School’s out and the northern hemisphere is gearing up for summer. If you are a birder who has a family wanting to enjoy more traditional summer vacation activities, see this video by Birding Adventures on how you can please everyone in the family in south Florida.
The highlights of course are the urban parrots! Once you see Quakers and Nanday Parakeets in Florida, why not plan a trip to the Pantanal to see them in their native lands?
No sooner have I returned from the big South American birding trip, I now have to think of NEXT year’s trip. The 330 day window is approaching for the outbound and I like to book as soon as I see the flights loaded. Of course we are using miles from various accounts and there has been some tweaking done because of the American and Virgin Velocity devaluations. This is why I have delayed the trip reports but hopefully I will soon have the important flights booked and can relax a bit. It has brought to mind a few things I have to avoid while planning “The Godmother of all African Adventures“.
My goal here is easily booked award tickets to go birding at an optimal time when the weather is decent, everything is open and doing business as usual and the parks won’t be crowded.
I know every blogger and his brother has posted about Chase’s new rewards partner but I thought I would draw attention to the good deals to be found on Kenya Airways which is a Flying Blue member. Flying Blue is one of my Top 8 programs for eco-travellers for a reason. Paying for flights within Africa can be very expensive.
For example Accra to Lusaka would cost $500-600 cash but only 15,000 Flying Blue miles plus surcharges of around $202 USD (most of which is airport tax, not YQ).
I have my eye on a Dubai-EBB (Entebbe/Kampala Uganda) for 20k Flying Blue per person for next year!
Continuing on from yesterday, experience Kenyan culture, the Big 5 and more exotic birds in beautiful Kenya!
Kenya is one of the most popular destinations for safaris but it is also a top birding spot in Africa. Sit back, relax and enjoy this video of Mr Currie’s birding adventure.
For the last few years, the month of May has been a great opportunity for people to boost their Virgin Australia Velocity points when transferring points from various Australian banks. For more details, T&C’s and links to the banks, click the image.
Barely back from South America, I still need to plan for Africa next year and Velocity points can be used on Etihad & South African Airways which suit my needs!
Transfer your points to Velocity between 1 May and 31 May 2016 and receive 15% bonus Velocity Points. You’ll enter a new world of rewards, including flights to over 600 destinations and award-winning Reward Seat availability^.
Actually we got back a week ago and I still haven’t really recovered. This has been a very full-on trip covering a lot of ground throughout Ecuador, Colombia & some Caribbean Islands that have good birding – Trinidad, St Lucia, St Vincent, Dominica & Puerto Rico. We then spent time in the USA visiting family. While I usually try to build some down time into a trip, this time it wasn’t possible. It’s getting so much harder to earn miles from credit cards and my stockpiles are dwindling so I was mindful that we may not get back to these parts of the world again so we had to cover everything possible.
During this trip we experienced the big earthquake in Ecuador on 16 April. Luckily we were far from the epicenter and in no real danger but the internet and tv reception were out in the lodge we were staying at and we had no way of knowing just how bad the earthquake was until we got to the Quito airport the next day.
Flights weren’t affected and we got to Colombia on schedule only to have our bank shut down our ATM card! I had done everything right – notified all banks and credit cards of our itinerary and the bank should have known we were in Colombia but they still shut down that one ATM card. Thankfully they didn’t shut down our credit cards and I was still able to access cash by doing cash advances but I had a mess to sort out when we got home. They wouldn’t accept my secure message to unblock the ATM card and insisted we call but between lack of phone coverage, quickie one-night layovers and time zone differences between Australia and the Americas we weren’t able to connect until we got home. The bank finally did reverse the cash advance fees because they had unjustly blocked my card but it took numerous phone calls and a lot of stress.
Other things piled up and I am still trying to sort out some personal stuff but once I do, I can start blogging this trip and trust me, it will be worth the wait!
Many people will find themselves in southern Florida whether it be a visit to friends or family, business, pre-cruise ship or just a family vacation. There are many beautiful birds to be seen here as shown on the latest Birding Adventures video!
This is good news for those who don’t have enough miles for a business class redemption but would like a little more comfort than economy. But in most cases from Australia. the difference between economy & premium economy vs premium economy and business are enough that I still suggest you go for business class awards if you have/can get the miles. SQ miles are relatively easy to get with American Express Membership Rewards and several other Aussie bank issued cards transferable to SQ. Remember, you get a 15% discount for awards on Singapore Airlines & Silk Air booked online!
The updated Singapore Airlines award charts – Australia is split between zone 8 & 9.
I found a series of photography tutorials on Youtube with really good explanations. ISO can be confusing for most people so lets see how to set it properly.