How I Lost 5 Thousand Pesos

Here’s the good news – just about 24 hours after saying good-bye to Astrid at home in London, I arrived at my destination (hotel) in Santiago, Chile safely and soundly and even with my checked luggage.  This was after a 12-hour flight from London to Sao Paulo, a relatively quick transfer hustling from one terminal to another, and 4 more hours on to Santiago, then a bus and metro trip to the hotel.

The bad news, though, is that I got ripped off for 5 thousand pesos in the process.  I had read all about the problems paying with large bills and receiving change in Argentina, but I wasn’t really thinking about it in Chile when I bought bus tickets for my boss and I outside the Comodoro Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport in Santiago.  Savvy worldwide business traveler, or schmuck?

The other good news – while it might sound like a lot, 5000 Chilean pesos is actually only about $10.50 (and the bus + metro + conned money was still way cheaper than a taxi!).  You see, the bus tickets were 2800 pesos, and I gave the guy a note for 10 grand.  But, he only gave me change as if I’d given him 5k.  Of course, I didn’t realize this until I was already well on the bus and speeding away toward central Santiago.  I suppose it could have been an innocent error…but what happened later in the day made me pretty sure it wasn’t.

My boss and I decided to pick up some soda and water as we typically do, stopping at a small independent convenience store between the metro station and our hotel.  He paid this time, and the total was about 2400 pesos; this time he used a 5000 peso note, but only received about 1600 pesos in change.  I was watching the register and the guy and told him, that isn’t right – he asked about it and the guy first pretended like he had given back two 1000 notes, and when that was clearly not hte case he then made a fuss getting some supposed manager to come over and carry out a long process to open the register and give him another 1000 note.  So, once bitten twice shy…which made me feel a bit better about earlier.

You can bet that I will be counting change quite precisely for the rest of the trip!  Now it is on to get some quick sleep for my 5:30 wakeup call and an 18-hour day ending in Buenos Aires at about midnight tomorrow.

A very large note! After stopping at the best London sketchy-but-cheap currency exchange, exactly 207,000 Chilean pesos were burning a hole in my pocket on the bus on the way home

 

On Driving Lessons

So since I passed my theoretical test, I’ve begun taking driving lessons.  Despite making me feel like an awkward teenager again, I do believe they are making me a better driver. Perhaps that because I no longer feel like I’m invincible (read: stupid) and I understand more about the costs of car ownership (read: expensive and ethically challenging).

But I thought I’d post a few funny stories from my recent lessons, because I haven’t blogged in a while and you deserve a funny on this dreary Wednesday.

First off, driving on the wrong side of the road is not a problem. It’s not an issue in the slightest way. I’ve never once gone over to the wrong side, or been tempted to turn into the wrong lane, or anything. Your mind just makes the switch, and it’s surprisingly easy.

It’s also not hard to shift with my left hand. In some ways, I actually prefer it. Because I’m right-handed, my right hand has better motor control, so it does better on the steering wheel. And my left-hand has more strength, so it does better with the gear shifting.

Other than that though, the layout of the car is exactly the same. You still clutch with your left, and break and gas with your right. The layout of the gearbox is also the same, 1st gear is top left, then down to second, etc. Easy peasy.

Where I run into trouble is with the road signs. There are LOTS of them, and they don’t always make sense.  The universal sign for “don’t do something” is a red circle with a line through it – think of the No Smoking sign, right?  So if you see a sign that looks like that, but WITHOUT the red line across it, I would assume that it means that thing is allowed. Makes sense, right?  But no.  This sign, below, means “No bicycles allowed”

But THIS sign, below, means No Right Turn.

It’s so inconsistent!  It’s killing me!  Argh. Obviously I can remember the difference, but it seems like such a good example of BAD informational design.

Okay. My second story is actually funny, I promise. My driving instructor was talking about the kinds of drivers that you have to watch out for:  motorcyclists, white delivery vans, and then he said “boy racing”.  I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, so I asked. He said it was teenage boys who line up their cars on a straight stretch of road, and race down it at really high speeds.  I responded “Oh, you mean drag racing!”,  and he said “No, not boys in skirts. Just boys. Although sometimes girls do it, too”.   And there you have a perfect example of how British English and American English are not really the same language.

Have a good Wednesday!  (One week the driving test, BTW. Wish me luck!)

