Weekend Blitz

Air Asia QZ 7529 Dept: Bali (DPS) 3:35 pm Arrv: Jakarta (CGK) 4:15 pm

We knew we needed to fly fro Bali to Jakarta for weeks (if not months), but for whatever reason never booked a flight. We were partly putting it off having heard not-so-great things about Jakarta and I guess we were a little nervous to go. In fact, up until the day before our flight, we were still deciding whether we should extend our stay in Bali/Ubud or fly to Singapore early or bite the bullet and go to Jakarta. We finally ended up booking our Air Asia flight the day before departure for $156.67 USD total (for the two of us).

Of $156 total, $99 [...]

We knew before we ever left the US that we wanted to do a bike tour of Ubud. I’d done a bike tour of Tuscany when I studied abroad and it was one of my favorite memories from my time, so I was really looking forward to learning more about the area in Ubud with a long bike tour. Plus, what’s more romantic than a bike ride through the rice paddies on your honeymoon? Many tours were advertised for appx $30, leaving at 7 or 8am and returning by 2pm, so we knew it wouldn’t be hard to do once we arrived.

As luck would have it, we were chatting with the Swiss owner of our hotel (Villa Semana) upon arrival and he very kindly [...]

We were having the best time just hanging around our hotel (W Retreat & Spa Bali) during the first part of our honeymoon, but finally felt like we should venture out and explore more of the island. After speaking with the hotel concierge about how to best leave the property and see some cool sights in the area, we settled on hiring a car and driver by the hour. The W had a few prescribed routes for sightseeing, but the beauty of being able to rent a car + driver is that you can easily custom tailor it to what makes sense for you.

We weighed our options and ultimately decided to leave in the morning to visit the temples Tanah Lot and then Taman Ayun –with a few more [...]

Everything about the W Retreat & Spa Bali Seminyak was fun, lively and the perfect place to begin our honeymoon. As I’ve covered in a previous post about the hotel (you can read it here), our very own pool villa was everything I always wanted in a honeymoon + more.

But, when we ventured away from the private pool and quiet oasis of our villa, the rest of the W always had a lot going on and plenty to experience. There was always a lively party, plenty of Balinese culture to take in and rum drinks overflowing by the pool – no matter what time of day or night. Much of the crowd was always gathered at one of the two on-site restaurants, so this post will [...]

As reported here on Flyertalk, you can book fares from select Pennsylvania airports to Bali, Indonesia for around $532 roundtrip, all-in.

The Deal

To me, one of the most fun parts of planning a nice trip is researching really awesome First Class cabins and nice resorts that we can fly on/stay in for cheap or free.

Before planning our honeymoon, I strategically signed up for 2x Chase cards a few months prior to booking that yielded me 100,000 bonus points so, those points (combined with the other points we had been patiently earning and hoarding over the last few years) came out to just enough for two round-trip tickets in First Class using United MileagePlus miles. The total points we used to book were 280,000 miles, 140k each. As a side note, United has massively devalued their currency and now the same trip would cost [...]

Just a few short days until our honeymoon! Here’s a brief overview of where we’re headed and how we’re getting there:

Our 24,606 mile trip will take us to 10 countries (including connections) over 16 days:

Part 1 -New York

We’ll fly from Charleston-JFK to New York-JFK  on Delta…

…and spend 1 night in the city to get our fill of the Christmas spirit.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

Part 2 – Bali, Indonesia

Our award ticket starts in New York as we fly out of New York-LGA and, appx 33 hours later, land in Denpasar, [...]