Planning on going to Panama this March and want to write up a trip report, but knowing how long it takes to write one after the fact and also how its harder to recall information after the trip, i figured i'll write it as i go along (tenses may be mixed up) so here goes:
(Firstly a big shkoyach to Dan and the entire DD community for enabling me and the rest of us to live out our travel dreams. I never thought i would have the resources to do all the traveling that i did but 19+ (Going on 20) countries later here we are and its all thanks to Dan and the forums.)
Was looking for a good idea for a trip for this coming Pesach Bein Hazmanim, after doing the Maldives and Dubai last year with DW and little one, with the pace being more relaxed, DW and I were looking to do something more adventurous this year being able to leave LO by Bubby and Zaidy. Being that LO wasn't coming along this time, we had a time limit of 3 nights as that was the most Bubby offered to take him for ( I don't blame her).
Where to go? It needed to be somewhere close to NY (where we would be flying from) in order to maximize our 3 nights/ 4 days, preferably a place with food, somewhere that had good redemptions for my marriott points, and also plenty of cool things to do and see.
Costa Rica was the first thing that came to mind as i had already researched that in regards to another trip. But when looking into panama it seemed it had similar climate (rainforest) / vibe to costa rice, plus great food options and good hotel options, DW and I agreed that panama was the place. Our plan was to go from Sunday-Wednesday.
I happened to be sitting on an Amex Plat FHR credit, so i checked what that would get us in panama and i saw that the W was bookable for $196 total. That was perfect as it meant that i would get the night for free with the $200 FHR credit. So i booked one night using my 2022 credit, and My BIL gave me his 2022 credit and i was able to book it in my name , and booking the 3rd night with my 2023 credit. I linked all the reservations to my marriott Bonvoy #, and i called marriott to try to link them all into one reservation, but they told me that i would have to call the hotel for that. They did write a note to the hotel telling them not to switch my room, but we'll see what happens.
With the hotel taken care of, lets get to the flights.
[DISCLAIMER: points may have been used wastefully in the making of this trip. Reader advice is encouraged]
Originally, flight RT from JFK-PTY was $425pp in coach, which i would have booked seeing as I didn't see any better options at that moment. I hadn't booked yet when the price went up to $545 pp, so i was gonna wait it out.
I was talking with BIL when he mentioned to me that if i could roll in my panama flight with my flight from TLV (we were flying from TLV-NYC for about a month, and in that time going to panama for a few days), i could possibly get it for a-lot cheaper. Lots of research later, i found that if i rolled the PTY flight in with my flight from TLV as a multi city ticket, i would end up paying only about $400 TOTAL more than the price of the RT ticket from TLV-JFK by itself. A $1000+ flight for $400 sounded like a no-brainer, so i booked DW, LO and Myself on a multi city ticket from TLV-JFK-PTY-JFK-TLV, thinking that i got a slam dunk deal.
Problem was, we had planed to use that ticket and drop LO off in NY and then go RT JFK-PTY with just DW and Myself, and then take back with us on the last leg to TLV. We didnt realize that by not taking LO on the JFK-PTY leg, we would forfeit the remainder of his ticket
, or so did the EL-Al rep explain. Well, back to square one.
