Riding The Rails In Europe!

There is really no better way to travel in Europe than to ride the rails. It's easy, convenient, affordable and beautiful. Plus you don't have to worry about parking, your car being stolen, damaged, parking tickets or getting lost.
My children are very comfortable riding and sleeping on trains. In fact, if you ask them, they will say they prefer the train over the bus. That's due to one horrible overnight bus ride in Thailand. If you are heading to Thailand, stick with the trains.
During our 3 week Europe trip, we travelled by train several times.

1. Berlin to Prague - 6 hours
2. Prague to Krakow, Poland - overnight
3. Krakow to Warsaw Poland - 1.5 hours

Here's how to manage it without stressing out. I follow seat61.com for all my train advice. This guy knows his trains. Trains open ticket reservations 60-90 days in advance and most trains never sell out. However, that being said if you don't have a reservation, you may end up sitting on the floor. Plus if you want an overnight sleeping car, you definitely need a reservation.
When you book your train, pay attention to whether you are booking a ticket or making a reservation. Some trains will have you pay for your overnight berth, but you still have to buy a train ticket when you arrive at the station.
That being said I was able to buy all of my train tickets or reservations online before we left the states. For a family of 5, that's one less headache.

Southwest Sale Is On!

Southwest.com has launched a Thanksgiving week sale! But here's the secret, I checked prices for flights through next summer and you can get the same low prices.
I just booked a trip for next May. Remember if you see a lower price, you can always cancel and rebook so there's no harm.
If you were waiting to book a flight for Thanksgiving, you definitely should jump on this sale. Prices will only go up from here.
Happy flying.

Save Money At Walmart With Chase Freedom!

One of the perks of the Chase Freedom Unlimited credit card is that every quarter there are bonus categories where you earn 5% cash back.
Categories include restaurants, movie theatres, Amazon, convenience stores, department stores, gas and more.
The categories rotate and you must register your card to qualify. But you can register up until the end of the quarter and get credit for anything you purchased that quarter.
Chase announced that the 4th quarter category will be Walmart and department stores. You can already register here. The quarter begins October 1st and ends December 31st. You max out the bonus categories at $1500 spend or 7,500 Chase Ultimate Reward Points or $75 cash back (5%). It's FREE money so why not?

Is Southwest Airlines Headed To Hawaii?

Beat of Hawaii is reporting that Southwest Airlines may be opening routes to Hawaii soon. For the first time, Southwest Airlines is sponsoring the Hawaii Global Tourism Summit which opened today. Southwest is scheduled to speak tomorrow on Wednesday September 20th so we could hear some news.
Beat of Hawaii says another clue is that Southwest added dozens of flights in California airports last month which could signal that they are taking on Alaska Airlines on their own turf. Alaska services Hawaii as well. The cities with added flights are San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento and Oakland.
In addition, Beat of Hawaii says Southwest is about to take delivery of 14 Hawaii capable aircraft. Plus Southwest pilots have just settled a four year dispute that paves the way for them to fly to Hawaii.
Stay tuned. If it's true, flights could start in Spring 2018. Woohoo!

Berlin On A Budget With Teens

At the East Side Gallery 

Berlin is a tapestry of history, culture, architecture food and energy. There is so much to see and do in this city. The issue really is how do you narrow it down, where do you start and what do you do with teens and how do you do it on a budget?
We assume flights are taken care of already with points, hopefully, if you read my blog often.
So let's move onto hotels. I always check awardmapper.com to see the hotel brands in the city and the points needed to book award nights.
There are plenty of options in Berlin and they are not expensive. We opted to pay for a room at the Sheraton Berlin Grande Hotel Esplanade. Sometimes it is worth it to pay for the room. In this case, we paid because the room only cost $81 per night so it didn't seem worth it to burn 7,000 Starwood points per night. We charged the room to my Starwood Business Credit Card so we could get access to the club. The club provides complimentary breakfast and happy hour.
For a family of 5, this is a huge savings.
We paid for the second room as well and charged it to the Barclays Arrival Card. (See past posts about this great travel card) Then I redeemed bonus points to cover the cost of the room.

Inside the bunker

So now what to see in Berlin? The first place we headed was to the Underground Tunnel Tour. This is a surpisingly great tour that is off the beaten path. It's so off the beaten path that you can't buy advance tickets, they only take cash and you have to just show up day of and hope they have space. We were there at the peak of tourist season and we showed up about an hour before the tour we wanted and there was space. The tour sold out about 15 minutes before the start. They offer tours in English and other various languages.
The tour is a 3 hour walking tour through one of the bunkers used during World War 2 by German citizens. It is a fascinating history lesson through the eyes of the citizens of Berlin.

Doner Kebap restaurant

If you are looking for cheap eats in Berlin, check out the many Doner Kebap stands and restaurants.

Brandenburg Gate

Holocaust Memorial 

Murals on the East Side Gallery 

The Brandenburg Gate, The Holocaust Memorial, The Jewish Museum and the DDR Museum are must sees and your teens will enjoy them . Checkpoint Charlie and the outside display located there are also must sees. But then be sure to check out the East Side Gallery.

The Jewish Museum 

Checkpoint Charlie 

Trabi sitting by Checkpoint Charlie 

Another tour worth booking in advance is a visit to the Reichstag-Bundestag. You need to book a time and submit names of everyone in your party at least 90 days in advance. You will need to bring passports when you visit. The tour is free and they will provide you with audio guides. 

Top of the Reichstag-Bundestag

The last piece of advice for travelling to Berlin is to check out passes for the bus and trolley system. If you are spending a few days, you will save money and the convenience is worth it. Two good passes that include transportation and museums are the Berlin Museum pass. and the Berlin Welcome Card. Depending on how many and which museums, you plan to visit, it may be worth it.

Kudos to the airlines!

Once in a while, we need to give kudos to the airlines. This time for their reaction to the evacuation of Floridians out of the path of Hurricane Irma. American Airlines actually flew empty planes into Florida so they could add flights to help evacuate residents out of harms way. In a statement, the airline said it added 16 flights out of Miami totaling 3,600 seats. The airlines also capped ticket prices, waived fees and relaxed scheduling procedures as people scrambled to safety.
So this time, we need to say kudos to the airlines!

How To Protect Yourself From The Equifax Data Breach

Just like everyone else, we are also dealing with the fallout from the data breach of 143 million people who had personal information with Equifax. It is considered to be one of the biggest breaches ever so if you are not worried, well, you should be.
So what to do?
Equifax is recommending you sign up with their monitoring service which will be free for one year. There was some controversy over whether signing up for that service would exclude you from any class action lawsuit. But that seeems to be settled now and it appears that it would not exclude you. But is that your best course of action and are there any other steps you should take?
Via Doctor of Credit, he published a guide on what to do and I thought he brought up several good tips.
1. Go to ssa.gov and create your account if you haven't already. This is key because if someone got hold of your social security number, they could open the account. So you want to do it first. Logical.
2. Go to irs.gov and do the same thing.
3. Doctor of Credit is skeptical of signing up for the monitoring service from Equifax since they are responsible for the breach. I am in agreement here and am checking out several other free monitoring services.
4. Set up a 90 day fraud alert, but do note that if you apply for a credit card, you will need to deal with the alert.

Of course, you should pull a credit report which you can get free once per year from creditkarma.com and freecreditscore.com  They also offer free monitoring services.

Good luck!