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If you’re like me, you’ve been stuffing your face with pasta each and every day of your quarantine. You may think this is a joke…for the first 17 days of mine – I had pasta 15 times. You can rest assured that despite using the incomparable Rao’s Arrabbiata sauce…my pasta is nothing compared to what you’ll get in the mother country. I absolutely love Italy, have been several times, and can’t wait to visit again.
Sicily is looking to recoup some of the $1B+ is lost on tourism for the months of March and April with a 50M Euro incentive to lure tourists back to Italy’s southern island this fall. The island of Sicily will pay half your flight, 1 out of every 3 nights of your hotel stay, and make all of their museums free. Vouchers will be on on Visit Sicily soon if you’re interested. I think deals like this are going to be available far and wide once tourism starts to flourish, especially in service based tourist destinations like Italy. While I think this is a fantastic offer, and want nothing more than to help Italy out when it’s safe to travel, I’m personally a bit gunshy when it comes to planning trips, and am employing a wait and see regarding a second wave, but I’d love to visit Sicily down the road. If you’re keen to travel, and feel differently than I…this may square up nicely for you. Tons of award seats available I’d guess to fit your travel plans as well!
If you’re looking to venture elsewhere in Italy, you may want to check out my trip from 2016 – I also threw in a trip report from 2018 when I stayed at the newly renovated St Regis Rome. Truly an outstanding property.
Italy/England 2016 Trip Report
- One World Business Class Lounge Los Angeles Review – Tom Bradley
- SkyTeam Korean Air Lounge Los Angeles Review
- LAX-LHR American Business Class 777-300ER
- London Terminal 4 SkyTeam Business Class Lounge Review
- LHR -FCO Alitalia Business Class A330
- Marriott Rome Park Hotel
- Viator private tour Vatican
- Boscolo Rome Exedra
- St Regis Rome ( 2018 )
- NUN Assisi Relais and Spa
- Le Anfore (business class) Lounge
- London Radisson Blu Edwardian New Providence Wharf Review:
- London Terminal 3 British Airways Galleries Lounge Review
- London Terminal 3 Admiral’s Club Review
- LHR-LAX American Business Class 777-300ER – mini cabin
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 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℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
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.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
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.
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