A Cheap Hotel

First off was our hotel. We stayed at the Staybridge Suites Cairo Citystars (read our review). This hotel wasn’t AMAZINGLY cheap, but at only 30,000 IHG points for a hotel in a pretty upscale area, it was a pretty good deal.

(SEE ALSO: How hotels categorize themselves (the difference between upscale and “upper upscale”))

And of course, since it was a non-US hotel, the breakfast and hotel dinner (evening reception) were way better than you would expect in a North American Staybridge Suites.

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The Big Mac Index

You might be familiar with the “Big Mac Index“, which attempts to compare cost of living in various countries by determining how much a Big Mac costs in that country. The theory is that McDonalds is tied into the overall economics and supply chain of the locations where they operate, so you can get at least a rough idea of cost of living by seeing how much a Big Mac costs.

I didn’t have a Big Mac, but our combo meal cost about 80 Egyptian Pounds, which is less than USD$3. That’s about half of what a corresponding meal would cost in the U.S.

Ubering For Nothing

But nowhere was the cost difference as dramatic as the cost of taking an Uber. When we went from our hotel to the airport, we called an Uber. The car took me to the airport (about an 8 mile / 20 minute drive). I was blown away when I saw the quote from Uber

Even after I gave a nearly 50% tip, it was EGP124. That is like $4 USD! After this ride, I joked to my wife that I couldn’t even get an Uber to my next door neighbors’ house for $4!

The Bottom Line

I suppose I probably shouldn’t have been surprised at how cheap everything was in Egypt, but I was. I was definitely not expecting it to have the same cost of living as the U.S. or Europe, but I was surprised at HOW much cheaper everything was in Egypt. The downside was that you pretty much had to pay off the police for doing just about anything, including when my Uber driver arrived to the airport complex, or when we wanted to take pictures at the Sphinx.

Have you been to Egypt? Where do you think it lands on the list of the cheapest countries?

How to get from DCA to IAD – car, taxi or Uber

You can get from DCA to IAD by taxi or Uber of course, but depending on traffic, you’re going to be either paying an arm and a leg… or TWO arms and TWO legs :-).  How far is it from DCA to IAD?  About 28 miles – see map below

Map copyright OpenStreetMap contributors

It will take you about 45-60 minutes if there’s no traffic (and there’s almost NEVER no traffic).  How much will it cost to get from DCA to IAD?  A taxi will run you $75-100, and Uber will cost anywhere from $50 to $75 (depending on traffic and surge pricing.

(SEE ALSO: What is going on with Uber?)

If you do want to take a taxi, you can generally get better rates if you book it through a service like Carmel Limo — plus you can save $4 off using this link.

There are a variety of airport shuttles as well which will cost about the same amount to get from downtown Washington DC to Dulles Airport.  You can check out GO Airport Shuttle, and use coupon code GOWEB to save $5 off your ride anywhere between IAD, DCA, BWI and points downtown.

The cheapest and best way to get from DCA or downtown Washington to IAD

My preferred way to get from DCA to IAD and what I think is the best way to get from DCA to IAD is taking public transport. Washington DC has a fairly robust transit system (Metro) and both Dulles Airport and Washington National / DCA are directly accessible from the Metro. Washington National is on the blue or yellow line, while Dulles Airport is on the Silver Line (see map below)

When I first traveled between DCA and IAD back in 2017 the Silver Line did not go all the way to Dulles but thankfully it now does. So going from DCA to IAD or from Washington DC to IAD airport can be done fairly easily and inexpensively using the Metro.

Using the Silver Line to get from Washington DC to Dulles Airport

Up until a few years ago, the Silver Line ended at the Wiehle-Reston East stop. However now the Silver Line extends out to Dulles Airport (and a few stops further), which makes it super easy to use the Silver line to get from Washington DC, DCA or anywhere in the area to Dulles Airport. You’ll connect on the Metro to the Silver Line however it is most convenient, depending on where you’re coming from. If you’re going from DCA to IAD on the Metro, you should take the blue line from National Airport to Rosslyn, then switch to an Ashburn-bound Silver Line train.

You’ll get off at the Washington Dulles airport metro station, and it is about a 5-10 minute walk from the Dulles Airport Metro station to the main part of the airport

Cost varies on where and when you’re coming from, but should be between $2 and $6. My off-peak ticket from the Smithsonian station to Dulles Airport on the metro cost $3.85.

The Bottom Line

The total trip from DCA to IAD should take you about 60-70 minutes, including the transfer at Rosslyn.  If you’re traveling off-peak with no traffic, a car ride will definitely take less time, but if you’re traveling during rush hour or peak travel times, taking the Silver Line is likely to be SIGNIFICANTLY faster (and cheaper!) to get from Washington DC to IAD.

