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How flipping cool is this?!?! Hidden Cities!
According the The Guardian they used LASERS known as LIDAR to find a city nearly the size of NYC buried in the forests surrounding the Unesco World Heritage site: Angkor Wat. It completely changes all the theories surrounding the civilization that existed when the monument was first constructed. Cambodians, archaeologists, and historians are going bananas with the new revelation and what it could mean for understanding their vibrant history.
In case you’re unfamiliar with Angkor Wat
Originally constructed as a Hindu temple and over time transitioning into a Buddhist temple, it is the largest Religious monument in the world. It is located in Cambodia and is a registered Unesco World Heritage site. Angkor Wat sits roughly 15-20 minutes outside of Siem Reap.
Miles, Dave, and I had a trip planned to visit Cambodia and Vietnam later this year. Angkor Wat was on the itinerary and we were absolutely stoked, but a wedding has derailed us! This undoubtedly gives us more reason to reschedule the trip and see the excitement revolving around this news!
I wrote an article about maximizing the sweet spots in the Singapore Air award chart: that’s what we planned
We were actually using a combination of American Express Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You points, and Chase Ultimate Rewards to fly Singapore Air to fly into Hong Kong for a couple nights. We would transit from there.
We were then using British Airways Avios to fly on Cathay Pacific Biz to Ho Chi Minh to start the trip. All in all it was costing us about $50 and 85k points to fly First Class to HKG and business class to SGN. Not bad!
We would have been staying at the 5star Park Hyatt Siem Reap
redeeming Hyatt Gold Passport points and using a Diamond Suite Upgrade. With this new information it makes me want to figure out exactly how we can make this trip happen!!! Check out the hotel below: all images courtesy of hyatt.com
- Cash and points rate: 7500+$100
- Transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewrads
The exterior
Grounds
The Suite that would have been!
If you’re interested in learning more about LIDAR, check out this cool video from Smithsonian
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
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