. The tower itself is 20 floors high.

Since the A'dam Lookout didn't open until 10 am and our lunch reservations weren't until 1:30 pm, we actually spent several hours at the Hostel eating and getting our bearings. The Hostel had some nice common areas to sit and relax. Hubs also was having difficulty getting the British SIM card to work in his phone so we needed time to just sit.

We finally got moving again and took to the tram back over to Centraal Station, to then took the free ferry over the Het IJ to the A'dam Lookout. Oh, and it also started spitting rain...

Perhaps the rain was a blessing in disguise. In many of the reviews I had read about the A'dam Lookout people had complained about how crowded it was at the top. Not today!

I'm glad G suggested we do the swing BEFORE eating. In my exhausted sleep deprived state (we'd been up for over 24 hours now) I actually got a bit nauseous once we started swinging.

We took more photos on the skydeck after swinging, then moved indoors to the observation deck on the 20th floor. It was only 12:45 pm by then but we went down to the Moon Restaurant on the 19th floor to see if we could get in early and were delighted to find that we could.

The Moon Restaurant is a revolving restaurant that provides panoramic views of the city as you dine.
G ordered the Monkfish. I ordered the Beef Shoulder and Hubs got the Pigeon.

Pigeon

So it was elf food. Tasty pretty elf food.
Not some place I would frequent again, but I'm glad we tried it.

We soon discovered that eating out in Europe takes FOREVER! We got back to the Hostel at 3:15pm. By now it was time for G to check into her program and all the other dancers had arrived so I put our bags away while she checked in.

Hubs and I got a 2 person room for the night for 60,55 Euros. G would be sharing a room with 4 other girls. There were two girls from Italy, one from Canada, and one from South Korea.

Once all of us got settled we rested for a bit before reconvening downstairs. We decided we were too tired to go back out for dinner so we are at the bistro at the Hostel. The food was great. Hubs got fish and chips, I got a margherita pizza, and G got a Caesar's salad. G collapsed in her room after that. As for Hubs and I, well... we went back into town.

We took the tram to the Rembrandtplein stop where we had seen a plethora of restaurants around a square. We spent some time walking around, then found some ice cream for dessert.

We got back to the Hostel around 10 pm. It was still light out. I commented that the last time I had felt like this we had been vacationing in Alaska.

After 36 hours, we went to bed.

Travel Hacking Europe: The Beginning - How I Got There

For those that are new to this blog, I am not a travel blogger. This is simply a blog about my life - my interests and the dreams I chase. It helps me live my life to the fullest and hopefully shows that anyone can accomplish their dreams with knowledge and perseverance.

The first time I brought up travel hacking here was on a post last year where I talked about all the Rabbit Holes I'd fallen down lately (post is HERE). Since then I've been steadily racking up points and dreaming of vacations. So here is what I've learned and the details of my first big travel hacked vacation.

Some travel hackers will tell you to start with a vacation goal in mind, then work towards getting points for where you want to go and where you want to stay. For me though it's more about finding the time to go somewhere and what the rest of my family is doing. I decided to start with Chase Ultimate Reward (UR) points because they were the most flexible. I wouldn't be tied into an airline or hotel chain this way. Chase UR points are most valuable when you have one of their Sapphire cards because these are the only cards where you can transfer your points to a travel partner. The other cards that offer UR points are actually cash back cards. The catch is that the Sapphire cards also come with an annual fee. The good thing though is that once you have a Sapphire card you can transfer points from any of your other Chase cards to your Sapphire card.

So... here was my strategy. Since I didn't have a goal trip to start with, I simply wanted to rack up as many "free" points as I could. Once I had a decent number of points I would then open a fee card so I could transfer points to wherever I needed them to go.

First card I opened (August 2017) was a Chase Freedom. No annual fee and 15,000 UR points after spending $500 in 3 months. Easy peasy.

Next card I opened (November 2017) was a Chase United Explorer Mileage Plus card. It has an annual fee of $95 but is waived the first year. It earned 50,000 United miles for spending $2000 in 3 months plus 5,000 miles for adding an authorized user (for free) and comes with a $95 TSA or Global Entry credit plus two United lounge passes. I think it also gets you a free checked bag. I did not fly United that whole year I had the card so I didn't use the lounge pass or bag benefit.

The reason I opened the United card was because I had collected about 60,000 United miles over a very very long time (like YEARS). I had to have activity in my account every 18 months to not lose those miles. I didn't want to lose the miles but there were many years I was hard pressed to do something to keep them. In the past I had ordered gift cards and magazines with a couple hundred miles. Lately I'd been using the gas station option where I linked my BP rewards card to my United account and got miles for each gallon of gas I pumped. (This option goes away on 9/30/19) Getting a United branded credit card was an easy way to keep my miles active and not think about it. I had no intention of paying an annual fee. What I got out of this card was free TSA precheck, 55000 free miles, and at my one year anniversary I called up Chase and had my card downgraded to the no fee United Mileage Plus card. You can only get the no fee United Mileage Plus card if you've had the United Explorer card. The no fee card still earns miles but you have none of the other benefits of the Explorer card.