Readers – any other tips on how to get from DCA or Washington DC to IAD?

Today I wanted to talk a bit about the Century all-natural jacket

All Kickstarter / Indiegogo links in this post may pay me a commission if you boost the project through my link.

LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket features

Here are a few pictures of the LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket

LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket video

Here’s a video showing off some of the different options and features of the LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket

LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket cost

The LIVSN Century All-Natural Jacket is currently on Kickstarter and has currently raised over USD$293,401from a $9,000 initial goal. You currently only have until May 25th (Thursday) to back the project. Here are a few of the levels that you can back the project at

• 199 Euros (about USD$215) – one Century All-Natural Jacket

There are also discounts for buying multiples.

Again, here is the link to back the Century All-Natural Jacket – it says it is scheduled to ship in December 2023

What do you think of this jacket?  Planning on backing this?  Leave your experience in the comments!

I’ve often said that one of the best ways to get a decent number of points is by signing up for new credit cards. It’s just too hard to get any appreciable number of points by earning them through everyday spending, unless you have a LOT of spending. While I do say that you should not sign up for a credit card just because some guy on the Internet says you should, one of the ways that our family has been able to travel so much is by signing up for new credit cards every couple of months. Applying for the card through our link may support the site – thanks in advance if you use these links when you apply for a new credit card.

card_name (with no annual fee)

There is currently an increased offer for the no-fee Hilton Honors American Express card.

• bonus_miles_full
• You’ll earn 7X Hilton Honors points for spending at Hilton Hotels
• 5x Hilton Honors points at U.S. restaurants, at U.S. supermarkets, and at U.S. gas stations
• 3x Hilton Honors points on all other purchases
• Complimentary Hilton Honors Silver status
• No annual fee

You’re only eligible for the bonus on this card if you have never had this card. American Express also will consider the number of American Express Cards you have opened and closed as well as other factors in making a decision on your welcome offer eligibility.

Best Ways to use Hilton Points

The best way to use Hilton points is for stays at Hilton hotels. Hilton no longer has a set award chart, which makes it difficult to get any kind of outsized value. Still, you should be able to get at least 3 or 4 nights free with 100,000 Hilton points. And remember that the 5th night is free on Hilton Honors redemptions. Remember that because Hilton doesn’t have an award chart, the number of points you’ll need varies up and down over time. So, just like keeping an eye on Southwest flights for price drops, you should carefully monitor your Hilton reservations and rebook if the cost goes down.

(SEE ALSO: Now you have to constantly check your HILTON reservations too?!?)

(SEE ALSO: Exhibit #143 why it pays to proactively check your reservations)

5 best uses of Hilton points

I had a great stay at the Hilton Beijing (with an amazing indoor swimming pool) and have also had good stays at several Homewood Suites hotels (for free hotel dinner!), including at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Orlando International Drive.

Other hotel credit card alternatives

If the Hilton Honors American Express card isn’t right for you, there are a couple of other options for hotel points

• card_name –bonus_miles_full, plus a free night each year on your anniversary and the 4th night free when redeeming on an award stay (read our review)
• card_name – bonus_miles_full (read our review)

Find other hotel cards on our top credit card offers page

The Bottom Line

KEY LINK – card_name – bonus_miles_full annual_fees

If you’re looking for a bunch of Hilton points for an upcoming stay, the Hilton Honors American Express Card can be a great option. You’ll get 100,000 Hilton Honors points plus up to $100 in statement credits for purchases at Hilton hotels in the first year of having the card. While Hilton Honors points are not as valuable as some other points, you can still get good value from the card, especially considering there is no annual fee.

• American Airlines Crew Accuses Dad Of Trafficking Daughter – One Mile at a Time
• Spirit Airlines Passengers Enraged When Flight Leaves Early – Live and Let’s Fly
• Yet another Hyatt property is playing around with award availability – Traveling For Miles (see also this example of a Marriott hotel trying to deny a breakfast benefit)

Hyatt Regency Nice (not the hotel in question…)

• ‘The Points Guy’ Takes Stake In Credit Card Company – View from the Wing
• College Student commutes from LA to San Francisco by Airplane – Flyertalk

Up for more travel news?  You might like our last recap post – Southwest Passenger Commits the Ultimate Seat Stealing Sin

I wanted to write a followup post to the recent opportunity to buy Wyndham Rewards points with a 25% discount. Normally, I do not recommend buying miles and points just “to have them”, but there are a few cases where I think that buying miles and points can make sense. The biggest one is if you have a specific redemption in mind, where buying the miles and points means that you’ll spend less than if you booked the same trip directly with cash. Even better if you can combine that with a bonus or discount on buying the points.

