Flights, Fajitas and Fiestas - San Antonio July 2017

[BONZO]

Flights, fajitas and fiestas

Cast:

Alison – early fifties, with wanderlust (but insists on travelling in comfort and style)
Me – Shaun, mid fifties, also with wanderlust (used to be happy to travel anyhow but the comfort and style option is more appealing now!)

Here we go again on another mad dash and this time we are going west for a change after the recent flights going east.

As luck would have it a really good deal came about so we jumped at the chance to go back stateside, rack up some more Avios and Tier Points to help us retain BA Gold status for another year. Additionally we can use our Global Entry to zoom through US immigration.

As always – the route is not as straightforward as you might think; it’s not to everyone’s taste but suits us for a number of reasons.

The deal was business class on American Airlines, from Manchester to San Antonio, Texas. There were a couple of other destinations also on offer but San Antonio appealed to us the most. As AA don’t fly direct from Manchester to San Antonio, a change is required and Chicago was offered first.

Hmmmm, that didn’t give us many tier points, so we tweaked it a bit (ok, quite a lot!) We ended up booking the following:

Manchester – Philadelphia
Philadelphia – Phoenix
Phoenix – San Antonio
San Antonio – Dallas Fort Worth
Dallas Fort Worth – Chicago
Chicago – Manchester

And we leave next weekend - 16th July

So – why this trip, why the non direct routing?

We find ourselves in a fortunate position of both working full time, the kids are still at home but both in their twenties with full time jobs so financially independent and no need for us to travel in school holidays.

For us it’s the “romance” of air travel and it’s often more about the journey than the destination in many ways. We enjoy the benefits that Gold Status brings us, so it’s worth doing non stop flights to both reduce costs and get additional tier points, we always build in extra time between flights to enjoy the lounges (and to make sure we don’t stress about making the connections) and we love flying!

We didn't really appreciate how hot it would be - wow! San Antonio will be around 38 degrees - so we'll take it easy!

We booked flights between London and Heathrow as the most straightforward way to get to Manchester from Kent, and booked hotels as necessary.

Our final itinerary is as follows:

Outbound

Heathrow to Manchester (BA) Overnight stay at Clayton Hotel
Manchester to Philadelphia (AA)
Philadelphia to Phoenix (AA) Overnight stay at Country Inn & Suites
Phoenix to San Antonio (AA) Stay at Hyatt Regency, Riverwalk

Inbound

San Antonio to Dallas Fort Worth (AA)
Dallas Fort Worth to Chicago (AA)
Chicago to Manchester (AA)
Manchester to Heathrow (BA)


So, what is there to do in San Antonio? It’s not huge, so we’ve decided to wing it a bit. We’ve not really booked anything but so far this is what’s on our bucket list:


Possible attractions:

The Alamo
San Antonio river walk
Mission San Jose
Six Flags Fiesta Texas
Tower of the Americas
Buckhorn saloon
Magicians Agency


We're only there for 4 days, which we find is usually long enough for us to get a good feel for a new city, and we can always come back!

[Mary A]

We've only spent 1 day in San Antonio, to see the Alamo, drove from Austin. We arrived early and had breakfast at Schilos, great food and excellent service. The Riverwalk was lovely, very relaxing to stroll along and shop, stop for coffee, people watch etc. Everything was very compact.

We've just been discussing next years trip and strangely enough San Antonio was mentioned!

[WileyCoyote]

Sounds fun ! Look forward to reading all about it.

[CrispyA]

San Antonio is lovely! Try and make it to Gruene Hall if you can - oldest dance hall in Texas!