Bart Lapers
Visiting Every Country In The World
Cathay Pacific A350 Business Class Brussels – Hong Kong
On March 25th, Cathay Pacific launched its non-stop service between Brussels Airport and Hong Kong. I was invited to attend the inaugural event and had the pleasure to join the first non-stop A350 flight from Brussel to Hong Kong.
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10 Tips For Better Travel in 2018
1. Use Google Trips
If there’s one travel app you’re going to install on your smartphone this year, it should be Google Trips. The app gathers all your travel reservations (flights, hotels, rental cars, …) from your gmail inbox, organises them trip by trip and stores all details on your phone so you can still access your travel reservations while you’re offline. But the app does a lot more than that. It uses your travel plans to generate of number of handy list for your destination: “Things to do”, “Food & Drink”, “Getting around”, “Need to Know”, … it even creates Day Plans using Google Maps so you don’t need to plan anything in advance. And what’s really great, all this information is available when you’re offline! Have a look at the video below for a nice overview of the features of Google Trips.
2. Keep track of Flight Deals
Checking flight deals should become a daily routine if you want to score the best travel deals. In my opinion, the most efficient way to keep track of deals is Twitter notifications. I get most of my deal notifications via:
@secretflying
@fly4freecom
@traveldealz_de (German)
@theyhbu (German)
If you are overwhelmed by the number of notifications, you can also limited the notifications to flight deals from Belgium via the pushapp of Fly4Free. In case you are looking for a particular flight deal, you can set an email alert via Google Flights to keep track of flights for your destination & dates. Don’t forget to also check your flights via Momondo, as they tend to regularly find cheaper or alternative fares.
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My Best Travel Experiences of 2017
Pic: Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt
Another year of intense traveling has come to an end. Time to wrap up with an overview of my highlights of 2017. For a detailed travel report of the first 5 months of 2017, check my post The Luxury Nomad Lifestyle.
Flights
After a record year in 2016 with 116 flights and 160432 miles flown, it was going to be tough to beat my record in 2017. With 3 more flights scheduled on December 29th and 30th, I will break my personal record with a total of:
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- 121 flights, 161352 miles flown, 6.5x around the earth, >400 hours up in the air
- 4 First Class flights with Lufthansa
- 54 Business Class flights with LATAM, TAP, Azul Brazilian Airlines, Ukraine International Airlines, Emirates, Malaysia Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Brussels Airlines, SWISS, Austrian and Lufthansa.
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Lufthansa First Class for 360EUR + FREE Brussels Airlines ticket
The number one reason to collect Miles & More miles…. Lufthansa First Class. In case you’re not convinced yet, here are 5 reasons why you want to fly Lufthansa First Class at least once in your life.
1. Lufthansa First Class Terminal & Lounges
Experience DO&CO’s amazing gourmet kitchen in combination with top premium beverages, wines & champagnes at the Lufthansa First Class lounges. There’s even a dedicated terminal for Lufthansa First Class passengers in Frankfurt!
5 tricks to get the best hotel deals
Last updated: February 3rd, 2019
1. Use price comparison sites
I can’t emphasise enough: Start your hotel search on a price comparison site, they do the hard work for you! HotelsCombined and Trivago are my favorites. Tip: Make sure to create an account on HotelsCombined.com and search for hotels when signed in. For some hotels you’ll see secret deals which are only available when you’re logged on.
2. Use discount codes
Compare the lowest hotel rates you found via e.g. HotelsCombined.com with the rates using discount codes at FlyerTalk.
3. Use cashback sites
Did you know you can earn money with your hotel bookings? Using cashback sites, you can get up to 20% back of the money you spend on hotel bookings!
- Create a cashback site account
- Use the cashback site search function to find the booking site
- Click on the link and earn cashback!
The cashback sites I use:
Quidco (cashback in GBP via PayPal) booking sites
Mr Rebates (cashback in USD via PayPal) booking sites
4. Use HotelTonight
Before you hit that booking button, make sure to check hotel prices on HotelTonight. If it’s your first time using the HotelTonight app, discount code BALAPERS will give you another $25 or €20 off. You can book 100 days ahead using the HotelTonight app.
5. Use Airbnb: up to €79 / $90 discount
If you haven’t used Airbnb before, now is the time to sign-up. Airbnb has temporarily increased the sign-up bonus for new users to €35 ($40) travel credit which can be used for a first time booking of €65 ($75) or more. Even if you don’t intent to make a booking right now, sign-up to secure your €35 ($40) travel credit.
Both new and existing Airbnb users can earn €44 ($50) travel credit by using Airbnb for a business trip. Aren’t we all entrepreneurs these days? 😉 Just add your business email address to your profile via Airbnb for Business and book a “Business trip” (make sure to select Business travel as purpose of the trip). After your business trip, you’ll receive a €44 ($50) coupon code which can be used for any Airbnb booking. Note that your business email address can’t be a public domain. (ex: gmail.com, hotmail.com)
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