Harlan Vaughn

About Harlan

Just a dude living in Memphis, traveling, and working toward financial independence.

Ways to keep up with the blog

October 8, 2014 by Harlan 3 Comments

Dear readers,

Out and Out has been growing slowly but steadily over the past year and I don’t always update the blog as often as I should.

I do post quite a bit on Facebook and Instagram (especially when traveling) and wanted to put this out into the world if you’d like to keep up in other ways:

Twitter and Instagram are my personal accounts, as I am only one man.

There are also two ways to ensure you never miss a blog post:

Subscribe with RSS on a reader like Feedly, Digg, Pocket, etc. (I prefer Feedly.)
Sign up for daily emails. Only receive an email when I post – and if more than one a day, you get only one email. Never spam.

Oh, and Dr. Google tells me that last month I had a reader from every single US State. Love it! Thank you for reading!

A reader from every state!

I will keep optimizing content as I go along, so keep the emails and comments coming. I love interacting with you guys!

Safe travels and cheers to you. Am enjoying this ride so much.

Snap: An Awesome App for Saving Money on Groceries

October 7, 2014 by Harlan Leave A Comment

A friend of mine (HT: Jason) shared this link with me last night, and I thought I’d pass it along to you guys because I know I will definitely be using it in the future. It’s called Snap, from Groupon.

Snap

Snap’s a new app for saving money on groceries – at any grocery store. You locate a coupon you want to use, “snap” a picture of the receipt, then upload it through the app. After it’s approved, they add money to your account, and you can request a check once you hit the $20 mark, which seems really easy to do as some of the coupons are for unlimited use.

And a lot of the coupons are for household staples. Here are some screenshots: Read More

Hotel Review: Park Inn By Radisson Munich-East

October 4, 2014 by Harlan 2 Comments

Eurotrip 2014 has been very centered around Club Carlson properties. In fact, I’ve done 80% of it with their properties (4 out of 5 – and 3 of those were Park Inns).

The one in Munich was the first.

The hotel

This Park Inn is located about 100m from the Johanneskirchen stop of the S8 S-Bahn stop, equidistant to downtown Munich and the airport. After landing at MUC, I was at the hotel, door-to-door, in about 30 minutes. Not bad.

Park Inn Munich-East check-in desk

The part of East Munich it’s located in really doesn’t have that much going on. It’s a sleepy section with a suburb-like feel. There isn’t much in the way of food and watering holes. Really just the hotel and a restaurant/beer garden across the street. But for what I needed from this stay, a little off the beaten path was perfect.

Trip Report: Lufthansa First Class YYZ-MUC

October 4, 2014 by Harlan 11 Comments

a display of a drink and glasses on a counter

Way back in November 2013, United announced they were devaluing partner award redemptions. Shortly after, Lufthansa announced a new route from YYZ-MUC aaaand… First Class award availability was wide open for months out. How many months out? Nearly a whole year – which is a lot longer than the usual 15 days.

While the rest of the blogosphere was stuck on “Summer 2014” availability, I kept going through the rest of the months. Munich… October… OMG Oktoberfest! – was exactly my train of thought. I redeemed a one-way to Munich and left the rest to chance. Didn’t want to burn up too many of my Ultimate Rewards points. Plus, I wanted to keep the trip open-ended. I’m not one to plan months and months in advance, so this was quite a leap of faith for me.

The flight

Eurotrip 2014: Day Two – Lufthansa First Class Lounge and Radisson Park Inn Munich

September 27, 2014 by Harlan Leave A Comment

Made it to Munich safely! Writing this from the fantastic Lufthansa First Class Lounge at MUC. About to get my bearings with a shower and maybe order some breakfast and a beer – I am here for Oktoberfest after all!

Meeting a friend around 1pm – might go ahead and head into the city proper and try to check in early to the Radisson Park Inn where I will be based throughout my Munich adventures.

From this, I can review the First Class Lounge and the hotel – and of course Munich.

So jazzed to be here. Will add more posts with pics soon!

