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Welcome

Friends,

We are in the process of winding down a (wonderful) season in Knoxville, and one of the hardest things for me is to say goodbye.

This, if nothing else, strikes me as a little ironic in the context of my love for travel.

But I have started crying (good tears) in our back yard more than once in the last two weeks with my children. And I am an almost 37-year-old grown man.

It makes me sad to say goodbye when you know you won’t come back to something as it was. I felt this way when we left Dallas in 2023 and then again in Wellington and Melbourne last year.

The promise of God that the best is yet to come affronts this. It does not diminish but transforms—that for all the good we experience here, it is a foretaste of greater joy. And for whatever faith this takes to believe, it is worth it.

Relationship with God is the only mean I have experienced of transforming sadness to joy. And that relationship is multi-faceted: a dear friend of mine recently reminded me that ‘we are broken in community and we heal in community’.

Travel for sure provides new space and exposure to live life in light of death.

My (only) true courage comes from believing that a 1st-century ancient Near-Eastern rabbi named Jesus was the son of God. That he died and came back to life—conquering death and all its wretchedness (more on that another time) in this resurrection. He is the reason I am able to really enter into the sadness of goodbyes and find bright hope.

Thank you for letting me get a little deep there all of a sudden.

1291 words today.

Let’s get going.

Links

Southwest just launched their third network-wide fare sale in the last three weeks. This is a rhetorically solid strategy, but it strikes me as odd—like they are seeing erosion in advance bookings.

Bryan Bedford has been nominated to lead the FAA during a beleaguered time for the U.S. airline industry at large. At the very least, he is not a bureaucrat.

Air France debuts a new first class, that is more evolutionary than revolutionary. It looks remarkably worth it, and I am eager to try the product on points. More on that another time. Air France-KLM is run by one of the best leadership teams in the industry.

I have yet to take a luxury rail journey, but I’d really like to.

A Delta regional jet had a wing strike landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport last night. Here is the ATC from the incident.

Frontier shows up to play and poach goodwill from disenfranchised Southwest passengers. This makes me want to give them a try. They are also doing a commendable job (at large) of seeking to adapt their business model while not totally alienating their customer base.

Story

As mentioned above, we are about to move back to Texas and that semi-means I am planning my family’s next adventure. Here are the agreed upon planning parameters with my (wonderful, practical) wife:

1. We are not going anywhere until late summer at the earliest.

2. The trip needs to cost next to nothing.

3. We want to cross an ocean (preferably the Atlantic) on a fun airline.

4. We (about) have ten days.

5. The journey needs to end in Minnesota.

Before I go too much farther, I will recognize that an immediate feature of our returning ‘home’ to the ancestral lands (in my family’s case, Texas) is rest. Thus, point #1: we intend to not travel as a family for a few months at least while we resume life in Dallas. So this trip is our next contemplation, likely in the late summer before my extended family gathers at our other ancestral lands (in Minnesota, which were preceded only by Scandinavia).

I love writing the world ‘ancestral’, particularly as in this case it is obnoxiously dramatic. But I digress.

So parameters two through five get to shape the actual trip, which becomes kind of a doozy from a planning standpoint. I am looking for four tickets across the Atlantic plus accommodation for a roughly ten day trip during the height of summer. And our budget is $0.

The game is afoot!

I always start with flights, because if you cannot get to or from where you hope to go you will not get there. And in this case, I scored an early win: Delta has availability on points from London to Minneapolis for 27.5k Virgin miles in mid-August to get us to the Lake. Huzzah! Those MSP non-stops on Delta are unicorns, so this is a big find.

Now, the outbound: can we get on a non-stop from Dallas to Europe? They are not unicorns, per se, but it is also not a given. And the two rules I have come to live by in traveling with small children are ‘love conquers all’ and ‘non-stops are best’.

Looking at early August from DFW to Europe is initially discouraging. Then, I find four seats on Air France from DFW to Paris at 25k FlyingBlue miles each. This is it!

We can fly to Paris and spend two days there before traveling onto London via the Eurostar train. We will then have a calendar week in the UK before flying onto Minneapolis to meet everyone at the lake. I will transfer points into my AirFrance FlyingBlue (DFW-CDG) and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (LHR-MSP) accounts from CapitalOne and Amex to cover the tickets. Bada bing, bada boom.

Almost.

We still have to stay somewhere. And paying summertime rates for hotels or AirBnbs in London and Paris is not a layup—not with our budget, at least.

But Marriott and Hyatt points will, almost surprisingly, do the trick. As of now, we will stay at the Marriott (River Gauche) in Paris for 34k Bonvoy points per night and the Hyatt Place (London City East) by the Tower Bridge for 12k Hyatt points per night.

While these are not the most inspiring properties in both respective destinations, they will meet our needs well and provide a base to rest + explore. We will also have free breakfast, which is a helpful bonus.

Now, bear in mind we are playing the game here—and on this trip we will not be flying business class nor staying at the Park Hyatt Vendome or The Goring. For our purposes, that is more than fine—recognizing there are other great trips to pursue those ends.

Yahtzee!

Here again, I am almost surprised by the remarkable value in points. Ha! A few program memberships, some ordinary travel, plus credit cards that earn at least 2 points per dollar spent and—wait for it—we have a 10 day European vacation that only takes paying for taxes, food on the ground, and $67 train tickets to London.

Thanks for letting me tell you about it.

Big Picture: This is how I like to put a trip together on points; you can, too! And I seriously hope you do. I am also totally happy to help you make it happen.

Happy flying.

Remember, this life you are living has meaning. Thank you for reading. I am grateful you are here and would love to hear from you. If you'd like to write me a note, simply reply to this email. Otherwise I'll see you in the next one.

Be well today. -Tommy

P.S. If I can ever help you plan your next travel adventure (slash help make your points go farther), I’d be delighted. You can schedule time together here.