Europe dreams

Dear Anne,

I hadn't looked at the blog in a while and then I realized you had posted - so exciting!  I do love reading about all your different ideas for the future.

My current daydream is about taking a three month trip to Europe.  We have been dreaming about a one-year leave and going on a big round the world trip but that would take a lot more work to get ready for (work wise, house wise).  I also realized that Andrew does better easing in to an idea.  I think going on a three month trip with the kids would be really informative as far figuring out if we would ever want to go on a longer trip.  As you say, it also allows us to balance the community here and the girls going to Sage's, if we did the trip in the summertime.

We are currently looking in to Europe, even though Europe in the summer would definitely be pricey.

Tonight I was looking at the car seats and trying to get an idea of whether you would travel by public transit or car rental.  A lot of people seem to caution against renting car seats, especially for older children.  We tried the RideSafer vest and it didn't work for Alexandria last year but I think I would be willing to give their new model a try.  But I am not sure if the new one is approved in Europe.  Even if it is, it seems that you need to use it with a booster seat in Europe and the booster seats only work once they are 40 pounds.  I am not sure how much Layla weighs now but it isn't 40 pounds - I wonder how close she is?!?

Some info by country:
- Germany: A child under 12 years of age and measuring less than 1.5m travelling in any type of vehicle, must be seated in a child seat or use a child restraint. It is prohibited to use a child seat in the front seat of a vehicle if the airbag has not been deactivated. All child restraints/seats used, must conform to ECE 44/03 or ECE 44/04.
- France: children up to the age of 10 must travel in an approved child seat or restraint, adapted to their age and size.
- Spain: Children up to the age of 12, measuring less than 135 cm must be seated in a child restraint system adapted to their size and weight, except when travelling in a taxi in an urban area. 

I wonder what counts as a child restraint in Europe.

On a related note it looks like traveling by RV isn't safe for children :(  This post has some suggestions of what you can instead.  I had been daydream about an Australian road trip as part of a RTW trip.  That said do you know how big Australia is, oh my goodness, I plotted a route and it turned out to be something like 13,000 km!  Starting to think they should maybe be literate for something like that.

Yeah for dreaming :)

Hugs, Jen

Car rental in Mexico

I realised your draft post on car rental in Mexico was for your trip last year which was cancelled. Here is the research I compiled.

Personal liability insurance. Many rental car agencies (including the one we have booked with, Sixt), include the required by law liability insurance. Sixt includes coverage for $350,000 MXN, which is about $25,000 Canadian. You can buy additional coverage from Sixt for $11 per day USD. I think we will pay this additional insurance, but I may do a little research about whether it is required.
http://www.sfgate.com/mexico/mexicomix/article/Renting-a-car-in-Mexico-What-you-need-to-know-3787891.php
http://www.mexperience.com/lifestyle/transport/car-rental-in-mexico/

Loss damage waiver (LDW). This is the one covered by credit cards. I looked at the terms of the credit card we will be using. The only issue is that the principal driver has to be the one renting, and I currently have rented a manual car that only Murray knows how to drive. I was planning to get him that card anyway through the referral program, so we just have to do that by January.  OR we would have to see how much to pay for another driver, who would be covered as long as the cardmember is the principal driver.
For Amex: All claims must be reported within 48 hours of the theft, loss and damage occurring by calling 1-800-243-0198 (in Canada or the United States) or by calling collect (905) 475-4822 (elsewhere in the world).
If refusing the car company's insurance, they will usually put a large deductible on the credit card for the duration of the rental.

Personal Accident Insurance. This would be covered through our health insurance.

To do when rent car:

• decide if going to decline or take liability insurance.
• call credit card company before travel, tell them there will be large charge for deductible.
• take pictures of car, including close-ups of any dents, scratches, etc. Also look at underside (somehow?)
• decline LDW

anne's life plan ideas

I know you enjoy hearing about our crazy life plan ideas, and it will be fun in the future to look back and see what I was thinking about, so I thought I would compile our options. I have done spreadsheets for most of the options to see which are best financially (although finances are not the only consideration). They pretty much all involve Murr working until June 2018 and then taking 5 years leave (and then quitting for good if we're doing okay financially), and us making about $20,000 per year doing freelance stuff, or making money online somehow, or taking short term contracts, etc. until 2029. If we're not enjoying "retirement", or are not on track financially, then there is always the option for one or both of us to return to work when our leave is over.  So here are the grand ideas:

(1) Build a backyard carriage house and rent out the main house. This is the option we are most dreamy about at the moment.  These are not allowed yet in Ottawa but are in the process of being passed, so we have seen the proposed bylaws and such. The proposed laws would allow us to build a one story house in the backyard with a 50 square meter footprint (540 square feet), which could have a basement. This idea is similar to our previous side house idea, but the backyard house would be slightly bigger. I really enjoy imagining the floor plans for this house. This option varies financially based on how much it would cost, but if we could build if for less than $150K, it would be feasible. We imagine we would do most of the labour on it after Murray "retires."

(2) Sell our house in spring 2018 or spring 2019 and go travel, possibly indefinitely. I assume our costs during travel would be about the same as they would be if we stayed in Ottawa, which definitely means travelling slow and on a budget and mostly in cheap countries. Rent an apartment or house when we return. This option varies financially based on whether we can stick to our budget and what and where we rent when we return. We love the idea of travel, but also love our community and being near family, so I don't think we'll actually do this. Rather, we'll probably up our travel time to one month in the winter and 4-6 weeks in the summer and be home and stable the rest of the year.