I wanted to write about one such opportunity where buying Wyndham points can make some sense.

Using Wyndham Points to Book Vacasa Vacation Rentals

To give a bit of background, you can use Wyndham Rewards points to book Vacasa vacation rentals at a rate of 15,000 points per bedroom (per night), and this is by far the best use of Wyndham points currently. I have easily been able to get 3 cents per point value out of using Wyndham points in this way

We stayed in a “1 bedroom” condo in the Smoky Mountains that slept 10 (pictured above), and we have stayed in a 2 bedroom beachfront condo in Maui right on the ocean using Wyndham Rewards points.

(SEE ALSO: Is This REALLY a 2 Bedroom Suite?)

In both cases, we got well over 3 cents per point in value. So with that kind of redemption in mind, it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to buy points for under 1 cent per point. After all, 60,000 points would get you 4 nights in a 1 bedroom Vacasa vacation rental, and you’re unlikely to get one of those for under the $585 you’d spend buying points. Remember too that you get 10% off your price if you have a Wyndham credit card, making it only cost 13,500 points per bedroom per night.

Booking a Vacation Rental for 73% Off

So let’s run the math on the current promotion to see how you can book a vacation rental for 73% off. I used the same “1 bedroom” condo that my family has previously booked in the Smoky Mountains. I picked a 9 day stay around next Memorial Day. The cash cost to book this condo was $4,281.46

You can book that same condo for 121,500 Wyndham Rewards points if you have a Wyndham credit card (13,500 points per night). During the current Wyndham promotion, you can get a maximum of 60,000 points for $585.

If you and a player 2 are both able to do this (And if you already have 1,500 points in the bank), it would be a total cost of $1,170.That’s a 73% discount on the cash price by selectively buying Wyndham points. Even if you don’t have a Wyndham credit card and need to pay the full 135,000 points (15,000 points per night), it’s only $1,261 to buy the points you’ll need with the current promotion.

The Bottom Line

Sometimes my “clickbait” sensor is a bit off, so maybe you might think this is a bit of a clickbait title, but I don’t think so. This is a real deal and a real opportunity that anyone should be able to take advantage of. Of course the exact amount of discount that you’ll get will depend on the exact vacation rental that you book, but I think that there’s no denying that you can get a significant discount on booking a vacation rental by buying Wyndham points, even if you don’t have any Wyndham points to start with.

KEY LINK: Buy Wyndham Rewards points with a 25% discount

Will you buy Wyndham Rewards points with the current bonus and use them for Vacasa vacation rentals? Leave your plans in the comments

Halstatt, Austria – backdrop for the movie Frozen?

The town of Halstatt, Austria is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, and many people believe that it is the inspiration for the mountain villages featured in the Disney movie Frozen.

The picturesque Alpine village is a magnet for tourists, who come to see the beauty and also (of course) to take selfies. The town has a population of around 800, but according to CNN, may see over 10,000 tourists per day in peak travel season. The town is trying to redefine itself to focus on “quality tourism”, and one of the ways they have attempted to do that is to erect a fence at one of the best spots where people take selfies. The idea was that if people couldn’t “do it for the ‘Gram”, they might decide to go elsewhere.

According to the CNN article, the fence was only a pilot project and intended to be a temporary measure. Personally, I can’t see how this would be likely to work – I imagine people will either find a way around it or damage the fence over time. And that is of course setting aside the fact of whether it even makes sense in the first place.

The Bottom Line

The town of Halstatt, Austria, which many people believe is the inspiration for the Disney movie Frozen, has put up a fence intended to block people from taking selfies and other pictures. Their hope was that the fence would deter people from stopping by just to take selfies of their picturesque mountain village.

What do you think about this “selfie-blocking” fence? Do you think it will work to keep tourists out? Leave your thoughts in the comments below

Today I wanted to talk a bit about the Foldable Lander Travel Chair, a lunar-lander and origami-inspired chair

All Kickstarter / Indiegogo links in this post may pay me a commission if you boost the project through my link.

Foldable Lander Travel Chair features

Here are a few pictures of the Foldable Lander Travel Chair

Foldable Lander Travel Chair video

Here’s a video showing off some of the different options and features of the Foldable Lander Travel Chair

Foldable Lander Travel Chair cost

The Foldable Lander Travel Chair is currently on Kickstarter and has currently raised over USD$66,761 from a $10,000 initial goal. You currently only have until May 25th (Thursday) to back the project. Here are a few of the levels that you can back the project at

• USD$69 – One Foldable Lander Travel Chair

There are also discounts for buying multiples.

