Point to Point Weekly: Reubens, Business Class to China, and a Day in the United Club

March 15 – 21, 2015

I spent some time at home for the first time in about two and a half weeks, so I had some time to catch up on reading blogs, writing blogs, and other exciting things like…. taxes.

It was also my dad’s birthday on Monday. Since his birthday is so close to St. Patrick’s Day, we have a tradition of making Reubens sandwiches every year, and man are they so good! And Happy Birthday Dad!

I was lucky enough to snag one of the $462 Washington DC to Beijing fares in business class. Since I have status with Alaska, I should be earning around 17,000 elite qualifying miles and around 40,000 redeemable miles from the fare. I’ll only be on the ground in Beijing for a day, but that will give me some time to visit a night market, eat some Peking duck (and other interesting things), and do a little more sight seeing. My last trip to Beijing didn’t allow me to do as much as I had been hoping to because I had some money issues, so this will give me a chance to make up for it a bit. I’ll be headed to Chicago in a week and a half to get my visa, and I’m so glad that Chinese visas are good for 10 years now! Otherwise it really wouldn’t have made sense 😛

I flew to Denver early Friday morning and spent the ENTIRE DAY working in the United Club. Seriously. 15 hours is a long time to stay in a lounge. Especially a United Club. But, really it wasn’t that bad. I got a lot of work done and caught up on the TV shows I like while I waited for my friend to arrive so we could go head to the mountains. I also found out something amazing. The coffee machine makes frothed milk without espresso… and there are hot chocolate packets. Put the two together and you have a pretty fantastic hot chocolate to drink!

We snagged a Point Breaks hotel for only 5,000 IHG points in Fraser, CO, which is the Winter Park location! Perfect. Can’t beat 10,000 IHG Points for two nights right at the mountain 😀 The hotel is currently gong for around $250/night on weekends. Pretty fantastic value right there!