Thanks for all the birthday wishes yesterday. You guys rock. And no matter what The King says, you can never tire of people telling you you’re awesome.

Okay, so remember how The King, Babboo and I are going to Europe in September? Remember how I told you how we used frequent flier miles to get us all FREE plane tickets? In the weeks after I posted that, I assume you all switched over to a credit card that offers you FF miles, right? (I hope you did!) (If you haven’t yet, what are you waiting for?)

The King and I are trying to get as much of this trip paid for before we actually take the trip. We figure it will be easier to swallow this bill if he slowly pay a little of it every month. This means trying to book and pay for our hotel rooms each a little every month. This is hard to do since we’re still trying to plan our complete itinerary. What we do know is that we’re starting out in Berlin and ending up in London. We’re prepared to get those hotel rooms now.

And so the hunt for our perfect hotels has begun.

We all have our own personal levels of comfort when staying in hotels. Some people demand a turn-down service and mints on their pillows. Some people only demand clean sheets and a door that locks. And others are only looking for a roof over their head and maybe indoor plumbing. Before shopping for a hotel you must come to terms with what you are personally comfortable with.

The King and I have different comfort levels based on whether or not we’re staying in a hotel in America. While vacationing in the U.S. of A, we like to stay at your typical old run of the mill hotel with a clean bathroom.

This picture was taken at a hotel we stayed at in Washington DC last summer. I’d say that the average we’re comfortable spending on a hotel room in America is about $100.

Of course that’s just an average of what we “like to” spend. When we stayed in NYC, also last summer, we paid about double our “like to” price for a hotel with a shared bathroom. New York city is an expensive place. We had to adjust our hotel comfort level to accommodate our location and the cost of hotels there.

While our hotel in NYC wasn’t ideal (as is apparent from this picture), it was cheap enough (and clean enough) to make their rate what we were most comfortable with.

While we’re on the subject, let’s quickly discuss this whole shared bathroom trend. I admit that before I actually tried staying in a hotel with a shared bathroom, I was skeptical. Here’s the thing, every single hotel I’ve ever stayed at with a shared bathroom has been no big deal. Really. Sharing a bathroom in a hotel is like when you go to visit your aunt and you stay in her guest room in the basement. You have to share the bathroom at your aunt’s house with your teenage cousin that you don’t really know. You see remnants that prove your cousin is also using the bathroom, but you never see your cousin actually using the bathroom.

It’s like that when you share a bathroom in a hotel.

I swear to you, I have never seen another person using the bathroom while I’m also using it. Never, ever, ever. It’s really no big deal. Plus, the hotels with shared bathrooms are extra good about housekeeping keeping the bathroom tidied throughout the day. They are extra clean. At least the ones we’ve stayed at are.
The only hotels I’ve ever seen shared bathrooms offered in America is in New York City. I think it’s pretty common there. And while the hotels with shared bathrooms we’ve stayed in NYC aren’t as clean as the ones we’ve stayed in in Europe, they are sufficient for our needs and fit into our price range.

What I’m saying is that don’t pass up a hotel with a shared bathroom, if the price is right. You might be surprised. And save a few dollars at the same time.

Okay, so once you’ve figured out what your hotel comfort level is, you can start looking for a hotel. Hotel shopping, for us, typically starts at the top with your typical travel sites like travelocity, orbitz, hotels, and expedia. This is a good place to start. This way you can look around and see what hotels are offered in your area and how much they are going for. It’s good to familiarize yourself with what your options are going to be. A website that we’ve had good luck with for hotels in Europe is venere.

Yes, there is some leg work in finding your hotel. But the right hotel is a top priority in helping to make your vacation memorable. In a good way.

Usually, when looking for hotels in out-of-the-way locations (like some of the places we’ll be visiting on our upcoming trip), we just google “hotels in name of town” and see what comes up. This is a good way to find locally owned beach front houses, or weekly vacation rentals, and not just chain hotels. You can usually contact the owners directly, via e-mail or phone, and ask questions and maybe even do a little bartering.