(3) sell our house and rent. we also talk about this one a lot. I regularly look at available rentals and we could get a two or three bedroom apartment near us for less than $2000 per month. It would be attached though (i.e. in a building or row house). We like the idea of not spending time on house maintenance and having a smaller space, but worry about the lack of permanence and possible noisy neighbours.

(4) Buy a smallish condo, near Murray's parents' new condo and possibly in their building. We are uncertain about condo living though, because we don't think many other families do it, and we might feel weird being the only family in the building. We are also concerned about lack of outdoor space with this option. We like the idea of a ground level unit where we would have direct access to outside.

Everything is the same until Spring 2018, so we have lots of time to ponder!

love,
anne

Hawaii

Hi Anneabelle,

We just booked a trip to Hawaii :)  Andrew is SO excited.  It is so nice to see him so excited about something and I am excited too.  Alexandria has a two week break at the beginning of April so that is when we are going.  In the end we ended up booking the tickets with cash, but not before I did a ton of points research.  I want to summarize that research here for my own benefit.  There was no amazing answer with points given the current amount of points we own.  And we ended up finding flights from Denver to Kona (Big Island) for $465 each on Alaska, which was about half the other cheapest tickets.  I think they might have been having a sale.  It means leaving and returning mid-week instead of the weekend but we can make that work.  It also means we will have a 12 hour layover in Seattle on the way back, after a short redeye (urg!), but we plan to make the most of it and tour Seattle for the day.

I used the Travel is Free chart of Cheapest Ways to Get to Hawaii Using Miles as a guide.

• The first one on the list is Virgin Elevate at 20K, which would be amazing since it is cheaper than going to Ottawa.  This one had me so confused since I hadn't looked in to Virgin before.  The key is that this value is only when going through a partner airline (like Hawaiian). Million Mile Secrets explained it very well: "While Virgin America’s frequent flyer program uses a revenue-based system on their own flights, they have mileage-based charts for their partner
  airlines." And then in terms of booking on Hawaiian as a partner airline: "When booking award tickets, you can only book flights on Hawaiian Airlines (the price for a ticket does not include any connecting flights on Virgin America). So if you aren’t located in a city served by Hawaiian Airlines, you’ll have to use more points to book a separate Virgin America flight to 1st get to a Hawaiian Airlines city."  This meant that I would search on Virgin and could see DEN because it is served by Virgin but then the point values were way more than 20K.  Then I would search for the 20K return trips and DEN wouldn't be on the list, because Hawaiian doesn't fly to DEN.  Based on the other points below it meant we would have had to buy a separate ticket RT to one of the cities Hawaiian flies to (e.g. PHX, or SJC and join it with a work trip) and then also pay in cash/points for the trip within the islands.
• Virgin Elevate is 2:1 with AMEX points so it makes it worth more like 40K return if you are comparing to other AMEX transfers.  But is is 1:1 with the 20K becomes 25K bonus for SPG.  
• Supposedly Hawaiian has seasonal service direct to KOA from LAX but I couldn't find it.
• It should be an additional 6K RT with Virgin Elevate to fly inter-island with Hawaiian.
• 20K that do exist:
• Only to HNL: PHX, SAN, Sacramento, Las Vegas, Oakland
• SJC can go to HNL or OGG
• SFO can go to HNL or OGG
• Singapore got me so excited because as a transfer partner with AMEX, SPG, and Chase we would have had the 35K*4 that we needed.  But what I read (I don't know where the link is now) is that you have to find availability on United metal and on the United search engine you have to see both the first column with a 22.5K fare (their lowest) as well as a value in the second column.  This corresponds to having a line and the dots in the calendar view.  And we couldn't be signed in, because then we see the XN fares that are only available because of the credit card we have.  I could find this for the Tuesday before (we ideally wanted Sat-Sat) but I couldn't find anything on the way back.  Also, with the transfers from SPG that may take a few days and then needing to phone Singapore it felt a bit daunting to hope that this one available flight would still be there.  And I didn't know if you could do one-way awards with Singapore.
• Some of them like Alaska and AA are only transfers from SPG.  We would have about 87K with the transfer bonus but this wasn't enough to look in to these programs.  We also didn't have enough AMEX and SPG to make Hawaiian work, although it was much closer.  That said I am not sure the Hawaiian points needed were as cheap as he has in the table.  
• It was the same booking with United Miles, we just didn't have enough (not even close) with our Chase and United points.  Which was too bad because United has a direct from DEN to KOA.  That said we started to wonder if it was actually the best use of the points.  At 45K is it better to go to Hawaii or is it better value to buy the 25K Ottawa tickets that can actually be quite expensive.  At $465 a ticket the answer was simple but it wasn't so clear at some of the other ticket costs.  
• I looked at Delta but it was super pricey point requirements.
• From DEN, British Airways would have been 40K, assuming with could find a flight from here to the West Coast and then direct to KOA (7500+12500 each).  As a transfer partner of everything we could have made this work, and pretty much used up all our points.  I used this post to guide me in looking up the flights on American's website since as others have mentioned the BA website tried to route me through Heathrow!  Sadly the available flights were horrible, especially on the return.  They were midweek, which in the end we ended up booking anyways, but they had really bad routings on the way home.  Kona to Portland, to Dalla, to Denver - yuck and more expensive with a distance based program.  
• Aeroplan was the most interesting.  I hadn't been looking at it because it was 45K but then I got the idea of whether I could combine it with Ottawa trips.  It turns out it is possible.  YOW to KOA then KOA to DEN (with a 3 month stopover) and then DEN to YOW was also 45K.  This means that if I had booked a RT from DEN to YOW for 25K that got us there a week or so before going to Hawaii and then came back after the later summer trip I could have two Ottawa trips plus the Hawaii trip for 75K.  I think we only had enough points (and vacation time) that it would have just been the girls and me doing that, and a 11 hour flight from Newark to HNL with the girls by myself did not really excite me.  I also didn't know enough about when I want to come back in the summer.  But neat to think of for the future.  I had read about the whole nested trip thing but never really fully grasped its use before.