Eurotrip 2014 – Day One: LGA-YYZ-MUC

September 26, 2014 by Harlan Leave A Comment

Writing this from YYZ right now, in the Maple Leaf/Star Alliance Gold Lounge in Terminal 1.

I booked this flight months ago when Lufthansa (accidentally?) released First Class award space with the launch of their new YYZ-MUC route.

Now, the day has finally arrived.

I woke up this morning and made my way to LGA. The flight to YYZ was a little over an hour on a small aircraft, hardly worth talking about, other than the fact that it DID position me to take the YYZ-MUC flight.

I am meeting my friend Angie in MUC for Oktoberfest, and from there going to Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Berlin. I want to try to share my impressions “on the road” (or “in the sky” or “in the hotel” as it were) instead of writing after the fact. God knows I have so many neglected reviews and my memory gets so rusty so quickly. I will be out on the road for two weeks and will tag each of these posts as Eurotrip 2014. YESSA!

The Air Canada flight was basically a shuttle service. Toronto is REALLY close to NYC – I was kinda shocked by how quickly we got here. And YYZ is a really nice airport! Super efficient and really nice employees.

The weather today was/is perfect and the flight was smooth. I have 45 more minutes to enjoy the lounge and wifi, then will get to experience Lufthansa First Class for the first time.

Expect a review of the Maple Leaf Lounge in Terminal 1 and of the Lufthansa flight. As you guys know, I’ve had mixed experiences in their famed business class cabin. :/ AUH-FRA was kinda meh but FRA-JFK was rather pleasant. Let’s see how First compares. Trying not to get my hopes up but also expecting miracles… kind of a strange mix of emotions to have to hold inside of one.

If anything, this trip already makes me want to visit Toronto again. I’d love to before it gets too screaming cold.

So here is Day One. I am challenging myself to post each day then to do a mega recap. Godspeed to me!

FoundersCard Promo: $395 a year forever and a new AA promo

September 26, 2014 by Harlan 4 Comments

Worth mentioning since I’ve posted about FoundersCard before.

When you join FoundersCard, you get to enjoy the initial rate you paid… forever. I joined when the rate was $495, and have gotten that much value out of the card despite only being a member coming up on a year. Here’s a chance to do even better than the deal I got in on.

You now can join FoundersCard for $395 a year, and you’d get to keep paying that rate every year you keep the card.

Here is the link to the promo and the promo code to use is FCHARLAN818.

If you’ve been deliberating about whether to join or not, this $100 off the usual lowest rate ($495) might be the thing that makes this deal a little bit better.

Also, if you’re an AA flyer, their current AA promo is 5% off most fares on American. You will receive a discount code that is good for unlimited use. If you heavily fly on American/OW and are trying to meet some sort of status before the end of 2014, you’d get to take advantage of the fare discount and start earning your $395 back right away.

That, combined with the multiple other discounts and freebies offered by the card, as well as the fantastic global networking events, makes this card a great investment for entrepreneurs in major cities.

AA’s last quarter promo was a free Gold status challenge, and bonus Business Extra points. They’ve featured 5% off fares before, and that seems to be a hit with most members of FoundersCard.

Read my full review to learn about the other discounts offered and to decide whether this membership might be worth buying.

If you have any questions, email me at zynner@gmail.com or feel free to post a comment below.

Free Caesars Total Rewards Diamond Status with FoundersCard

September 2, 2014 by Harlan 17 Comments

Screenshot 2014-09-01 23.39.08 Also see:

Update: You can lock in a FoundersCard membership for $295 a year through May 12th, 2016 when you sign-up with my link. This is $100 less than the usual rate!

(To begin, if you are not at all into gambling, please skip this post!)

I’ve written about FoundersCard in the past, and, about six months in, am really enjoying the benefits of the card. Click this link to read my review of the card and to learn about some of the benefits. So far, I am loving it. The AT&T discount alone nearly pays for the card, and when you throw in all the perks it offers along the way, it makes this card a really nice companion to urban living. Next month, I will be attending my first networking event here in NYC sponsored by the card and will be sure to write about the experience.