After we find a few hotel options online, The King and I will both scour the interweb for reviews on the hotels we’re interested in. The King usually reads the reviews on the individual travel websites while I’m a fan of the reviews over at tripadvisor. I typically read all the reviews and try to weigh the good and the bad ones. My personal thought is that someone who has stayed in a hotel and been completely satisfied won’t typically come home and get online to write a review about their hotel stay. I think only those with either super bad or super good experiences will take the time to post their reviews. So, I read all of the reviews, but take them with a grain of salt.

(We stayed at a hotel years ago in NYC where one tripadvisor review mentioned HUGE RATS in their room. We took a chance and stayed there and loved the place. No rats anywhere. See, grain of salt.)

A few years ago I found a website called BiddingForTravel. Basically it’s a message board for people using the NameYourOwnPrice option over at priceline. If you aren’t familiar with how this works, basically priceline let’s you bid on a hotel (or plane tickets, or a car rental) without knowing what hotel you’re going to get. You can put restrictions on your bid, like you want a 4* hotel in a certain neighborhood for a certain (lower) price. And then you just hope and pray you get a hotel you want. Once you win your bid, there is no turning back. You’ve paid for your hotel.

Using Priceline is a gamble and had always made me nervous in the past. That is until I found BiddingForTravel.

The beauty of BiddingForTravel is that the people on the message boards are keeping track of how much people are getting hotels for using Priceline. They also teach you how to use Priceline to the best advantage. They teach you about “free rebids” and how to work the system.

Be assured, it’s all legal. And it rocks.

The King and I have successfully used BiddingForTravel to get awesome (super awesome!) hotel deals in Vancouver, Canada. I’m talking $300 a night 4* hotels for $60 a night. Dude, you can’t beat that.

Okay, to use BiddingForTravel, you do need to do a little footwork to get help with your Priceline bids. You must first post a “Bidding Assistance Request” form on the message board. They want to know where you’re traveling to, how long you’re planning on staying, how much you’re willing to pay for your hotel room, what the hotels in that area are going for online, and where your “free rebid” areas are, etc.

The King and I used BiddingForTravel last month to get our hotel in London. We were able to bid and win a hotel for $70 a night. That specific hotel was going for $200 a night on the hotel’s website. Do the math. We saved $130. That’s a huge deal to travelers on a budget. Which is what we are.

We are now trying to get our hotel for Berlin booked. Last week I posted on BiddingForTravel for assistance on bidding for our hotel. I’m hoping to win a hotel for no more then $90 a night. The hotels in Berlin are going for over $200. We can’t afford that.

So, the people on BiddingForTravel suggested I start my bids at $70 and work my way up from there. Not going over $80. On Priceline you can only bid every 24 hours. And so, that’s what I’m doing. I’m bidding everyday, just hoping and praying that at some point I’ll actually win a bid.

While I haven’t had a successful bid yet for Berlin, I’m not nervous. We still have a few months left before we board the plane. Plus, we have a back up plan on a hotel we’ve stayed at in the past. Our backup plan isn’t as cheap as it has been in the past, but we’ve stayed there and know what we’d be getting ourselves into with it.

I’m in charge of working on getting us our Berlin hotel and The King is in charge of setting us up with a sweet (and by “sweet” I mean “inexpensive AND awesome”) hotel for the week we’ll be touring around the Balearic Islands in Spain. He’s deep in the middle of e-mail negotiations with the English owners of a beach front rental that we’re dying to stay at.

I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, tell me, what are your secrets to finding a good deal on a hotel room? I’m very curious to hear some more secrets. So, please share.

You know how we bought a fancy camera back when Babboo was born? Yeah, you probably don’t know since we don’t fully know how to utilize all the awesomeness of our fancy camera.

This weekend, while away for a well-deserved over-night excursion, we tried to use the fancy “timer” option that our fancy camera has always taunted us with.

“Oh, we can finally take a picture of all of us together for the interweb!” The King proclaimed and he pushed the timer button and prepared for a family picture to treasure for years to come.

And then we tried again and again to get a picture of us enjoying our snuggle time in the hotel room. Eventually we just gave up on the snuggle-time family picture.