So there we go.  So far we seem to be going every 3 years so maybe this will be useful in another 3 years time :)

Hugs, 

Jen

University Education for Kids

Hi Annabelle,

Do you have money saved for your kids university education?  Do you plan to contribute to it?  How does it factor in to your thoughts around money saving and frugality?

I was looking to get a general idea of how much university might cost.

		Tuition and Fees		Room and Board	Books and Supplies	Other Expenses	Total	Notes on Total
		In-state/CDN	Out-of-state/ International
CU-Boulder	USD	11,091	34,125	13,194	1,800	2,294	28,379	In state
Cornell	USD	34,209	50,953	13900			64,853	Out of state
Univsity of Ottawa	CDN	5,014
UBC	CDN	6081	31352
McGill	CDN	8780		14656	1000		24436	CDN rate
University of Toronto	CDN	7225		11493	1000	1000	20718	CDN rate

We were saying that we would like to help the kids be able to go to either a school in Canada or a state school without having much debt.  It means about 100K per kid in today's dollars though!  Back of the envelope Andrew was saying that is about 15K in today's dollars that we need to save every year.  Not cheap!

What are you guys thinking?

Hugs, Jen

Waldorf Schools Around the World

Hi Annabelle,

I should really be headed to bed, but our summer schedule of sleeping in has let me get quite nocturnal (my natural state).  The girls and I didn't come down for breakfast until 10 AM this morning.  Our big trees are being cut down next week and we need to be out of the house by 7:30 AM; it will feel very early!

I was just looking at the availability of Waldorf Schools in these various locations.  I really enjoy the Waldorf philosophy and Sage does say that she finds a lot of the kids are ready for a more formal education setting by the time they are 9 or so.  And I wouldn't want to leave the US before becoming a citizen anyways (even if Trump does get elected...urg).  So I think that would be about 2 years from now before I get my citizenship.  I don't want to ever go through all the immigration stuff again and you loose your green card if you don't live here.

Europe:

• Germany (Munich office): Looks like there are at least three (here, here, and here).  All German of course.  I like the idea of getting fluent in French and Spanish; I am not sure about learning German.  Mind you if Kate actually stayed there that would be a factor; but she doesn't enjoy living in Nuremberg and would like to move somewhere else (it is only 2 hours from Munich).
• Switzerland (Zurich office): One Waldorf school in Zurich.  It actually looks like it was one of the first in the world.  The tuition seems to be quite high, as a percentage of income.  School seems to be in German; Steiner did teach in German.  They do teach two foreign languages but I am not sure what they are.
• Ireland (Dublin office): There are a five Waldorf schools in Ireland and some of them are even funded by the education system.  Only one of them is anywhere near Dublin: the Kildare Steiner School (not funded by the government).  There are towns (Newbridge, Naas) that would be about a 20 min drive to the school and 40 min into Dublin so that could be feasible.  Some of Ber's family actually lives in this area as Kildare is the county where she grew up.
• UK (London office): there are a few (e.g. here, but others come up in Google search); the London Ontario one also came up for me which confused me at first
• France (Paris office, not sure how much Eng): talking to Andrew it doesn't seem like this office would actually work for a transfer
• Belgium (Brussels office, not sure there is very much Eng in this office): talking to Andrew it doesn't seem like this office would actually work for a transfer

 Asia/Australia:

• Japan (Tokyo office): I tried to look up Waldorf schools in Tokyo but it was pretty overwhelming; at the moment I am not that keen on living in Japan anyways so that is fine.  I definitely didn't see an obvious English speaking one!
• India (Hyderabad office, not sure how much opportunity to go here): There are actually a few English speaking Waldorf schools here (who knew!).  They are here, here, here.
• Singapore: there is a small group in Singapore which is trying to establish a primary level Waldorf School (they have a pre-school), it looks really cute.  Here is a description of different preschool options in Singapore that lays out who funds what.
• Australia (Sydney office): has "oldest Steiner school in Australia" (I think they said) called Glenaeon.  It is about a 20 min drive from the Google office.  Looks like a snazzy private school that happens to be Waldorf.  There is another one that is 45 min - 1 hour away in the hills that also looks neat.  There is even a Rudolf Steiner College in Sydney for adult education and teacher training (I sometimes wonder if I would get enough into Waldorf that I would like to teach).  Another one is only about 30 minutes away from the office in Belrose and is called Kamaroi.  It looks a little bit more homey (which I like) and it seems to only go to Grade 6 (but it definitely has a waiting list).  It seems that their terms are completely different than ours, and I guess start the year at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb.  For 2017 at one school it is: Term 1 Feb 1 - Apr 5, (3 week break), Term 2 Apr 26 - June 28, (3 week break), Term 3 July 19 - Sept 20, (3 week break), Term 4 Oct 11 - Dec 13 (more like 6 weeks here over Christmas and I suppose summer holidays).  I wonder if the public schools work on the same term system?  
• Notes to self: Sydney is warm; the low in winter is about 9 C.  Sydney is a 15.5 hour flight from Vancouver - direct!  That means at the very best it is a 22 hour travel time to Ottawa.  It would be a great place to access SEA, NZ, etc. IF we had the vacation time.

