Italy Trip 2023: Practical Observations

 For our trip to Italy in September 2023, I decided not to blog with a detailed account of the trip.  Instead, I'm making these practical observations.

• As reported earlier, we found a deal to get a Business Class award out of Montreal.  For airport security, instead of the TSA Pre-Check that we usually get in the U.S., our NEXUS cards got us to the Trusted Traveler checkpoint.  The problem was in finding where to go.

 

The checkpoint under the pink here covers Canada and International (non-U.S.) departures.  After checking in in the lower left part of the gray area, we went back and turned right, and were quickly in a long line.  We found out that to get to the NEXUS checkpoint, we should have stayed towards the front of the terminal and then gone towards the back; when we eventually got to the right place, the NEXUS checkpoint had no wait and went quickly, a great benefit of having NEXUS at $50 for five years, one person's fee reimbursed by a credit card that we have.

• A nice air trip going on KLM via Amsterdam in Business Class.  There was a small worry about the reports out there that countries in Europe require six months validity on U.S. passports, when Margaret had less than that.  We went by the official Timatic data that it was enough that she had over three months from the booked return date, and were not given any problem.  They had in their records that the arrival of the overnight flight and the Amsterdam-Rome segment were on my birthday, and flight attendants hand-wrote cards for both segments.  For the latter segment, from a gate in the D80s, from where the gate is marked one goes down to a waiting area that had standing room only for our slightly delayed flight.
• Through Wise, I got a  bank account in euros, starting it when the exchange rate looked favorable, and it's handy for bills involving the house in Italy.  I also paid to get a debit/ATM card, and the benefits of that are less clear: I should have looked over the terms before the trip.  My first attempts at ATM withdrawals were declined, and I found that the default was to have a withdrawal limit of 250 USD; after these refusals, I was able to increase the limit through the site.  I also needed to see what the limits were before they charged for ATM withdrawals; the navigation is confusing, but it comes to: 
  

  You can make 2 free withdrawals up to a total of 100 USD each month. After that, you’ll pay 1.50 USD per withdrawal.

  There's also a 2% fee on anything you take out over 100 USD.

  It's good if I converted dollars to euros within the account when the exchange rate was favorable, but otherwise these fees cancel out much of the benefit.  Overall, it might be best to use my Capital One account, which converts the EUR withdrawal to USD at the interbank exchange rate of the date of the withdrawal.  The Unicredit bank closest to our house in Umbertide adds a charge of 5 EUR, but the Monte dei Paschi farther away doesn't have a fee.
  

• We got to Umbertide and mostly stayed in and around our house, not much sightseeing, and it was a very satisfying trip.  I noted that one can't rely on Internet information or what's posted at the restaurant entrance for when a restaurant will be open, and also that a spacious restaurant could be fully booked for a wedding.  Much of this can also happen close to home in the U.S.  It was best to call or use WhatsApp to see if we could dine somewhere.
• We returned our rental car at Orvieto, the train we got to Rome was slightly delayed, and when we reached Orte, they announced that the continuation of our train was cancelled; we needed to go to another platform to get to a train going to Rome at that time.  This was a first for me.
• After our return flight to Montreal (nice enough in Premium Economy), we spent the night at the Holiday Inn where we'd parked.  As we were getting ready to leave, I saw that the street in front of the hotel was one-way, and we couldn't leave by retracing the route by which we came.  I thought I'd just turn on Waze navigation for the return,  but it was unreliable to get the sound through the car's speaker.  Missing the prompts, we had a terrible time going through jammed traffic to find the right way home.  I should have looked at directions first, which would have been straightforward.
  

Planning the spring 2023 trip: really, another cruise?

 We got home in November 2022 with good thoughts about our river cruise experience, and the benefits of becoming repeat customers with Uniworld were also appealing.  There was one offer that expired the day after our return, too soon to think about doing this.  

Just a little later, there was another sale offer for the Bordeaux cruise, which is where I was focused, an area of France where I haven't been and has been of interest to me.  As I remember, I initiated a booking on the budget deck and it was showing sold out, but I contacted them and they got us a cabin.

As we booked the cruise, it was uncertain what the rest of the trip would be.  First, for the flight over, I was planning to convert credit card points to airline miles.  Among Chase's partners, being based in the U.S. for a transatlantic trip, I think first of United, but as their transatlantic miles price is usually over 30,000 miles each way, I was finding better deals on Europe-based partners.  I first looked at Aer Lingus to go from Boston to Bordeaux via Dublin, but it became clear that there could be problems being on an island and something going wrong with the one flight to Bordeaux.

Seeing that Air France via Paris would be better, it gradually came to be that we could spend about a week in Paris before the cruise.  Even after using IHG points for the stay in Amsterdam, the leftover points, annual free nights for having two credit cards with them, and a 10% rebate of the Amsterdam points meant that we'd have a free Paris stay just by buying a small number of points at the cost of less than a night.  We'd be convenient to Gare Montparnasse, where we could experience the TGV train to Bordeaux.

On the Flying Blue program, a one-way Boston-Paris flight could be had for 17K miles; I think it helps that Boston is in a lower-distance mile band.  There was also a bonus for converting American Express Membership Rewards. (I should also note that there's a money component to award booking, larger than with U.S.-based airlines.) I started the booking, and with a confirmation code there was an error message that I needed to call.  I understand that this is common with award bookings on points just transferred from another program, an effort to watch for fraud.  It took a few calls, some cut off, but the outbound was booked.

I was still thinking in terms of some time in Italy after the Bordeaux cruise, but it came to be that we didn't want to be away for so long, and there weren't great options for getting from Bordeaux to Rome or another Italian gateway.  We finally decided just to return home after the cruise, a connection from Bordeaux via Paris, and I completed that reward booking with a similar need to call.

In both directions, we were booked on the later of Air France's two flights on the route.  In late December, I got a notice that our flights had been changed: those flights were taken off the schedule for those days.  We were on the earlier flights, and that's how the outbound stayed, but a few days later I got an email in Spanish with a link to AF's Mexican site saying the original flight was cancelled, and not showing us having anything.  The originally rebooked flights were still on the timetable, and I made a call that got that reinstated.  There was another notice changing our flight out of Bordeaux to something still earlier, and the cruise line will probably want us up really early for their transfer to the airport.  Oh, and our bid for an upgraded stateroom was approved, much closer to the cruise start than it was last time.

Going over, our flight arrival is set for 6 a.m., and I was able to add an IHG free night so our room is booked for the previous night and we can have it ready on arrival.  We look forward to interesting times, having seen about the ongoing protests in Paris, apparently generally not affecting travelers all that much, and we don't have too much of an agenda.

But back to the plans to go to Italy: we're looking for a trip there in September.  Margaret has been looking to take Business Class when possible; I look at Flying Blue's Promo Rewards every month, and I understood I was seeing a good deal out of Montreal, which is about the same distance as Boston for us.  With a bonus for converting Chase points to Flying Blue, I booked a September trip in Business going over and Premium Economy on the return, looking good even though there is a notable monetary component to the booking.  I later learned that these didn't meet the definition of Promo Rewards; they're the low end of the dynamic rewards pricing, but we'll make the best of it.  Also, I completed the booking, after sleeping on it for a night, on the day that Flying Blue started charging for seat assignments on awards, but then they got the system fixed so they didn't charge on North American routes.