Portugal 2007 Planning Blog
--Andrew McGarrell

October 2006 --I've had in mind going to Portugal and Bilbao for a milestone birthday in September 2007.  Here's what I posted to SlowTrav (with some editing) about how I booked the trip:

With 75,000 miles on Northwest, I had a few options, including going Business in one direction, Economy in the other from the award bucket, or Economy without restrictions in one direction if I find something from the award bucket in the other.

NW is in the SkyTeam alliance with many partners, and it would be appealing to take the Continental flight Newark-Lisbon arriving around 8 a.m., because I'd like to get beyond Lisbon on my arrival day. There are different degrees of flights becoming available 11 months ahead: NW flights go on the schedule 352 days ahead, while others are around 330, and it's unclear when award bucket seats show. A little later, there are nice flexible-date searches on the NW site. I've seen reports about awards showing to phone agents before they go on the Web, but I like to see the options in front of me, and I see that awards do gradually get displayed. There's some availability in July and August, which one expects to be more in demand, while nothing shows in September.

As the dates were showing, there was nothing short of 100K for Kansas City-Lisbon; interestingly, sometimes there was something from Detroit to Lisbon and the KC-Detroit segment was the problem. I manipulated the site a little more, restricting it to Air France, and found I could go for 50K starting in Detroit or Chicago.

I was thinking about this a lot when I probably could have waited, and I called a NW agent. She found that I could go from KC at 50K by taking Air France via Atlanta and Paris; the problem was having 1 hr. 05 to connect at Paris CDG, with the horror stories about that on the Slowtalk board fresh in my mind. I said I knew that connection time was inadequate and the agent said "I've never heard that; it's a perfectly legal connection." I said I'd think it over; she suggested and I considered that I could use the full 75K and use the Continental connection on the outbound. She made a good effort to help, shifting the dates by a few days from my preference, but I didn't feel that I could book that CDG connection with the discussion here fresh on my mind.

After thinking a bit, I booked online (saving the phone agent fee) the AF trip from Chicago; I'll pay my way from KC to Chicago at around $100 round trip. This calls for connecting at CDG with 4 hours on the outbound and 2 on the return. Reading the thread on CDG, maybe I shouldn't use it at all but I feel a little better about this. Anyway I got the trip for 50K and can keep my NW account alive when I could have retired it; 50K is also appropriate for the number of years I'll be celebrating (or contemplating in horror).

End quote.  With the initial plan, I was expecting that first I would book something not completely satisfactory, and keep checking to see if availability improved, taking a lot of time at it.  With what I've booked, I'm pretty satisfied and am not too tempted to keep checking; my main interest would be to see if I could get Business Class in one direction, but that isn't so evident online, so I don't think I'll try that.

Now the problem is not to be tempted to think too much about my plans on the ground too early.  I'm thinking that after my mid-afternoon arrival I'll take the train  to Coimbra, and divide the first week between there and Porto, seeing about managing a trip to the Douro Valley.  Then get to Bilbao and Lisbon in the second week.  Even though it seems that Bilbao and northern Portugal are close enough together, train connections aren't good.  I'd considered looking into open-jaw flights and returning home from Bilbao, but overall cheap transportation from Portugal requires round trip air tickets.  I'd thought:  return to Lisbon and get a late-afternoon flight to Bilbao (about $150 round trip Lisbon-Bilbao), but now an open-jaw Porto-Bilbao-Lisbon looks like it might be worth it at around $215.  After possibly going through Lisbon a couple of times, I would spend my last few days there, having stayed there before.  Anyway, I hope I can wait quite some time before booking anything in terms of transportation and lodging, and I'll ask for advice about how best to divide my time.

February 2007-- I haven't checked in much.  The big news is that I was able to change my award tickets, avoiding the Paris connection. 
The only change I would consider was to start in Kansas City instead of Chicago, taking Continental (one connection, getting to Lisbon earlier), going BusinessFirst on the outbound.  I'd been checking the award availability calendar on the Continental site; they'd added a second Newark-Lisbon flight but the availability wasn't improving.  One day I checked and there was good availability, doing it the way I wanted, with the change fee less than the KC-Chicago flight I now don't need to book.  This meant phoning Northwest WorldPerks.  This meant being shuffled between men not giving a good impression of competence, finally saying that going Business in one direction cost the same number of miles as going Business round trip, which I knew wasn't true.  I called back in the early morning, getting a woman who gave a good impression of efficiency and booked me the way I wanted it, but the change was made manually and I'll need to wait a few days to see it online.

Updating this a little later:  the change showed promptly, but with a different KC-Newark flight than I thought I was getting.  I get 85 minutes to connect at Newark, fine if the flights are on time, but I worry about delays accumulating once I get to these evening flights.  Also I wanted a longer connection to get a chance to enjoy the airport lounge in this premium class.  When I noticed it, NW's hubs were getting big snowstorms, and it was impossible to get through to them on the phone.  When I finally did, I didn't get anywhere saying I thought I was booked on the previous flight, but they did wait-list me on a NW connection through Detroit in First, which means another short connection.  For now I just need to take what happens.

My plans on the ground are coming into place as I was thinking.  I can get to Coimbra a little earlier on Sunday, take it easy those first few days, then get to Porto on Wednesday, potentially with five free hotel nights.  I'd like to wait until April to book the air travel, but it looks like a good deal may be available on the open-jaw to Bilbao.  For the trip on Iberia Airlines, a oneworld airline, I was wondering about joining a new frequent flyer program, since I've pretty much retired my American membership.  I joined Qantas, looking good for giving credit for transatlantic travel on both American and British Airways.  On the Slowtalk board I got a suggestion that I should focus on San Sebastian (Donostia in Basque) rather than Bilbao; my thought is still to stay in Bilbao and daytrip to Donostia.

April 2007-- The later KC-Newark flight was removed from the schedule, and I was put onto the flight that I want; a comfortable connecting time in Newark with access to the Presidents Club.  Now the decision comes up of when to book the Porto-Bilbao-Lisbon flights.

May 2007-- A difficult decision, but I went ahead and booked the Porto-Bilbao-Lisbon flights at a cost of $230 when it was available for $160 a few months ago.  I felt it was too early to book then and preferred to wait, but it wouldn't have broken me to book the trip then.  These are the breaks that happen.  I had alternatives of taking the train to Lisbon and getting a $160 round trip, or taking the open-jaw on Portugalia turboprops for $200, but I hope to be comfortable with this trip on Iberia, connecting through Madrid airport's new terminal on the outbound.

Also, Northwest's e-mail notice of my flight time changes came over three weeks after I first noticed them.

July 2007-- I reached the 60-day advance date, and was able to book five free nights in Porto.  There remains the decision of  whether to book in advance the Lisbon-Coimbra train that I want to take right after my flight arrival on a busy date.  That should take care of my practical arrangements, and I'll concentrate on how best to spend my time during the trip.  I've usually gone without a lot of advance day-to-day planning, but I find that I should get a feel for what I'd like to do in a general outline.

August 2007-- Time is getting close.  I booked the Lisbon-Coimbra train, printing out something that looks like a station-issued ticket.  The www.cp.pt Portuguese rail site worked well, letting me choose my seat from a diagram.  I've tried to outline how I will spend my time.  Part of the focus is what type of transit tickets to buy during my city stays.  My order of the Cadogan guide Bilbao and the Basque Lands is not coming through; it's a close call to see if I'll get it by interlibrary loan.  I'm working out how to do a day trip from Bilbao to Donostia-San Sebastian by bus.