Cancelling the Maldives (or how we considered all of the factors and made the right decision)

As Astrid told you before Christmas, we booked an amazing holiday for May in the Maldives.  While Astrid gave you a couple of glimpses of what The Deeves (as I’ve come to fondly refer to them) look like, and that it is a “fancy-schmancy resort in the Indian Ocean,” she didn’t explain why we chose that.  Well, this is the back story of how we got to the point of planning and getting excited about going there, and then the new story of how our excitement turned to concern, ultimately leading to cancellation, and the emergence of a new plan.

One of the many island resorts that comprise The Maldives. Acocording to Wikipedia, there are 192 inhabited islands out of 1,192 total islands, with a total population of about 330,000 (or slightly more than the population of the city of St. Louis).

Well, it all started with a twofer (geez, how many stories start that way, I wonder?).  You see, my British Airways AMEX card (that I finally signed up for, despite general reluctance, to use for work travel expenses) gives you a 2-4-1 voucher when you hit a certain amount of spending in a year; some bloggers have claimed that this is the “most valuable perk in the UK loyalty card sector”.  I should probably note that the UK is fairly far behind the US in terms of the crazy credit card bonuses and what not that have spawned a huge industry of bloggers and other assorted nutters.  If you don’t know, there are legions of people applying, getting, and ditching all sorts of credit cards (it is called “churning”) in the US to capture the sign-up bonuses and minimum-spend bonuses and other giveaways.

Anyway, I digress.  We thought that, since it was a genuine by-product of old-fashioned blood, sweat, and tears, we should try to benefit from it – and who doesn’t like something for nothing?  Well, it turns out that it isn’t quite that simple (as explained in the 1,150-word terms and conditions!).  While the 2-4-1 means that you can book a reward ticket (i.e. using air miles) for two people for the “price” of one, it comes also with a number of caveats.  As the recipient, I have to be one of the two people travelling, and we have to be travelling on the exact same ticket (same dates/times/locations).  That might not sound like a problem, but as we like to plan vacations that build onto my work trips, it won’t really work for that.  The travel has to originate in the UK and can only be on British Airways planes (and not on any oneworld alliance or other codeshare partners).  This means that we are limited to travelling from London to a destination served directly by British Airways.

The worst part, though, is the bane of existence for all miles and points aficionados – you still have to pay the taxes and fees!  This is a double-whammy leaving from the UK and with British Airways, as Britain has some of the highest departure taxes in the world, and BA then piles on some of the highest fuel surcharges in the world.  In sum, what this means is that reward tickets using air miles – at least with British Airways flights from London – are nowhere near actually being free.  A “free” round-trip ticket to New York might only require 40,000 miles, but it also will cost you about £380 (about $600) in taxes and fees.  Alternatively, you can usually buy a ticket for between £400 and £500 ($650-$800) with a reasonable amount of notice (and earn miles in the process!).  Now, the equation is a bit different for premium-cabin travel; while LON-NYC would cost take 80,000 miles in business class and about £620 (nearly $1000), the cheapest ticket you can buy is going to be at least £1500 ($2400), and probably over £2000 ($3200).

BA flies to about 75 non-European destinations from London, including 20 airports in the US.

So, back the The Deeves.  We scanned the map of British Airways destinations from London and tried to find something that was appealing and that would be good value.  I should note that European destinations are already (quite helpfully) available for a great deal with a pretty small number of miles and a reduced, fixed total payment for taxes and fees, meaning that there is no real value in using the 2-4-1 for any of these.  Instead, long-haul is the way to go – and our eyes lit up when we saw Sydney on the map (200,000 miles per person for the 42-hour round-trip journey in business class).  But it turns out that people book that as soon as it is open, a year in advance – and the £800 (nearly $1300) in taxes and fees per person are nothing to sneeze at either!  Ultimately, we tried a bunch of possible destinations, and wanted something relaxing and something that we might not otherwise do.  I had read about the Maldives in numerous travel blogs as an exotic destination, and a good one to go to on points and miles – and I happened to find availability in premium economy for some viable dates in May.  BA flies 3x/week from London Gatwick to Male (the capital of The Deeves), which takes about 10 hours – overnight going there and daytime coming back.