The next morning, before heading out to breakfast, we tried for a family picture. Again. This time, instead of on the bed, we opted for the couch in the hotel room.

We weren’t too successful with the “family on the couch” picture either. Although The King did manage to get this lovely picture of the carpet in the hotel room.

Oh great, we are all actually in this picture. (I mean, our suitcase is also in the picture. But whatever, it’s a nice suitcase.)

The King was now confident in his skillz with the timer function. Now if he could only figure out how to focus. Hey, that’s hard. You have to twist the little thing on the front of the camera. It’s very technical.

After we got back home, I decided to try to figure out the timer and get a few shots of Babboo and me. You know, for posterity.

Crap, maybe this whole “timer” thing is harder then it looks.

Oh crap, and so is the whole “in focus” thingy. Especially when used in conjunction with the timer setting thingy.

Great. I finally get both the timer and the focus to work simultaneously. But Babboo choses to cock-block me and totally steal the shot.

Oh yes, the kid is not impressed with any of my mad camera skillz.

And let’s be honest…neither will any of you.

So tell me, what percentage of your pictures are as awesome as mine?

————–

Did you miss the Old 97’s on the Tonight Show last Thursday? (Let’s not talk about how lame my DVR was and how it only got ONE MINUTE of the performance). Anyway, go HERE to watch the Old 97’s in all their glory. Feel free to watch it over and over and over again. I did.

Back in January I told you how we planned to move into the new house the last weekend in April. This wasn’t because the house was going to be finished in April, but was because we could no longer financially afford to not move into the new house. You may have also heard mention of a three week trip to Europe this coming September. Discussing dire financial restraints and taking a three week trip to Europe do not go hand in hand.

I feel like an @ss blogging about how financially strapped we are while also blogging about an upcoming three week trip to Europe. And yet, I don’t want this to stop me from being able to blog about both of these exciting things here on my site (the new house, not the financially strapped part).

We travel a little different then most people do. We travel cheap. Very, very cheap!  We’ve stayed in some sh!t holes all over the world. It’s one way we keep our costs down.

Yesterday, after church and after putting Babboo down for his nap, The King and I sat in the front room and tried to plan more of our trip out. With about 15 travel books from the library and a couple of maps, we discussed the pros and cons of different places to visit in Europe.

Oh, and I pulled out my swimming suit stash and took inventory of the suits I’d take with me on our trip (and tried them all on, you know, to see how my latest attempts at Weight Watchers is going). (It’s going, by the way.)

I own a lot of bikinis. And, can you see, that some of them still have their (super clearance) price tags on them? Oh yes, I have so many that I’ve got some ($1.97) bikini’s that I’ve never even worn. I plan on using all of them on our trip.

Oh right, back to this little trip.

The quick-ish history of this particular trip is:
The King lived in Berlin, Germany for a few years in his early twenties. We are very connected to Germany. We have many friends there and good memories of trips past. We’ve been fortunate enough to visit Germany three times since we’ve been married. The last time we went was in the second trimester of my pregnancy with Babboo. Before we decided to have kids together, The King and I discussed how wanted to raise our kids. One of the top five things we wanted for our future off-springs was the opportunity to travel. Something that I was never fortunate enough to have when I was a kid. When I got knocked up, we vowed that this kid was going to love to travel. We were adamant about this.

Two years later and we’ve got to stick to this promise we made. This means we’ve got to actually take Babboo on a trip. I mean, if he’s going to learn to love traveling, he might was well start young.

So now you know a little bit of the back story and why we feel we have to travel at this point in our lives, and why we make it a priority. You also know why we go to Europe all the time instead of trying some place new like Australia, South America, or Asia. (I mean, The King actually speaks the German language. So, of course, it’s a place we like to visit.)

The thing about traveling, that I never realized until I actually traveled, is that it’s not that hard to actually do it. All of us can travel. We don’t need to be rich or afraid. We just need to learn some of the secrets as to how to make it work. In the months prior to our September trip, I’m going to keep you guys in the loop of our travel plans and teach you some of the secrets that The King and have I learned over the years. I’m hoping that you guys will be able to share some of your secrets with me and with the rest of the readers.

