Training for vacation:
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Absolutely absurd.
I’d drive toward home & switch drivers.
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Have you seen the new AI toys for babies?
What could go wrong?
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For sure! Ain’t nobody got time for a $600 Hampton or Doubletree. 
Playing the points game up there has really saved so much more money than I even dreamed of now - last tally over in my CC points thread was around $4K had I paid full price for every college related stay since DD started looking at schools.
Not an outlay I thought about for a second until we were on the road for that first trip up to Geneseo to check it out and I had those several hours of drive time reflection.
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Tempting fate are we?
I think tech is moving to fast. But how to stop it? 
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Please never pay that much for the Finger Lakes! I have way too many friends who’d let you stay for free. 
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Geez, no, I’ve probably never paid more than $200 for any room in my life. 
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Still stalking the hotels near DD’s college to see if I can switch to the one I like best instead of the one I have (which is fine) - had to update this with the latest point price for this very medium Hampton Inn.
120,000 Hilton points for a regular King room.
I booked it back in April for 45,000 points and honestly even that is a stretch. 
Edit to add: the new markup editor in this version of the Discourse forum sucks.
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For a Hampton Inn!!! Definitely. I can get an all inclusive Secrets in Playa Del Carmen for that!!!
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I’ve pushed them before either on this thread or my CC rewards thread, but worth another shout out in case anyone hasn’t heard of this site:
OpenHotelAlert is a pretty great free service - I set up an alert for the hotel I was looking to switch to and woke up to an email that a room opened up!
You can set up an alert for any open rooms on particular dates, or even select which room types you want to limit to.
Immediately booked it - Bazinga!
Funnily enough: The Doubletree doesn’t seem to play the crazy points game - it was listed at the usual points price.
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Super Pre-Emptive Deluxe It Up Trip
We have zero plans at all yet for next year and I’m thinking we will likely be heading north or some other direction for any family vacation we take in the summer.
But, driving along yesterday, something occurred to me:
Next year will be the 30th anniversary of the first trip my (now) DW and I took to WDW, when we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge.
It will also be the 50th (gulp) anniversary of my first trip.
That is some crazy right there.
I feel like we should do at least some sort of short trip down.
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Right, lol! Could make a long weekend out of it.
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We have about 2 weeks between dropping DD back at college next year and the start of DW’s school year. Hmm…
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More than energy ugh time then!
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Another year another TripIt Black Friday discount link - this one is again 50% off.
My current sub is expiring on Dec 6th, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed the code holds out long enough for me to use it as I have in past years.
I still find it a very useful tool to have.
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Positive data point: Cancelled my subscription weeks ago, waited for it subscription to end yesterday and scored the 50% off again.
That’s a savings of $96 over 4 years now. 
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Thanks JJT. I just tried to get myself set up, (I have a trip to Europe planned for next year so I thought it would be useful). Ran into some glitches, and have a ticket into TripIt to help. They took my CC for the promo amount, but my account says I am not pro, and it won’t let me upgrade (grayed out), nor let me add my email to synch up emails. Hopefully this will get sorted tomorrow in the AM.
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Ahh, that’s weird! Fingers crossed they get it fixed for you, I haven’t had any glitches with them myself in all these years.
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Southwest’s boarding policy has now officially transitioned from open seating to assigned.
Another thing that has changed: handing out pistachios to people in the extra legroom seats.
This does not make me happy - for those who are allergic to nuts and/or have family who is, be aware of this policy when selecting your seats. You may want to select seats further back to provide as much buffer as possible.
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