FoundersCard has done a great job at stepping up their benefits package lately, like offering American Airlines Gold status, giving 10% off British Airways fares, and, most recently, offering free Diamond Status with Caesars Total Rewards.

Now, I’m not a gambler and don’t even live near a casino (unless you count Atlantic City), but I went ahead and made myself Diamond with Total Rewards just because of the “why not?” factor. A list of all their casino locations is included here. When I was in Las Vegas earlier this year, I got preferred treatment thanks to Hyatt’s relationship with MLife, and most of those benefits are duplicated with Total Rewards. The biggest ones are lounge access and priority treatment in just about every corner of the hotel and casino.

Diamond benefits

The Points Game is free today for Kindle downloads! 9/1-9/3!

September 1, 2014 by Harlan Leave A Comment

As a thanks for reading the blog, I decided to make The Points Game e-book free for three days starting today, Labor Day.

It’s the exact same content as what’s in the NEW? section of this website, but formatted for Kindle – in case you’d like to download and read on-the-go.

Feel free to pass the link along to anyone you know who might want an intro to the points and miles world. There’s a lot to know, and it can seem daunting at first, but readers here will know that it is all very worth it!

Without further adieu, here’s the link: bit.ly/pointsguide

Feel free to copy and share anywhere. Enjoy.

Thanks for reading and happy Labor Day!

Trip Report: British Airways Business Class ORY-LHR-JFK

September 1, 2014 by Harlan Leave A Comment

Also see:

I won’t spend as much time on this one since I just outlined BA/OpenSkies biz class in the link above. That post talked about flying there EWR-ORY, but in this one, I want to talk about getting back.

It cost slightly more Avios points because we flew ORY-LHR-JFK instead of direct. Since it’s priced per segment, I spent 49,000 Avios + ~$400 on these flights, which would’ve retailed for over $6,000.

The differences

For the ORY-LHR segment, we got the usual intra-European “business class” which is just regular seats with the middle one blocked out. The flight was only an hour, and I wasn’t expecting much, if anything. To my surprise, we were served a course of afternoon tea.

BA tea service – SO CUTE!

The other big difference was that instead of a Boeing 757-200 like the flight over, we flew back on a 747-400 for LHR-JFK which had… Read More

Trip Report: British Airways OpenSkies Club World Class EWR-ORY

August 31, 2014 by Harlan 1 Comment

As part of my recent trip to Paris, I got to fly from EWR to ORY on OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Airways that flies exclusively from NYC-Paris. They have one flight that leaves from EWR and another from JFK. Due to award availability, I dragged myself over to EWR, but was really excited to take this flight.

This is a unique product for British Airways because it’s one of the few routes they fly that don’t involve a connection at LHR, which can add a lot of extra money in dreaded fuel surcharges. I did pay ~$450 + 40,000 Avios for the flight, but in my eyes, it was completely worth it. This flight often retails for over $7,000!

Click here to read about the award redemption for this flight in more detail.

The seat and flight

Confession: I didn’t love the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome (A Review)

August 31, 2014 by Harlan 21 Comments

a building with many windows and plants on the side

Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome Entrance

Yep. I stayed four nights here as part of my free Paris vacation valued at over $20,000. Both my partner and I opened a Chase Hyatt Visa credit card. Both came with two free nights at any Hyatt property in the world. Hyatt now has a handful of properties that are in a new category: aspirational Category 7. I was torn between redeeming the free nights at the Vendome or at one of the two Category 6 properties in Hawaii. It’s obvious which one I picked because I’m now reviewing the Vendome. I was underwhelmed by it. It was “meh.”

The reason I chose the Vendome was mostly because of the hype. In the points-and-miles blog stratosphere, people talk about the Vendome like it’s the holy grail of hotels.

Expectations. I tried not to have very many. I was hoping for a nice room as a Platinum member with Hyatt. Nearly the second I walked into the Vendome, I kinda had this sinking feeling that I’d wasted my precious four free nights.