Americas:

• Argentina (Buenos Aires office, not much Eng here): Andrew says this probably wouldn't work for a transfer as the main Eng office is in San Paulo.
• Canada (Waterloo office): only an hour from YYZ and a 5-6 hour drive home.  It looks like there are not Waldorf schools in Kitchener-Waterloo.  You have to go to Burlington (1 h drive), London (1.25 hr drive), or Guelph (30 min drive; this could work).  The London one has a one day a week program for homeschoolers (I originally thought it was in London, UK and that this boded well for homeschooling being prevalent there!).

Well it has been a few days since I wrote the intro.  Turns out they just cancelled our tree cutting for Wed, so now it will be in August.  It was really interesting to see all the different schools; does highlight for me how much I like the look of Waldorf schools.

Hugs, Jen

Home Schooling Around The World

Hi Annabelle,

I am musing tonight about where we might live in the future.  The prospect of Trump winning the election has us thinking about other places with Google offices around the world that might make a good home.  Not that we are super serious but we do talk about wanting to travel and see more of the world.  We often talk about either 1) taking a year or two and traveling, kind of like a sabbatical, or 2) transferring to another office and then traveling in the "nearby" area.

I was looking tonight a bit at the sunshine hours in various cities (I like the website WeatherSpark).  It is sure hard to beat Colorado on sunshine and it has been amazingly lovely for Andrew to not have SAD.

Then I remembered that homeschooling is illegal in some countries and that I am not sure I want to enroll my kids in school.  I know if we were just traveling through this wouldn't be an issue, but if we are living and working there I think this is a factor to consider.  That said we might feel that being abroad is a great time for them to be in school since they could learn another language.  I guess it would depend on how old they were and what path we follow as homeschoolers.

So info is below.  It is from an Advocates for Homeschooling website, so I am curious if they are a bit biased.  But I figure it gives a general picture of where could work.  More research would have to be done if we were actually getting serious.

• Europe:
• Germany (Munich office): illegal
• Switzerland (Zurich office): legal but varies by canton; Zurich now requires teaching credential; wonder if not being fluent in one of their official languages (German, French, Italian) would be an issue as well
• Ireland (Dublin office): legal but seems to have onerous registration and legal actions taken when not followed
• UK (London office): legal and do not have registration requirements unless have been in school
• France (Paris office, not sure how much Eng): legal, need to notify annually, doesn't seem to be always positive with the evaluators
• Belgium (Brussels office, not sure there is very much Eng in this office): legal, likely need to have testing (varies by region of country)
•  Asia/Australia:
• Japan (Tokyo office): this site I am reading says "The law is vague and the business community is supporting home schooling, so home schoolers are largely left alone."
• India (Hyderabad office, not sure how much opportunity to go here): law is to go to mandatory school, but it seems that the state has said it is not going to worry about some families who choose to homeschool
• Singapore: legal (do you know they only have 6 years of mandatory schooling, even if you aren't homeschooled!)
• Australia (Sydney office): homeschooling is legal but varies by state in how many hoops there are to go through, other people go through distance learning programs that are discussed in the same category in that you are learning at home, it appears that NSW (where Sydney is located) has the most restrictive guidelines and you have to teach the curriculum.  Here is a comparison between home education and distance learning in NSW.
• Americas:
• Argentina (Buenos Aires office, not much Eng here): no legislation that prohibits
• Canada (Waterloo office): Ontario law is quite supportive of homeschooling, with no testing requirements (although one must notify), unless they become suspicious of you for some reason

It is kind of funny to think about living somewhere else and homeschooling but part of the concern is that once you are in the school system you have all the truancy and attendance issues.  And if we want to be traveling around the area, or back home, this seems restrictive.

Hugs, 

Jen

Emergency Preparedness

Dear Annabelle,

It has taken me a bit to get my head around where to have emergency kits.  I am thinking that I will put the main supplies in the garage in a clearly organized area.  That way we have easy access if it is an emergency where we need to stay in the house, quick access if we need to leave by car, and not that different if we need to leave by foot since the garage is the door we generally go out anyways (our shoes are by that door).  I also realized that if we leave on foot we would likely take the bike trailer that we use as a stroller since we would need something to transport the girls and the stuff.  This past winter we kept our emergency water in the garage and it didn't end up freezing so that was a good test.  About six months ago our water turned off for about 12 hours due to a water main break.  We didn't even have any extra water on hand at the time; so at least we have an emergency water supply now.

I really liked this blog's posts with details of how to prepare your "emergency survival station" in 8 weeks.  In general I think I will follow her guidance.

Below are some other links on creating your emergency preparedness kits:
- from premier aquatics
- one on creating emergency kits for kids to take to school
- one on creating a faraday cage (not sure I need to do this, but came across it as a link and want to read more)
- red cross list
- wikihow list
- a car list
- DMV list
- FEMA list
- FEMA on storage locations

I think a lot of the lists are the same but I just want to cross reference them.