Besides for the flexibility of UR points, the reason I started with Chase cards is because Chase has a 5/24 rule - meaning you can only open 5 credit cards (and this means ANY credit card, not just Chase cards) in 24 months. If you try to open a Chase card after opening 5 or more other cards in the preceding 24 months you will be denied. HOWEVER, there are some exceptions to this rule. I learned that business cards do not count for your 5 cards, BUT, if you already have opened 5 cards in 24 months you will be declined for a Chase business card. Capice?

So, next card I opened (May 2018) was the Chase Ink Business Cash card. No annual fee and 50,000 UR points after spending $3000 in 3 months. I used my Etsy shop as my business and applied as an individual proprietor.

I pulled the trigger in July 2018 and opened a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. The offer at that time was 50,000 UR points after spending $4000 in 3 months and the $95 annual fee was waived the first year (It has changed since then; now it is 60,000 points but you are immediately charged the fee). I had amassed over 120,000 United miles by now (including the ones I started with) and with the Sapphire bonus I would have over 100,000 UR points. I figured that would be enough to go on a nice vacation somewhere in the next year, then if I wanted, I'd down grade the Sapphire card to a no fee Freedom card or pay the $95 annual fee if I felt the card was worth it.

Having been on my vacation now, I am DEFINATELY paying the $95 to keep this card!

My husband and I both turned 50 in 2018. I had thought maybe we would go on a nice tropical vacation. We could never find a good time though... then I thought we'd take the family to Europe. Well, I'd need more points for more people.

In December 2018 I found out about the Chase Ink Business Unlimited card. Almost too good to be true. 50,000 UR points after spending $3000 in 3 months and no annual fee. It was added in a heartbeat.

I had thought about getting an IHG branded Chase card for some time for the same reason I got the United card. I had a handful of IHG points and they were always on the verge of expiring. What prevented me from getting the card earlier was because their current card has an annual fee of $89 and, well, so far I had managed to rack up 165,000 UR points and 55,000 United miles without paying a single annual fee... Also, I had heard that IHG redemptions just weren't that great. However, I also learned that there were far more options for better IHG redemptions in Europe. Other perks included a free hotel night credit on your credit card anniversary and a $95 TSA or Global Entry credit.

The deciding factor ended up being Europe. My younger daughter is an aspiring ballet dancer. She was accepted into a two week summer program with the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam. I didn't want my 16 year old to fly to Europe by herself so my husband and I decided we'd fly over with her, check her into her housing and make sure she knew how to get around the city, then spend the rest of the time vacationing while she stayed in Amsterdam.

I got the Chase IHG card in March 2019. It offered 80,000 IHG points after spending $2000 in 3 months and an additional 40,000 IHG points if you spent a total of $5000 in 3 months. I got billed the $89 on my first statement. On the flip side, I used the $95 TSA credit right away by getting TSA pre-check for my daughter.

So now I was at 4/24 for personal credit cards. The other Chase cards I am interested in are the Chase Southwest Business card and the Chase Southwest personal card however I'm not planning on applying for those until this December. If I get those in December and complete my bonuses in January 2020 I can get a Companion Pass for my husband that will be good until December 2021. Plus, my Chase Freedom and Chase United Mileage Plus cards will have fallen off the 24 month mark by then... but back to the present. I thought I'd get one more card before our trip.

I left Chase and got the American Express branded Hilton Honors card in April 2019. It offered 100,000 Hilton Honors points after spending $2000 in 3 months.

So, in summary, these are the bonus points or miles I earned after travel hacking for 21 months:

165,000 UR points
55,000 United miles
120,000 IHG points
100,000 Hilton Honors points
2 free TSA pre-checks

I paid $89 for one annual fee.

The total in minimum spending requirements for all 7 cards was $19,500 over 21 months. This averages to less than $930 a month. In other words, I spent no extra money than I would normally spend, but for putting the spending on the right credit card I got a whole lot of benefit. I charge EVERYTHING to my credit cards - car insurance, utilities, gas, groceries. Everything. As long as the card gets paid off in full every month you will come out ahead.

The totals above also do not include all the points and miles I accrued by using the cards for their minimum spends. Many of the cards also offered bonus categories where I got anywhere from 2-5 times the number of points per dollar spend for travel, restaurants, gas, groceries, etc. Adding in the UR points that I had earned by actually buying things over the last 21 months I had over 252,000 UR points.

Now to spend the points!

First order of business was plane tickets for 3 people. We did not have any flexibility with our dates and since I already had a bunch of pre-existing United points I decided to find flights on United. There may have been a "cheaper" way to do this by using United partners but I have yet to master that part of travel hacking so I just went with what was on the United website. The other challenge is that our "home" airport is Indianapolis. There are very few direct flights in and out of Indy...

What I found...
Indianapolis to Amsterdam on Saturday July 13: 30,000 United miles + $5.60 in taxes per person
-pretty darn reasonable
Amsterdam to Indianapolis on Sunday July 28: You might as well forget it! Something like 85,000 miles
Amsterdam to Chicago was slightly more reasonable at 55,000 United miles + $51.23 in taxes
All the flights back looked awful. The one we chose had a 7 hour layover at Dulles (Washington DC).