Something that the new house has afforded us to do is accrue frequent flyer (FF) miles. Before we started the house project, we switched banks and signed up for the Bank of American Alaska Airlines Visa card (and their debit card too). While Alaska Airlines doesn’t necessarily fly to all the places we went to go, their affiliates do. Which means we can pretty much fly anywhere we want with our Alaska Airlines miles. How we’ve accrued so many FF miles is we’ve paid for everything for the new house on our Alaska Airlines credit card. I know this sounds scary, but don’t worry, we haven’t actually carried the debt on the card.

Here’s the deal; The King will call and order 20K in lumber for the house. We’re using the money we made when we sold the last house to pay for the lumber. But dude, we might as well get FF miles for it. So we use the FF credit card and then two seconds later (literally), The King will pay off the credit card from our construction savings. Which means, we just got 20K in FF miles for free! (You get 1 FF miles for each dollar spent with your card and it takes about 50K FF miles for one free ticket to Europe.)

The King also spent the last year traveling for his job. While having him gone every other week sucked, he was able to accrue tons of FF miles (and hotel points) this way. We’ve also made a couple of trips to Utah and one trip to Washington DC during this time, all of which gained us more FF miles. It took a while, but eventually we had enough miles to cash them in and get The King, Babboo and me all FREE tickets to Europe!

Completely free!

(Well, except for paying the fees/taxes. But dude, nothing like the 1K each they would have been.)

One negative thing about using FF miles is that there are only so many FF mile seats made available. The airlines suggest you reserve your tickets as soon as possible. The earliest you can get them is 365 days in advance. So that’s what we did. We got our tickets last September. Having to get your tickets that far in advance doesn’t give you much time to actually pre-plan your trip. Basically, you just take what you can get.

That’s how we ended up with the tickets we got; we fly into Berlin on September 3rd and fly out of London on the 20th. Where we go in between was still to be determined.

I’ve never been to Europe in the summer time. We’ve always gone in the winter. Going in the winter months allows us to stay in hotels for cheaper, eat for less, and avoid the crowds. The Europe I know and love is freezing cold and pretty much devoid of tourists. Summertime in Europe is going to be a whole new thing for me. (I’m sure I’m going to loathe the crowds.)

We decided to make this trip to Europe less about the snowy Alps, Bavaira, long underwear and coats and more about beaches and swimming suits. (Or better yet, beaches and no swimming suits!) More like the trip we took to Tulum, Mexico when I was first pregnant.

(I just got the film from our waterproof camera developed last week! It’s almost been three years since our trip to Mexico. And dude, I’m glad I waiting since I got a coupon for FREE film developing.)

Now you know a little bit more about how frequent flier miles can work for you. Even if you don’t plan on traveling a ton or paying for a house with your credit card, you really should sign up for a credit card that allows you get earn FF miles. You’re going to use your card anyway, you might as well get something for using it.

In my next vacation-themed post, I’m going to tell you how I make Priceline my bitch by using biddingfortravel to book our hotel rooms. We bought our hotel room for the last three days in London for $70 using biddingfortravel, instead of the $200 other people are paying.

So tell me, what are your secrets to making frequent flier miles work for you?

Let’s say, for instance, that you recently flew on a plane. And let’s just say, for instance, that you flew with your 21 month son child on your lap. And let’s say, you know, that you were lucky enough to score an empty seat for said child. And, for the sake of fun, let’s say that a complete stranger decided to take the seat next to you and your child.

And, because this is fun, let’s say that this complete stranger (who is, let’s be honest, a little different) began to assign herself the title of Your New Best Friend, even though you didn’t know the title was up for grabs. So much so that when you found out you were both on the same return flight (oh Lord!) this complete stranger quickly promised to save you and your child a seat*.

(Do people do this? I mean, I’ve heard of saving seats at the movie theater or maybe in your junior high school cafeteria, but on an airplane? Really?)

What is the appropriate etiquette for telling someone; “thanks for waiting for me and my precious child at the front of the plane, but really, I’m sure I can find my own seat. Thanks you also for the toy you bought my kid while you were on vacation. It really was thoughtful. But dude, you are a complete and utter stranger. And frankly, you’re a little odd!”