The car list reminded me that we should also expand on the emergency supplies we have in the car (where everything is currently kept).  Because the person with the car might not be able to get back to the house in an evacuation scenario it seems like you almost want to have a duplicate set of at least the basic supplies.

I also want to consider what our back-up situation is for data.  Are our pictures backed up somewhere other than in the house?  Do we have our important documents backed-up somewhere (other than in the safe in the basement where they live)?  Watching the evacuation from Fort McMurray also really inspired me to work on all these things since, for example, you might not have time to grab the folder from the safe.  In a way I feel it goes well with all the Konmari cleaning/purging I have been doing since it is all about deciding what to keep and where to put it.

Hugs,
Jen

Preparing for the Unexpected

Dear Annabelle,

For the first time in months I feel like I am getting my head around things that could use a blog post.  I just looked back through all the past blog posts.  Wow I was really focused on all the travel stuff for a while there.  I am feeling really grateful that we amassed all those points since I used them for all three of my trips to Winnipeg.  We are still getting new cards and working on points but at a much slower rate.

I am currently sitting here in the middle of a thunderstorm, it is hailing and pouring rain and so dark it is almost dusk like, even though it is only early afternoon.  The girls have gone in with Andrew to Denver for the day.

With Kris's death I have been really feeling how much we "know we should" get things together but don't because we don't really want to think about those "worst case scenarios" happening to us.  But it has made me feel really inspired to get everything in order: our wills, emergency preparedness, letters to kids, talking about death wishes, etc.  We have started the ball rolling on the legal side of things; the lawyer sent us a 16 page questionnaire to fill out!  We only have our own will that we wrote in Ontario but it seems a bit lacking given the whole living in a different country and everything.

Last night I spent a lot of time researching emergency preparedness.  It has been on my To Do list for ages and we did pull together some things a few years ago.  I think I was always wishing that it was something Andrew would take over, but as it seems that isn't going to happen I feel inspired to dive in.

Hugs,
Jen

Play Dough

Dear Annabelle,

We just made some new play dough this morning.  Here is our recipe:

Mix together:
1c salt
1c tapioca starch
2c rice flour

Add:
1 Tbsp oil
1 1/2c boiling water

The last few times we have also added some natural food colouring.  Those ones I keep in the fridge, the previous batches I just kept out.

Hugs,

Jen

Aeroplan vs. United Fees

Dear Annabelle,

This is an earlier post I wrote but it is still a mystery to me.  I looked into summer 2016 flights DEN-YOW the other day and found a similar trend with the fees for United being quite a bit lower than with Aeroplan.

----------

I am trying to compare awards with Aeroplan to those with United MileagePlus.  Specifically at the moment from DEN to YOW.  I managed to find an award ticket with the same flights on both airlines (Sept 8 to Sept 30, 2015).  This comparison flight had one stop both ways in Dulles and all flights were with United (same flight numbers with both programs).

Aeroplan was 25K plus 107.90 USD in fees:

U.S. Passenger Safety Fee

$11.20

U.S Passenger Facility Charge

$13.50

U.S. International Transportation Tax

$35.40

Canada Domestic/International Air Travel Security Charge

$10.00

Canada Harmonized Sales Tax

$2.30

Canada Domestic/International Airport Improvement Fee

$18.00

U.S. Customs User Fee

$5.50

U.S.A Immigration User Fee

$7.00

U.S Agriculture Fee

$5.00

Total per passenger

$107.90

Total passengers

1

United was 25K and 59 USD in fees:

• September 11th Security Fee $5.60
• Canadian Security Charge $10.00
• Canada Harmonized Sales Tax $2.30
• Canada Airport Improvement Fee $18.00
• U.S. Customs User Fee $5.50
• U.S. Immigration User Fee $7.00
• U.S. APHIS User Fee $5.00
• September 11th Security Fee $5.60

For comparison United says that I could buy this ticket for $758.92 without redeeming miles.

So the question is why are these fees different (by $48.90).  Neither are charging a fuel surcharge, but the fees are differing based on who you book with.

The following charges are the same:

• Canadian Security Charge $10.00
• Canada Harmonized Sales Tax $2.30
• Canada Airport Improvement Fee $18.00
• U.S. Customs User Fee $5.50
• U.S. Immigration User Fee $7.00
• U.S. APHIS User Fee $5.00

And the "U.S. Passenger Safety Fee" on Aeroplan equates to the two September 11th Security Fees on United.

That leaves the following fees on the Aeroplan ticket that aren't on the United ticket:

• U.S Passenger Facility Charge $13.50
• U.S. International Transportation Tax $35.40

These add up to the $48.90 we were looking for.  I believe that the Transportation Tax is 7.5% of the ticket price so this will vary by the cost of the ticket; making pricer tickets even more pricey with Aeroplan.

In the ITA Matrix this routing shows up with the following fees:

• US Transportation Tax (US) $46.77
• US September 11th Security Fee (AY) $11.20
• US Passenger Facility Charge (XF) $13.50
• US Flight Segment Tax (ZP) $16.00
• USDA APHIS Fee (XA) $5.00
• US Immigration Fee (XY) $7.00
• US Customs Fee (YC) $5.50
• Ottawa Airport Improvement Fee (SQ) $18.00
• Canadian Harmonized Sales Tax (ON) (RC) $2.30
• Canadian Air Travelers Security Charge (CA) $10.00

Interestingly this adds up to $135.27. That said I didn't find this flight on the ITA Matrix until about 12 hours after I found the other two so I am not sure if that is having an impact.  Without the Transportation Tax and Facility Charge, which were included in the Aeroplan but not the United fee, it equals $75.  That is still more than United: So what is included here that isn't on United's fees?  The answer: The "US Flight Segment Tax" is listed on the ITA Matrix fees but not on the Aeroplan or United MileagePlus list.

