Vegas baby!

Well, after 2 years of not travelling, we finally got our situation under control and are back out there! Our first trip was to Vegas. Sin City. We had a blast. We stayed at Treasure Island for 4 days and 3 nights. The Sirens of TI is an awesome show.  Definately a must see. We enjoyed the food and walking the strip. We've always enjoyed the food in Vegas.  From Roxy's in the Stratosphere to 9 Fine Irishmen in New York New York, Pho's in Treasure Island and The Buffet at TI the food is really an experience.  We saw the bronze dancers at the Riviera and rubbed their bums for luck (it worked, some), ha ha. The water show at the Bellagio is great to watch (free too). The Mirage has their volcano show up and running. The Mirage was also in a James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever". Unfortunately, the Sahara is closed down to make way for newer casinos. This trip was for relaxing and taking our time, so we didn't rush all over the place. We did do the Freemont Street experience. Freemont Street is the older part of the strip. There are older casinos, the lightshow, ziplining, and they're bringing back some of the old neon signs. As far as getting around, the bus passes and monorail passes are great values to get around the strip.  There are outlet malls just north of Freemont Street and the fashion mall next to Treasure Island.  All in all it's a great little vacation. Vegas is a good trip to take on the cheap. This trip we spent about $500 for the 4 days between hotel, food and a tiny bit of gambling. Not too bad. Vegas is a great place to NonRev to. Catch a cab from the airport for around $20 and tell them to take the surface streets and NOT THE HIGHWAY.  It'll save a few dollars and it won't take you an hour to get to the hotel and back to the airport on your return trip. Next time might have to see how cheap we can do Vegas.  If my wife is up for it!  Our next trip will be some day trips to the Mall of America, and we'll have to see where else.

Non Rev travel

Non revenue (non rev) travel is how airline employees can go on vacation. While you can go just about anywhere your particular company travels, you do have to contend with the fact that since your seat may be free, paying customers get served first. Which is how it should be, because, they make sure that I have a job. Patience is a virtue in this industry. A lot of people think just because you get to fly for free that you can go anywhere. You can. You just have to be flexible and maybe go in the off peak flying season (think Hawaii in the fall). And also realize, you might not get there at all if all the flights are oversold.

In my 19+ years in the airline industry, I've traveled all over the place. Mostly stateside, but, overseas some. Some places I've traveled to for work and play: The entire East Coast, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, Michigan, Canada, Switzerland, Israel, Cancun. Those are just off the top of my head.

Just to show that travel can be fun and spontaneous, my family and I went to Hell, Michigan last month. It was a fun 3 hours in that little town. Nice people and if you want, they can make anyone you want mayor for the day then impeach you at the end of the day. Cancun was an absolute blast! While we got bumped off of a couple of flights(that free thing again) we got there, stayed at a nice all inclusive resort and relaxed. We went with another couple this past February to Disney World in Florida. It was cold, but, we still had fun for a couple of days. I'll try to post pictures of some recent trips in the future.

There are alot of resources available, websites, books, etc to help the nonrever make the most of their benefits. There are discounts available at alot of places, you just have to find them. Some resources I use are: Perx.com, Cruisesonly.com, the ASU travel guide. Just calling works wonders. You never know who will give an interline discount.

In future posts I'm going to try to post video and pictures of our travels. Like I said, I hope this evolves into a great blog that can help people who don't know about all of the travel their company offers to just showing the fun you can have with it......Thanks and happy flying....Gerry