And then what do you do when the person who, thankfully, wasn’t able to find a seat near your on the plane, is there to greet you when you final exit the plane with one of those electrical cart that she reserved for you and your child? You know, so that you could “chat on the way to baggage claim”.

Seriously, what do you do in a situation like this?! Essentially you are stuck in a little room with this person for hours, in the air, so you can’t be too hostile, right?
(Thank the sweet Baby Jesus that she didn’t ask me my friend for her contact information. I’m My friend’s not good about coming up with fake e-mail addresses on the spot.)

*We flew Southwest. Which does not have assigned seats. Don’t judge me. It’s cheap.

I’m back from spending five days with my family. That is the longest amount of time I’ve spent at my folks house since I moved away almost eight years ago.

I’ve separated my trip into two categories and in picture form. You know, because the interweb demands pictures.

Things I DON’T miss about my homestate:

I don’t miss the snow.

I don’t miss the fact that you have to scrape the ice off your car windows. Dude, I hate that.

I don’t miss that the only toys at my folk’s house are crappy Happy Meal toys my mom got like ten years ago. (Note to my mom: BUY NEW TOYS!)

I don’t miss trying to do my latest New Thing on my mom’s old sewing machine. (Note to mom: get a new sewing machine.)

I don’t miss all the damn snow. I’ve mentioned that I hate snow, right? Dude, I really hate it.

Things I DO miss about my homestate:

I miss Marci. She’s been my bestest friend since about the 8th grade.

While I hate the snow, I must admit that watching my dad pull Babboo and his little cousin in the sled was adorable. Babboo loved it. He smiled the entire time. So did I (when my teeth weren’t chattering, of course.)

I miss catching Babboo and my younger brother and sister asleep on the floor at my folks house after a yummy lunch.

I miss being picked up from the airport by one of my favorite bloggers and then meeting even more bloggers for lunch!

I miss the local hamburger joint and their fry sauce. I don’t know what’s in it, but it’s white. And maybe has some lemon in it. Whatever, it’s good.

I miss watching my little guy play in the damn snow for the first time. While his mommy hates it, he loved it.

Last, but not least, I miss my family. And just sitting around the table playing cards with them.

So tell me, what did I miss while I was away? Because seriously, I didn’t even touch a computer in the five days I was away.

While we took two cameras and one camcorder with us to Canada last weekend, we didn’t really take any pictures and not one second of video. Dude, it’s like I’m allergic to actually taking my camera out of my purse and taking a freakin’ picture.

Of course I did manage to snap this ditty while we were waiting to catch the ferry to Granville Island.

Because, while I’m too lazy to take the time to capture my child enjoying his first ferry ride, I’m not too lazy to take pictures I know the interweb will enjoy.

Did you hear that the winter Olympics are going to be in Vancouver in 2010? Yeah well, they are and I think that’s pretty cool. Of course I’m pretty sure that I won’t attend any of the events, (can you just imagine what the border crossing would be like? It took us an hour to cross last weekend), it was fun to see all the Olympic paraphernalia around town, like the official countdown.

And hello, no pictures of me with my family? Nope. When this one was taken The King and Babboo were back at the hotel taking a nap. (I wished I was taking a nap and not out in the cold. But I took one for the team and let The King go back to the room.)

(Looking at this picture of me makes me laugh. You can totally tell I’m freezing my ass off, but trying to hide it. Yeah, it was cold. I even wore knit tights under my jeans. The King was all “those pants look like they shrunk” and I was all “yeah, I have thick tights on under them. I promise.”)

Oh wait, I also took this awesome picture of a street performer on Granville Island. We sat, in the cold, and watched this guy do amazing tricks for almost an hour.

We gave him $5 (American) and our friends gave him $5 (Canadian). We figured the guy was making a pretty good living. Our only concern was for his safety, because clearly, his job as a street performer doesn’t provide health insurance.

And then we remembered that Canada has socialized medicine. He’s got it made in the shade.

So tell me, am I the only one that comes back from a vacation without any good pictures of the family together?