Why does Aeroplan charge the Transportation Tax and Facility Charge but United doesn't?  And why is the Transportation Tax higher in the ITA Matrix than it was for the award flight with Aeroplan?  I just double checked and the Aeroplan flight is giving the same fees now, so it isn't a matter of the delay between checking.

-------
Nov 2/15: Just doing a bit more looking around.  It seems like the US International Transportation Tax is a constant value and is a combination of a $17.70 departure tax and a $17.70 arrival tax.  The 7.5% I was referring to applies to domestic flights.

Here is a link to general airline fees.  And according to this (very old) thread I am not alone in my confusion.  Oh wow, here is an entire recent thread about this very subject, including a lot of really grumpy people.  A lot of confusion about why Aeroplan is charging these additional fees and United is not.  Is it because Aeroplan is separate from Air Canada?  Is it because some other small fees are being charged so it isn't a completely free ticket?  People don't seem to know but they are mad at being charged both the passenger facility charge and the US International Tax.

Hugs,
Jen

British Airways Avios

Dear Annabelle,

Another old post that will soon be partially redundant, at least for the within North America values....

There is an Avios calculator website that lets you plug in your location and destination.  This is telling me for Dublin and Munich from Denver it would be around 27K or 30K each way.  This compares with the other airlines, except for a lot of them might let us do an open jaw and see more places in Europe.  Not sure I want to lock us into it costing more to do this by using Avios.

This post lists hubs of partners for Avios points.  We are not a hub but we do get US Airways and American flights from DEN.  There are not any fuel surcharges within North America (I think).  I wonder how Avios would work for going to Ottawa.  Flying DEN to YOW through Chicago would give 888 miles and 655 miles - under 650 is 4500 miles and to 1150 is 7500 so both of these would be 7500 or 15000 but this is only one way so it would be 30K return, so not as good as the base 25K.  Wonder if there is a routing where one is under 650 and one is still under 1150.  This would give 4500+7500 each way OR 12000, so 24000 return.  Doesn't really help but could be an option.

Here is the Travel is Free Guide to Avios.  And here is a discussion of the Household Accounts feature of Avios.  Basically you can pool the rewards and they get used out of everyone's accounts.

TPG outlines how you would pick between BA and Virgin Atlantic:
"If it’s a question of transferring miles to Virgin Atlantic or to British Airways, it’s worth having a look at Virgin’s mileage chart and comparing it to BA’s mileage calculator to see which requires more on your route. For example, a roundtrip economy ticket from JFK to London on Virgin only costs 35,000* (26,000 if booked as two one-ways separately), 55,000 or 80,000 miles roundtrip in economy, premium economy and business class respectively, while BA would charge you 40,000, 60,000 or 80,000 Avios for the same classes of service, so in economy, I’d do Virgin to save a few thousand miles.  However, if pricing awards one-way, they seem to be coming up cheaper. For instance, a one-way award from New York-London was pricing at only 13,000 miles and just under $97.50 in taxes and fees. There were very limited dates, so play around to see if you can find these lower priced awards."

As far as Europe the key is the fuel surcharges and whether you could find a route without too many.  One option is to use BA on Aer Lingus.

Some other links:

• How direct flights are calculated:  It turns out that at least with some American Airlines flights, Avios actually prices flights by flight number rather than by individual leg in some cases. In effect, only one Avios redemption is necessary for multiple flights in each direction so long as they are marketed with the same flight number.
• US Airways map
• AA map
• There are sometimes transfer bonuses to BA from AMEX
• Saving with stopovers
• Reducing fees
• Avios map for DEN

Hugs,
Jen

Award Availability Links

Dear Annabelle,

I feel I still have a lot to learn about searching for award seats.  I am sure this will become more relevant now that we have points!

Some links for sites that could help:

http://travelisfree.com/2014/12/02/master-chart-of-what-sites-search-airline-award-availability/

http://wandr.me/award-search/

http://thepointsguy.com/2015/02/whats-the-best-way-to-search-airline-award-availability/

http://www.kvstool.com/

http://www.expertflyer.com/

https://awardnexus.com/user/login?url=%2F

Hugs,
Jen

GCMap

Dear Annabelle,

Have you ever used the Great Circle Mapper site?

I keep going back to it to look up distances since I need them for comparing the mileage programs that are distance based.

Hugs,
Jen

Best bet: DEN to MCO (Orlando)

Dear Annabelle,

This is another old one I am cleaning up from when I was trying to decide how to book our flights to MCO (Orlando) for December.  We ended up paying cash on Southwest.  We were able to get it for $1424 for all 4 of us, direct, and Southwest includes 2 free bags each!

.......
DEN to MCO (Orlando): 1546 miles
With a direct flight this would fit in the 10K each way bucket for British Airways Avios.  Cutting 5K each from the rest of the carriers that are generally 25K (or a total savings of 20K for the family).  I guess the question is whether there are fuel charges and whether the miles are worth using here given the cost of the flights.

That said, I need it direct though because the two lower levels are 4500 and 7500 and these would add up to more if combined. Sadly American does not fly direct DEN-MCO, but are all showing connections. Connecting through DFW is 641 miles crow flies followed by 985, resulting in 24K points. Mostly equivalent point wise and not direct. This Denver Avios Map was helpful here.

