Dublin Booked

I mentioned in the previous post about getting 3 American Airlines Executive Platinum cards last year, and each came with a 100K miles sign-up bonus.  That really boosted my mileage account!

I read about First Class availability at the Saver level from LAX to Heathrow on one of the blogs, and I booked it for 115K miles round trip.  I didn't want to go to London again and I don't live in LA.  But I wanted to go to Ireland, and getting the long leg booked first, and then adding some shorter legs is a good strategy.

I called AA and was able to add the SFO to LAX and LHR to Dublin (DUB) legs pretty easily.  I even was able to get First Class on the SFO<->LAX legs, and 1 of 2 Business class on the LHR<-> DUB legs.  

Now, "Business Class" intra-Europe just generally means that it's 3 seats across, they block off the middle seat, and give you better food.  So it's not a big deal if I don't get the upgrade on the last leg.

I'm still working out my final plans for what we'll do in Dublin, and Ireland in general.  My current thinking is we'll stay at the Westin in Dublin using my SPG points for the entire week, and take day trips to interesting places including Belfast.

As I always do, I get the Rick Steves book and decide what to do.

He recommended going to the Dingle Peninsula, but that's a 6 hour drive each way, and that's not appealing.  There isn't a viable alternative via train, so the day trip idea seems to be the best idea.