Weekend Reflections: 10/13/2019

Weekend Reflections: 10/13/2019

Jet Lagged

I’ve been lagging.

But there’s a good reason for this.

I just got back from such an amazing trip to Paris and Rome.

It was amazing because it was the first overseas trip for our daughter, who is now 18 months old.

Also, we took my wife’s entire family (her parents and siblings too). They never had the means to take a trip together as a family. My wife immigrated here as a young girl and both her parents had to work hard to support the family with the little money that they earned. It was definitely enough to provide a loving environment. But a family trip was more than just a luxury; it was a fantasy that never seemed attainable. Until now.

Going to Paris and Rome was actually their first family trip. And it also fulfilled my mother in law’s lifelong dream of visiting Paris and the Vatican!

During the entire trip I made a deliberate effort not to read many blogs or scroll my social media accounts. I posted a few things here and there on Instagram and Twitter. But that’s pretty much it. I really wanted to live in the moment and enjoy my surroundings.

 

Luckily Things Just Worked Out

Organizing a family trip with eight people can be tricky.

With seven full grown adults to plan for, it’s a challenge to get everybody’s schedule to line up so that we can make the family trip happen.

My wife’s sister almost didn’t go. She had a personal emergency to take care of that luckily was resolved in time for our trip.

In situations like this, it’s best to use a credit card with excellent travel insurance benefits. Back in July, I had used my Citi Prestige card to pay for her flight since that card earns 5x Thank You points on airfare purchased directly from airlines.

The Citi Prestige used to have excellent benefits that were quite generous and best in its class.

These benefits included:

• Worldwide Car Rental Insurance
• Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection
• Worldwide Travel Accident Insurance
• Trip Delay Protection
• Baggage Delay Protection
• Lost Baggage Protection
• Medical Evacuation
• Citi® Price Rewind
• 90 Day Return Protection
• Missed Event Ticket Protection
• Roadside Assistance Dispatch Service
• Travel & Emergency Assistance

From various reports, Citi’s Trip Cancellation & Interruption Protection benefit was relatively easy to file a claim for. I’ve seen multiple success stories online. So I felt pretty confident that if for some reason my wife’s sister couldn’t go, I would have a good chance of getting some of my money back through this benefit.

But now I no longer recommend any of the Citi cards for travel protection benefits. This is because starting September 22, 2019 almost all Citi cards (including the Citi Prestige) no longer offer NO travel insurance/protection benefits. The most notable exception is the Citi Costco Anywhere Visa card. Luckily, since I had purchased the flights prior to the drop in benefits on September 22, the old travel protections applied.

But Why Though?

Why Citi did this, I have no idea. It’s a definite head scratcher. It seems like all of the Citi MasterCards were stripped from their benefits and not their Visa cards. So perhaps it has something to do with the contracts with MasterCard.

Hopefully they renegotiate there insurance contracts and bring back those travel protection benefits. I really like my Citi Prestige card!

If Not Citi, Then What?

As of now, the best credit cards with great travel protection coverage is the Chase cards, including the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cards.

In fact, my friend Physician on Fire wrote an excellent article about this in his post Travel Insurance & Benefits: Evacuation Coverage & Credit Card Perks You Didn’t Know You Had.

My friends over at Frequent Miler also wrote a post about this recently. But it goes into much greater detail about higher end credit cards. Ultra Premium Credit Card Travel Insurance.

The world can be an unstable place at time. You never know when a protest turns into violence and political turmoil.

Travel with peace of mind and always bring protection!

 

So Few Miles, So Little Time: #40kFarAway

Speaking of Frequent Miler, the three main writers (Greg, Nick, and Stephen) of the site participated in a fun little #40kFarAway challenge to see who can go the farthest with only 40,000 points and $400.

Each were assigned a different transferrable points currency. Nick chose Citi Thank You points, Stephen Amex picked Membership Rewards points, and Greg was assigned with Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Nick went really far by using his points to visit some faraway island in the South Pacific. Greg went to multiple places in Africa. And Stephen is still exploring Europe. It’s amazing how far you can go with so few points.

I wish the challenge was a bit longer because it has been fun following along these guys in their journey!

Some of the tips and sweet spots that I’ve learned from following along the challenge is also giving me more ideas for our next trip!

 

The Game Changers

While in Rome, we ate a delicious restaurant that offered a full vegan menu of traditional Italian dishes.

The restaurant was Refugio Romano and the food was fantastic.

Outside they had a flyer for The Game Changers movie.

The movie is about plant based diets and how it has helped various athletes optimize recovery, strength, speed, and performance. It primarily features former MMA fighter James Wilkes but it also features other athletes including world’s strongest man Patrik Baboumian, Olympic weight lifter Kendrick Farris, ultra marathoner Scott Jurek, and many more.

The film also briefly features Bruce Lee’s Truth in Combat philosophy: “Research your own experience, absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”

This philosophy inspired Passive Income MD to write a great post about finances in his article Apply Bruce Lee Principles To Your Financial Education.

PIMD’s article’s a great read and The Game Changers is a great movie to watch!

 

Time to Get Back to Work

Now that I’m back from my trip, it’s time to get back to work.

But sometimes it’s hard to get back into the swing of things.

I just barely recovered from my jet lag. And I’ve been busy catching up on emails.

What I really need to do is be less busy and more productive.

I didn’t know all of the differences between being busy and being productive until I read Physician Zen’s post Being Busy Vs Being Productive – Which One Are You?

It’s amazing how he has so many helpful infographics and videos with his posts. I need to be more productive like him!