Turns out that Avios flights "within the Americas don’t have YQ to pass on" according to here.

The ITA matrix is only showing direct flights for United and Frontier.
.......

I wonder whether Southwest shows up in the ITA Matrix, given it obviously has direct flights and I wasn't seeing them here.  It doesn't show up in Google Flights and they are running off a similar system.  I wonder why not.  

It is funny to read my analysis of the Avios points above since it will all be mute soon.  Avios is increasing their within the US points required to be 7500 for the cheapest category and going up from there.

Hugs, 

Jen

Fuel Surcharges

Dear Annabelle,

I am trying to clean up drafts that I wrote a while ago and this is one of them.  Really just some compiled info I had found at the time....

Having a good understanding of fuel surcharges seems to be key to acquiring award travel that is close to free as opposed to still hundreds of dollars.  Especially at this point in time when I am trying to decide who to collect points with it seems a good time to set up a strategy based on who does not have fuel surcharges.

Delta SkyMiles

Here is a chart indicating which partner airlines you pay fuel surcharges on if you book with SkyMiles. Along with the chart it highlights the related point that "Delta SkyMiles imposes fuel surcharges for all award tickets originating in Europe. So regardless of which airline you fly, you will pay fuel surcharges when you book a SkyMiles award originating in Europe." This first chart seems to differ from the chart here that indicates that all SkyTeam charges and passes on fuel surcharges. This post outlines a way to get around the fuel surcharges for flights from Europe.  This post seems to confirm the first chart with a mix of charging and not charging fuel surcharges.  Good reminder to always double check my facts in this points world before I settle on a strategy.

The last post from 2012 summarized the following:

• "There are four surcharge-free options to Europe: Delta, KLM, Air France, and Alitalia.
• There are two surcharge-free options to Asia: Delta and Korean.
• There are three surcharge-free options to the Americas: Delta, Aeromexico, and Aerolineas Argentinas.
• There are two surcharge-free options to Australia: Delta and Virgin Australia.
• Delta has pretty awful availability to all those places except on its New York to London route.
  Virgin Australia, Korean, and the European partners have pretty good availability among surcharge-free airlines." 

Travel is Free Advice

Travel is Free outlines how great ANA is but that they pass on all fuel surcharges so you need to look for the airlines that don't have them. He also lists the "Star Alliance airlines without fuel surcharges:

• Avianca 
• Air New Zealand 
• TACA 
• United within the Americas 
• Air Canada within the Americas" 

And says how "There are other airlines where the fuel surcharges would be minor… but I don’t get why you would even bother. Why not collect and use United or AA miles for a trip to Europe, Africa or Asia and then us ANA to South America, Central America, and the Caribbean? That’s what I’d recommend."

Other Links

These Posts on TPG give an overview of the fuel surcharges for Aeroplan and ANA. And here is talk about how Air France Blue has capped their fuel surcharges.

Hugs, Jen

The Big Spend

Hello Annabelle,

Mid-September we decided, spur of the moment really, to go for a big set of credit card applications.  Or an App-o-rama as I sometimes hear them called.  I have heard arguments for both doing lots of applications at once (so you have a 3 month wait before new applications) and for waiting and doing them little by little (so you can take advantage for a short-term lucrative offer).

SO we applied to:

AMEX Everyday for Andrew AND Jen

• 25K MR points for 2K min spend with no annual fee
• Both approved
• We wanted to get this while the bonus was high and because we will use this to keep our MR points when we cancel the other higher fee cards (that were waived in the first year)

Citibank Hilton HHonors Visa Signature Card for Andrew AND Jen

• 75K HHonors points for 2K min spend with no annual fee
• Andrew got approved right away.
• I needed to fill in an extra form so that they could request my tax transcript.  I just heard yesterday that I have been approved.  

Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® for Andrew

• 40000 bonus miles (equivalent to $400 travel credit) for 3K min spend
• Annual fee waived first year
• Andrew got approved right away.
• This card has a pretty high amount that you have to spend to use the travel credit, I think it needs to be at least $100.  We charged our flights home at Christmas to it.  They are $340 a person so I wonder if this will be an issue to get the full value of the bonus?

Discover Miles for Andrew

• No fee card.
• 3X for first year.  So no sign up bonus but if you signed up now you got 3X for the first year instead of the normal 1.5X.
• Andrew approved right away.

TD Aeroplan for Andrew

• 25K for 1K spend.  Pretty sure that it has a fee but waived first year.
• Andrew had to phone and it was sent to a "senior lender" but then approval came in the mail.

US Bank REI Card for Andrew (didn't get)

• This card gave a $100 gift card for doing not much; one purchase maybe.
• We got a letter that Andrew needed to call but he was so busy with work that he never did.

AMEX SPG for Andrew and Jen (got for Andrew)

• 30K SPG points with 3K min spend.  Fee waived first year.
• This was the one where we learned you shouldn't apply for 2 AMEX cards on the same day.  They put the second application on hold for 5 days and then evaluate it, which given you have just done an app-o-rama is not the best plan.  Even with this Andrew got approved after the mandatory wait.
• I did not get approved because I had already got two lending cards in the past 90 days.  We think this means credit cards as opposed to charge cards.  At any rate I had just applied with the AMEX Everyday for my third AMEX in a fairly short time frame and this was my fourth.  

