Monthly Archives: December 2015

My Top Twelve Bird Sightings of 2015

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After the hectic pace of last year that saw a Top Thirty Bird List, reduced travel this year sees me back to a Top Ten.  OK, so it’s a Top Twelve, I couldn’t decide between certain Aussie birds!  These aren’t the rarest birds or even new to my “Life List” but these birds are the ones that made the biggest impression on me for their beauty, personality or just because I FINALLY managed to get a decent photo of one!

  1.  BLOSSOM-HEADED PARAKEET – seen near Doi Inthanon, Thailand.

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2.  GREEN-BACKED SUNBIRD – Seen at the summit of Doi Inthanon.

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3.  BLACK-HEADED WOODPECKER – Seen in Mae Ping National Park, Thailand.

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4.  MOUSTACHED PARAKEET – Seen near Khao Yai National Park, Thailand.

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5.  LONG-TAILED PARAKEET – Seen at Taiping Lake Gardens, Malaysia.

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6.  BLUE-WINGED PITTA – Seen at Taman Negara, Malaysia

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7.  RED-RUMPED PARROT – Seen in various places around Lake Coolmunda.

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8.  STRAIATED PARDALOTE – Who can resist such a cute little show-off!

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9.  BLUEBONNET PARROT – After barely seeing one whiz by at Bowra last year, it was nice to at least see a pair fly around Mosquito Creek Road!

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10.  LITTLE LORIKEET – Yet another species that was often seen but hard to photograph, finally caught them perching at Durikai watering hole.

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11. SACRED KINGFISHER – Seen around the Coolmunda area and also near Tin Can Bay.

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12.  YELLOW-TAILED BLACK COCKATOO – Seen at the Ground Parrot area near Rainbow Beach.  Having these beautiful birds swoop so close to us after a long, hot day just really made our trip!

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2015 Travel Year In Review – The Year Of Traveling Quietly

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It’s time for my traditional look back at the year in review – both my personal travels and events that affected the miles and points community.  In direct contrast to last year, 2015 was a quiet, safe and relaxed travel year for us.

JANUARY

Quiet month, only interesting news is that Barclays ditched their forex fees making the card more useful for overseas travel.  I cancelled a few credit card to avoid annual fees and make way for future churning.

FEBRUARY

The AUD continues to nosedive so I swap around a couple of South American countries and bring the trip to Ecuador & Colombia ahead to 2016.

MARCH

The USDM program officially merges to AA and I find myself once again with a healthy balance of AA miles and take a nostalgic look back at USDM.

APRIL

We enjoy our only overseas trip this year – a relaxed birding trip to Thailand & Malaysia and a week in the Cook Islands.  The whole trip is in economy and we manage to survive.  Tomorrow you will see many of these birds in my top ten bird sightings.

While we are blissfully away and offline, US Bank announces the eminent demise of the free award night bogo that came with the Club Carlson Visa.

MAY

Planning begins for next year’s trip which will be an epic adventure to Ecuador, Colombia, the Caribbean and a visit to family in the USA.  I do a small app-o-rama for needed cards:  Chase United which was back in churning range over 24 months since last bonus, the Citibank Thank You Premier and the US Bank Lanpass Visa because there was no other way to get free seats to the Galapagos.

JUNE

Everyone scrambles (including me) to use up their Club Carlson points before the devaluation.  Copa launches its own award program, I am hoping they get some good transfer partners.  Hello, Citibank?

JULY

I finish booking award flights for next year as the fruits of my May app-o-rama roll in.

AUGUST

A pleasant surprise from Club Carlson as they watch customers leave in droves which means a free night for us in Trinidad.  SPG runs a lucrative bonus transfer to AA which replenishes my account via my Aussie Amex.

SEPTEMBER

We take a relaxing road trip to Lake Coolmunda & Karara/Durikai to see some Aussie birds.  I rediscover how much fun travel can be when no airlines are involved!  We both win $110 Orbucks in the photo contest which gets us a few free hotels next year.

OCTOBER

Australians switch grocery store loyalty programs in droves as Woolies ditches Qantas and Coles partners up with Etihad.

NOVEMBER

The month of the bloodbaths!  First SPG announces that they have been sold to Marriott which means no more transfers from Amex MR – SPG – AA & other partner airlines.  A disaster for Aussie miles & points collectors since we don’t have direct earn credit cards to most USA & South American programs.  Then American fresh from merging US Airways to AA announces the devaluation for AAdvantage which seriously DIS-AAdvantages Australians even further.  I am very thankful to have already booked next year’s trip and recalculate the miles need for future trips.

DECEMBER

Attracted by the chance to see rare Ground Parrots, we join a Birds Queensland trip to Rainbow Beach.  Some light amusement in the miles & points world as SPG & Accor have games.  Ina wins 10k SPG and we both win 1100 Accor.  Woolies bows to the social media backlash and relents on offering Qantas points.

So there it was – a year of upheavals, especially involving 2 major programs – AA & SPG but a quiet, fulfilling year of personal travel.  I hope everyone else had a great year!

 

Down To One Last Hotel Program

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Although technically I have accounts with about 8 hotel chain programs, they have all fallen by the wayside as being not worth the effort.  I really hate being limited to a chain hotel’s offering in any given location and prefer being able to choose from a wide variety of hotels.  For this reason, I have been concentrating on programs like Rocketmiles & Pointshound which earn airline miles and jump on social media games that offer free points in programs such as Expedia & Orbitz.  We each gained $100 vouchers in Expedia over a mistake they made with a promo back in March, then more recently we each gained $110 in Orbucks during the August-Sept photo competition in which Orbucks were given out for uploading summer themed photos (I wish they would do this every year)!  I’ve put these to good use for next year’s trip to Ecuador, Colombia & the Caribbean.