Perfect!  We booked the flights for 75,000 miles (getting the 75k for the second person free) and £930 (nearly $1500) in taxes and fees, giving us four nights there.  Still, the retail price for what we booked was £2738 (nearly $4400), and even tickets in economy would have been more than £1600/$2550.  So, we were quite pleased with that value, and started to get excited about planning.  The next most important thing was accommodations – especially in The Deeves, where in most cases each resort is its own island.  Most of the resorts are quite well-regarded, but of course also quite expensive; we’re talking several hundred £s / pushing $1000 per night!  So, in keeping with the spirit of this plan, we looked to points.  We found that we could use Hilton points to stay at the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island – and with no taxes or fees added on.  My Hilton gold status would also get us some perks, including daily full breakfast and early evening happy hour, Internet, and even a bottle of wine and chocolates upon arrival.  So, we booked that as well, and were extra pleased to have found a deal for 37,500 points per night, well below the advertised 50,000 points per night (which is the basic rate for all top-tier Hilton properties worldwide).

The Conrad Maldives Rangali Island resort, spread across two islands linked by a footbridge.  I will spare you the pictures of the amazing rooms (sorry, villas)!

Now, at that point, everything was all set, and we started reading some reviews of The Deeves and the Conrad in particular – like this one - to help plan.  That’s where we ran into a problem…

The Conrad’s private seaplane, the only way to reach the island.

This is the only advertised way to get from the airport in Male to the resort is by this air taxi.  As you know, I hate taxis, but this one sounded pretty cool – what a way to arrive!  Furthermore, there is a Conrad lounge at the airport terminal where you can have breakfast and relax before the resort’s self-labelled “road to paradise” – a 90km, 30-min ride.  Unfortunately, that’s where the good news ends; the seaplane costs just over $500 (£310) per person!  Just to get there, then, our “free” trip was already going to cost us £1600/$2500.  We started to worry a bit.  I decided to inquire with the resort as to whether there were any other ways of getting there.  Very helpfully, a representative responded that private speed boat transfers can be arranged, at the low, low rate of $3500 + taxes each way.

Male International Airport – you can see why seaplane is the only way to get somewhere! Amusingly, I kept trying to read about Male’s weather while we were planning, and kept typing “male” into Wikipedia and getting confused when the page for the gender kept coming up!

The nail in the coffin, however, was reading about food prices; while we had breakfast included, we found several reports on the Internet stating that dinners were typically $200-$300 per person without alcohol…or say $2000 for the two of us for four nights.  Plus, being stranded on an island meant no cheap lunch options either. We considered whether taking a ton (well, at least up to 50lbs) of ramen noodles in a second suitcase would work, but…that didn’t really sound like the kind of relaxing getaway we wanted – nor did constantly worrying about how much such relaxation was costing!

The Vilu Restaurant and Bar at the Conrad – it does look amazing, but I don’t think it could possibly be worth something like $300 per person…

So, we made the responsible and sensible decision to cancel The Deeves.  Clearly, we are nowhere near wealthy enough to go for this sort of place even for “free”.  Also, given that we don’t even know if we would like the style (being more city break type of people), it certainly wouldn’t be worth it!

We realized also that we could abandon the 2-4-1 voucher if need be (it expires in mid-July, but most options in business class, including to the US, were already booked when we looked in late December).  Wanting some sort of vacation in May, we then decided to do the reasonable and very exciting thing of adding two weeks of vacation onto the end of my work trip to Buenos Aires.  Forget The Deeves – we’re (now, and for real this time, we think) going to Argentina and Chile!

Iguacu Falls, where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet – we plan to visit there at the end of the trip, since our return flights are from Sao Paulo (credits: Wikipedia)

Patagonia, one of the places we hope to visit in Argentina. Chile also has a lot of potential places to see. (credits: Wikipedia)

We have now managed to get an amazing deal for Astrid to join me in Buenos Aires by purchasing a round-trip from Madrid to South America – just 110,000 miles in business class on Iberia and a grand total of just £88 ($140) in taxes and fees for the nearly 13-hour flight!  We will of course also have to get Astrid between London and Madrid, but those trips are available for just 15,000 miles and £60 ($100) round-trip.  So, all that’s left is making an itinerary and arranging accommodations – but early research suggests that we can do it relatively affordably.  Sorry for faking everyone out about The Maldives, but we’re glad that we’ve now made the right choice for May and can’t wait to get there!