This has lead to the past month and a bit being quite focused on making these minimum spends, getting the payments set up, etc.  I have set up a system for payments where we have a spreadsheet that tracks when they have been paid and when they have been checked.  One of us pays and the other checks each payment.  We have been able to coordinate the dates so we each have two "credit card pay" days a month.  

All of these approvals meant we had $13,000 in minimum spend to make!   (Plus some left over minimum spend that we hadn't yet finished on a previous card at the time of these applications.) As I am writing we have $1000 left to spend!  Andrew got really into manufactured spending and did a bunch of research.  Great for me since that was not my interest (apart from the Kiva idea).  Some of big spends are listed below:

Gift cards to:
- Grocery store	200
- Gas	75
- General (AMEX, MC)	1000
Gift cards to Serve	4000
Kiva	335
Donations	2362
Carbon offsets	400
Christmas Travel	1716.38
Memberships	157
Neufeld course	526.16
Time share annual fee	400

The ideal was to have all the big gift cards transfer to Serve but it didn't work out for the AMEX and the MC ones he got.  The rest have transferred well and then we can send a cheque from the Serve account to me so it can go back in our bank account.  So for the gift cards we paid around $6-$7 per $500 card.  Worth it to make the minimum spend, especially since we tried to do it at stores where the card would get 2X most of the time.  

Most of the other expenses were things that we had been waiting to spend money on.  Andrew's shares from his first year of work vested in August so we had been waiting for the extra cash flow to do donations, carbon offset, Christmas travel tickets, etc.  Just worked out well that we were able to use these annual lump sum expenses to meet these minimum spends.  

Kind of exciting to think that with just this round alone we will earn this many points:

AMEX MR	50000
HHonors	75000
Barclay Miles	40000 ($400)
SPG	30000
Aeroplan	25000

Hugs,

Jen

TSA Pre-Check and Customs lines

Dear Annabelle,

I wrote this first part back in the summer:

When we flew out of DIA on Friday the lines for security were the longest we had ever seen.  They snaked all the way around the baggage claim area!  I had asked Andrew a few months ago whether he thought it made sense to get into one of the identified traveller programs like Nexus and he seemed dubious.  He doesn't like giving over biometric data and such.  But after that line I think he is reconsidering.

Also, we are flying quite a lot these days.  Someone kindly asked Alexandria on Friday if this was her first airplane ride and she looked at them like they had two heads.  I think she has been on 16 airplanes in the past year!

The fast lines at DIA were the TSA Pre-Check line as well as the CLEAR line.  CLEAR seems to be a corporate program that is currently available in 12 airports, including DIA.  Using biometric data you are able to use their special security line and go straight to screening.  It doesn't matter what kind of ticket you have (e.g. first class).  The cost is $179 annually plus $50 for an extra family member (with children under 18 free).  So over 5 years (the expiry of most of the other programs) the cost would be (179+50)*5 = $1145.  The CLEAR screening does not necessarily give you different screening unless you also have TSA PreCheck in which case "CLEAR members who are eligible for PreCheck now get the best of both worlds. You can use the CLEAR lane as usual to avoid the long security lines. We’ll scan your boarding pass and bring you to the PreCheck screening lane (if eligible for that flight) where you can keep your shoes and belt on, etc."  Also the CLEAR program is solely for speeding up airport security on departing flights and is not associated with the Global Entry program which is for arriving flights and Customs.  Seems to be like there are better options out there: let's see!

Now updating today:

The main contenders are Nexus and Global Entry, both give you TSA PreCheck as part of them.   Nexus is the ideal since it is only $50 for 5 years (and kids are free) and gives you TSA PreCheck, Global Entry, as well as expedited entry to Canada.  That said you have to make it to a processing center in Canada, or near the border.  This might be difficult to line up scheduling wise.  I just called and they said that generally it takes 6-8 weeks to process the application and then at that point they can schedule another 6-8 weeks out (in Ottawa, seems longer in other locations).  So this definitely won't line up for our Christmas trip.  She said that what you can do is book as late as possible and then just keep going into the GOES system and moving it out later and later.  She said you are fine so long as it is still in the system, but if you delete it or you don't show up it will cancel your application.  I wonder if I could line it up for a trip home in the summer (too bad Andrew probably won't come on that one).

Global Entry would definitely be more convenient to apply to as we could just go to DIA.  But it wouldn't give the added benefit upon entry to Canada and it costs more.  It is $100 each including children. It also lasts for 5 years.  There are credit cards that will cover the fees (discussed here and here) but they are all appear to be high annual fee cards.

At $100 vs. $400, and the cheaper one also giving Canada expedited entry in addition to Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check, it seems like I should at least try and see if I can get Nexus to work.  I think my Mom might have looked into it, or applied, I suppose I should check in with her on the process.

Hugs,
Jen

AwardAce

Dear Annabelle,

Back in July I was lamenting about the lack of sites that let you compare frequent flyer program options for certain routes.  It seems like this relatively new site AwardAce is a great step in the right direction.  According to their FAQs it looks like they might be expanding into fuel surcharges at some point too.

That said it doesn't help with award availability but it does give you an idea ahead of time of what types of points to collect if you are interested in a certain route.  Or what to consider once you have amassed points of a certain type (e.g. who to transfer AMEX points to).

Hugs,
Jen

Canadian card to consider if you have Rogers

Hi Annabelle,

I just came across this post on a Rogers card.  Not sure if you have seen it or if you have Rogers services.  I was thinking of showing it to my Mom since I am pretty sure she does.

Hugs,
Jen