I ended up booking our return flight back to Chicago and figured we could get a Mega bus ride back to Indy. Then, my husband came up with a better option. Unfortunately it was several days later and I could no longer change my United plans without a fee. He found a Southwest flight from Dulles into Indy that left 3 hours after we landed in Dulles. We would have to go through customs in Dulles so we would have all our bags with us. We decided to "throw away" our last leg from Dulles into Chicago and get on the Southwest flight. Hubs is not a travel hacker but he just happened to get a Chase Southwest credit card this year that offered a Companion Pass after a $3000 minimum spend. He bought his ticket and my daughters with points and I flew free + $5.60 tax each.

So, total for 3 round trip tickets from Indianapolis to Amsterdam:
255,000 United miles + $170.49 tax
26,266 Southwest miles + $16.80 tax
I had to transfer 118,000 UR points to my United account to cover the tickets

Once in Amsterdam my daughter would be staying at the StayOkay Hostel and she had a meal plan. All this was included in her summer program costs so I am only going to list what my husband and I did for lodging. In parenthesis is what the dollar cost of the room would have been.

Day1: Stayokay Youth Hostel - $68.22 for a 2 person room
 - We decided we'd spend the first night where our daughter was staying so we knew she'd be settled in. She would be in another part of the Hostel that had 6 person rooms.

Day 2: Holiday Inn Express Amsterdam City Hall - 35,000 IHG points (175 Euros)

Day 3: Holiday Inn Express Dusseldorf City - 20,000 IHG points (81 Euros)
 - We drove to Germany on Day 3

Day 4: Holiday Inn Express Dusseldorf City - 20,000 IHG points (81 Euros)

Day 5: Holiday Inn Express Dusseldorf City - 20,000 IHG points (81 Euros)

Day 6: Hilton Doubletree Amsterdam Centraal Station - 60,000 Hilton points (199 Euros)
- We drove back to Amsterdam on day 6

Day 7: Hotel de la Paix Tour Eiffel - 20,763 UR points ($259.54)
- We drove to Paris on day 7

Day 8: Hampton Inn Amsterdam Airport - 25,000 Hilton points (87 Euros)

Day 9: The Wild Atlantic Lodge in Ballyvaughn, Ireland - 9608 UR points ($120.10)

We flew into Dublin, Ireland on Day 9. I transferred 51,000 UR points to KLM for round trip plane tickets for two plus $86.18 in taxes

Day 10: The d hotel in Drogheda, Ireland - 8784 UR points ($109.80)

Day 11: Carnegie Court Hotel in Swords, Ireland - 13,090 UR points ($163.63)

Day 12: Moxy Amsterdam - 25,000 Marriott Bonvoy points ($125)
- We flew back to Amsterdam on day 12

Day 13: Moxy Amsterdam - 25,000 Marriott Bonvoy points ($125)

Day 14: Courtyard by Marriott Amsterdam Airport - 25,000 Marriott Bonvoy points ($146)

Day 15: We flew home

Marriott Bonvoy points were my husband's.
I booked the hotels in Paris and in Ireland through the Chase travel portal. This was a nice option because there were very few chain hotels in Ireland.

Summary of spending for 3 round trip plane tickets from Indianapolis to Amsterdam, 2 round trip plane tickets from Amsterdam to Dublin, and 14 nights lodging:

221,245 UR points
137,000 United miles
26,266 Southwest points
95,000 IHG points
85,000 Hilton Honors points
75,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
$348.01 cash paid for taxes + Hostel on Day 1

Woohoo!! Stay tuned to hear about what we actually did each day.

Accountability Days 28-30 and Beyond

So obviously this is a catch up post but here's the summary...

Day 28 (6/18/19)
I worked overnight so today was a scheduled rest day.

I got home at 7:30 am and found that I had a message from my email provider that they had set up a new link for me to access my email. It had been sent to me at 2 am and was only good for 24 hours. I immediately went about accessing my email, then spent the next 3 hours saving everything I felt I needed to secure from that email address as Lord knows whether I might get locked out again...

Finally, around noon, I literally dropped over from exhaustion.

Day 29 (6/19/19)
I did not get rested yesterday and it was blazing hot today.
Did a 3 mile run and felt like I was never going to make it back home. I literally had to walk parts of mile 2 and 3. Ran 11:27, 12:10, 12:30.
Worked 2 pm - 11pm in Bloomington after that.

Day 30 (6/20/19)
I was supposed to do a progression run today but that just didn't happen.
I woke up exhausted.
Got up and took G downtown for her dance class by 9 am, then headed straight to Morgan Hospital for a meeting from 10-11am. Came home just long enough to change clothes and went to my Orange Theory class by noon.
I actually felt a little better by the time I was through with my class, but after coming home and showering, all I could do for the rest of the day is lay on the couch.


So 30 days was a start. More to come.