Club Carlson ditched the bogo free award night so I ditched their program after using up all existing points for next year’s trip.  So now it’s down to one program – IHG Rewards.  The main attraction here is the benefits from the Chase IHG Rewards credit card.  The $49 annual fee gets us a free night at any IHG hotel worldwide and I have gotten some amazing usage out of this at places like Intercontinental JNB Airport, Intercontinental Moorea, and have the Intercontinental San Juan booked for next year.  There always seems to be at least one place where I can use the certificate, usually at an airport hotel so the card is excellent value!  Knock wood, I hope this benefit never goes away!

Help The World Parrot Trust Save Wild Amazon Parrots

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The World Parrot Trust always has an annual appeal over December & January in which certain wild parrots in need are highlighted so you can help save them.  This year it’s the Amazon Parrots which are being highlighted as they are major targets for wildlife poachers and have suffered greatly from habitat loss.

WPT 2015 appeal

Although donations are being doubled until the end of January, I do want to point out to Americans that if you donate before 31 Dec, you will get a receipt for your 2016 tax return.

WORLD PARROT TRUST AMAZON APPEAL CLICK HERE

How To Turn A Chance Encounter With Parrots In A Hotel Into An Educational Experience

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Tis the season for family travel with school out and many businesses shut down over the Christmas & New Year’s holidays.  Hawaii is one of the most popular destinations with the island of Maui a top favourite.  We were here in Sept 2013 using Ultimate Reward points transferred to Hyatt to stay at the Hyatt Regency Maui.  This hotel, like many others in tropical locations has several captive parrots in cages and on stands, a few penguins and some flamingoes.  While this is no bona-fide eco-tourism experience, what you can do is use the opportunity to educate your children about the native habitat of the birds and get them interested in future travel where they can see the birds in the wild.

As you wander through the lobby to the swimming pool, you will see these birds.  If you don’t have pet parrots, this may be the first time for your children to see live parrots and penguins up close.  The Hyatt Regency has provided signs that give more information about the birds and where they come from.  This is a good chance to show your children how far away the bird’s native land is and show them what the bird’s habitat really looks like.  Here on MTTW, I have bird profiles for many parrot species (adding new ones all the time) and many other birds in which I give links to other websites with scientific information and videos of the bird in the wild such as the African Grey profile.

Even better if they do a school science project about wild birds, they could get their whole class interested in eco-tourism!

Depending on the age of your children, a trip to Africa or South America may be a few years away but you can get them excited about the possibility and maybe get them to start saving up for such a trip!

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Amazon After Christmas Sales & Chase Freedom = Bonus Ultimate Rewards

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Most people are familiar with the annual Chase Freedom category bonuses and that every quarter you get a 5% bonus in specific categories but you must activate the deal by 14 Dec.  What you may not know is that until 31 Dec, you will get 10% bonus (if you activated already) in the form of 10 Ultimate Rewards points per $ if you pay for your Amazon.com purchases with your Chase Freedom card!  If you use the link below to start your purchase I get a small commission for which I thank you.  There will be plenty of sales on so it’s a perfect chance to get what you didn’t get for Christmas!
MTTW Link

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And you can start making plans to maximize the 2016 bonus categories!

Chase Freedom 2016

Cruise Ship Birding Made Simple

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A few months ago, I did a series targeted to the budget birder on birding from a cruise ship and how to put together your own birding cruise.  Although this way does save you money and you can choose any ship you prefer, there is also an option for those who prefer an organized group birding cruise.  Carefree Birding offers a variety of itineraries mostly around the Caribbean.  You basically book the cruise component through their travel agency and then book a birding package for those who wish to go on the birding shore excursions (non-birding family members don’t have to book the excursions).  This offers a nice option if you are short of time to do your own legwork in booking private birding shore excursions such as I did.  Since you have to use their travel agency you do lose out on airline miles for booking through a frequent flyer mile portal such as United Cruises or bargaining for the cruise fare on Cruise Compete, but for many people time = money so they prefer to have everything organized for them.

James Currie of Birding Adventures did a cruise on the Celebrity Equinox (ship details here) and you can see what a typical birding cruise is like on his videos.

Costa Rica, Belize & Cozumel – it was nice to see their visit to Crooked Tree in Belize.  I did this as a land trip and had a different experience because I was targeting parrots and didn’t do the water excursion.

Panama, Grand Cayman & Cartegena, Colombia – I wish I had known about the botanical gardens in Grand Cayman as we went to a different place back in 2008.  I like their option better!

Designed To Dance: Birds Of Paradise

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This stunning documentary is a Japanese production filmed by Tadashi Shimada in central Papua New Guinea.  He has amazing footage of Bird of Paradise species never seen before and completely different to the David Attenborough documentary.  I’m tempted to put PNG on my bucket list (actually it already is) but the footage of the terrain at around 37:00 looks even more difficult than the Arfak Mountains.

PNG is an easy flight from Brisbane, getting there would be no problem with Qantas flights via Cairns to POM or Virgin Australia from Brisbane.  But PNG is one of the most expensive countries to bird in.  There are safety issues and this is one place I would rather be with a group and group tours are not cheap!  So until I win the lottery, videos like this are as close as I may ever get to the stunning Ribbon-tailed Astrapia & Blue Bird of Paradise.

The video is hosted on YouTube but embedding is disabled so click here to see it.