Wednesday, May 2, 2007

A problem no more

The hotel problem has been solved. I tried lots of configurations of points and dollars and decided that the best (or at least the easiest) option was to book only Starwood hotels (with cash reservations for the stays for which we don't have sufficient points yet) and to apply points to the hotel costs as soon as B earns them. This way, we're guaranteed rooms and can apply as many points as B accrues at any time before we leave. And, if he is close to the number we need for an additional night, we can always buy points (it's generally not cheaper to buy points rather than pay for the room straight-out, though depending on where the dollar goes, it might be an option to consider). For the hotel in Nice, we got a 50 percent discount off the rack rate for spending just 1,000 points (a no brainer), so even if we do end up paying cash for all 5 nights, it will still likely be cheaper than the 3 nights at the pricier hotel I booked in Paris (and now need to cancel).

In other honeymoon news, I received the Lonely Planet France guidebook in the mail yesterday and have already read most of the Paris section and a significant portion of the Cote d'Azur section. I'm amazed at the number of museums that are in each city. I'm not a big fan of museums (I get museum fatigue within 2 hours of setting foot in a museum), but they're a good way to fill a rainy day, and there are a few must-see museums that you can't not go to. I'm going to start on the itinerary soon but need to buy the Rick Steves France book first--his ratings of tourist attractions are much more helpful than LP's descriptions, which frequently don't even say what the attraction is.

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