Here is my short TR for my mid-December trip to Vienna. Pix will follow in a separate post.
The Flight:Our plans to go kind of fell into our lap when my co-worker booked cheap tickets for himself, and I realized that with my mother in law visiting us from the US, that we could leave the 2 older girls for a few days.
The tix on Kayak were running $250 or so on Austrian, but when I actually checked Austrian, the cheapest were $450, as it was on other websites, so it may have been a slight glitch. And the infant tik cost $9.
I never researched the mileage accumulation for this fare class, so I may receive n/t, but I'm still going to try.
Destinations:We decided to spend a majority of the time in Vienna, but I wanted to experience the European rail system again, and see other parts of Austria, so we went to Salzburg for 24 hrs. The train ride was 2.5 hours, and while Innsbruck seems to be more beautiful since it's further in the Alps, it would have been a 4.5 hr train ride.
Slovenia was also an option w/ a good value SPG location and only a 1 hr train ride, but we decided to remain in Austria.
Initially, the train cost for the 2 of us would have been around 85 euro each way (2nd class), but when I checked 5 days b/f leaving, I saw a single train in each direction at the exact times we wanted for 35 euro one way, and 45 the return, so a total of around 85 euro.
When all was said and done, we did 2 nights in Vienna, 1 in Salzburg, and 1 in Vienna.
Hotel Selection:We decided to go w/ an SPG property for our first 2 evenings.
There are 3 choices in Vienna, all of them with very good reviews.
Hotel Bristol -
https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=89Hotel Imperial -
https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=97Le Meridian -
https://www.starwoodhotels.com/preferredguest/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=1852The first 2 are part of the Luxury Collection, and the Bristol and LM are cat 5, while the Imperial is a cat 6.
I nixed the LM since it was a bit too modern, and my SO enjoys the classical style. I settled on the Bristol b/c I preferred the 4.8k + $90 as opposed to 8k + $150. The Bristol is a beautiful hotel, but when you see the Imperial, which was a former palace of a prince, it pales in comparison.
Initially, they only had C&P for a single evening, but a email to the hotel opened up another evening.
Since the going cost was around $280 or so, I got a decent cpm on my points.
In Salzburg, we had a bunch of options.
SPG has some incredible looking properties, but most were cat 6, and they have a Sheraton which was a cat 5, but I wanted to save on the cost.
There are 2 Radisson Blu's there, and I have a stash of 50k points from their free night promo. One was around 28k, and the other was 44k I think.
I booked the cheaper one which was outside of the old city, but I canceled it.
I went with the Crowne Plaza-Pitter for 25k (minus a 10$ reduction for having the PC cc). We received an upgrade, and were happy with the hotel besides for some internet problems.
Finally, for the last evening, I went back and forth btw a nice looking Radisson Blu for 50k, but in the end, booked the Hilton Vienna Plaza due to the Friends and Family sale for 50% off. The cost was $110, and we were upgraded to a corner suite (Gold member), which while nice and spacious, wasn't decorated all that 'fancily'.
Hotel Compensation:The Bristol gave us 1k for a minor cab issue.
The Sheraton is giving us 4,500 points (I hope AA miles) for bad internet connection in our room.
The Hilton gave us 20k HH for the crib with the missing slat which almost had my child fall out of it.