Again, here is the link to back the Foldable Lander Travel Chair– it says it is scheduled to ship in July 2023

What do you think of this chair?  Planning on backing this?  Leave your experience in the comments!

The Details

This promo is going on now through May 22nd for 110% (and then 95%). Click here to navigate to the purchase page. The promotion is tiered as follows:

• Buy 4,000–29,000 points, receive a 50% bonus
• Buy 30,000–55,000 points, receive a 65% bonus
• Buy 60,000+ points, receive an 110% bonus

Purchases are processed through Points.com, which means that you’ll want to buy these with a card that maximizes everyday spend, like the Citi Double Cash.

Normally, each 1,000 Aeroplan miles would cost CAD$35 with tax included; that is 3.5 Canadian cents per mile, or around 2.6 US cents per mile at current exchange rates! Nobody values Aeroplan miles at more than 2 cents per mile, so at the normal rate, it doesn’t make sense to buy. Buying enough miles to qualify for promotion nets you an additional 110% in bonus points, which with tax brings the cost of a point down to 1.67 Canadian cents per mile or around 1.24 US cents per mile. It’s not hard to find more value than that out of Aeroplan miles.

You can use your miles on Air Canada flights or flights on any of their partners

What to do with Aeroplan miles

Here’s an example of a trip I booked with 230,100 Aeroplan miles. A trip from the US to Tokyo, with an open jaw in Osaka and ~23 hour layover in Cairo, Abu Dhabi and Seoul.

• Washington DC to Cairo, Egypt (EgyptAir, 10h30m, Business)
• Cairo, Egypt to Abu Dhabi, UAE (EgyptAir, 3h15m, Regional Business – recliner seats)
• Abu Dhabi, UAE to Tokyo, Japan (Etihad, 10h05m, Business)
• Osaka, Japan to Seoul, South Korea (Asiana, 1h50m, Economy)
• Seoul, South Korea to Abu Dhabi, UAE (Etihad, 9h50m, Business)
• Abu Dhabi, UAE to Washington, DC (Etihad, 14h20m, Business)
• Washington DC to Cincinnati (United, 1h40m, Economy)

(SEE ALSO: Booking a (nearly) round the world Aeroplan award for 2023)

About 40 hours of business class flying, and with the current 85% bonus, that would cost about CAD$4,550 (USD$3,347). While that may not be an amazing deal in the miles and points world, the cash cost of that ticket would have been several times the amount you could get it if you bought Aeroplan points.

Terms and Conditions

• Offer open to Aeroplan® Members (the “Offer”) and will take place from May 18, 2023, at 12:01:01 AM ET to May 23, 2023 at 2:59:59 AM ET (the “Offer Period”)
• This Offer to buy and/or gift Aeroplan points today and earn bonus Aeroplan points is open to Aeroplan Members in good standing that log into their Aeroplan account on after May 18, 2023 at 12:01:01 AM ET (the “Eligible Participants”). An Aeroplan Member who is logged in to their Aeroplan account prior to May 18, 2023 at 12:01:01 AM ET will not be considered as an Eligible Participant under this Offer – to be considered an Eligible Participant under this Offer, please make sure to click or push the “refresh page” button of your web/mobile browser after this time. Not an Aeroplan Member yet? Sign up here.
• “Eligible Aeroplan points” means Aeroplan points bought and/or gifted by an Eligi-ble Participant during the Offer Period pursuant to the Buy/Gift Points Program, part of the Aeroplan Program. Please visit the following link for information and terms and conditions applicable to the Buy/Gift Points Program.
• All Aeroplan points purchased and/or gifted prior to the start of the Offer Period or purchased and/or gifted with a login time before May 18, 2023 at 12:01:01 AM ET or after May 23, 2023 at 2:59:59 AM ET, are not considered as Eligible Aeroplan points pursuant to this Offer.
• Eligible Aeroplan points purchased and/or gifted pursuant to this Offer are non-refundable.

The Bottom Line

Again, here is the link to buy Aeroplan miles with up to a 110% bonus.

Even though we never recommend speculatively purchasing miles, I’m sorely tempted by this. Are any of you going to take advantage?

• American Airlines Bans “Automated Re-Shopping” Of Tickets – One Mile at a Time
• Disturbing Discovery: The Corpse of a Deceased Cruise Passenger Was Placed in a Drinks Cooler, Causing It to Rot – Miles Quest
• Southwest Airlines Passenger Steals Woman’s Seat During Boarding, ‘Finders Keepers’ – View from the Wing

• 2023 Travel Grievances – Do You Feel the Same Way? – Miles to Memories
• Mother / Daughter pilot combo for Mother’s Day – Live and Let’s Fly

Up for more travel news?  You might like our last recap post – 4 Tips To Slaughter Culture Shock