Traveler Trek to TBEX Toronto

Loyalty Traveler is going north of the border for the next week to attend Travel Blog Exchange 2013 in Toronto this coming weekend.

This will be my first trip to Toronto. I think I passed through the city in 1981 on a trans-Canada train trip from Montreal to Vancouver, but I know I did not get off the train.

Thursday is  scheduled to be my day visiting Canada’s first urban National Park in Toronto. Rouge National Urban Park sounds like the perfect introduction for me to the Toronto metropolis of six million.

I am praying I do not get eaten alive by mosquitoes or other little biting insects that force me to scratch my way through the entire TBEX conference. I am a lovable creature for tiny biting things.

Hotels, Hotels, Hotels

I still have no reservations for the first two nights in Toronto. That is a chore left to do. Thanks to hotel points, I really do not worry about getting a good deal for hotel rooms in a major city. There are plenty of options.

Five nights I will be staying in the two InterContinental Hotels in Toronto. These hotels cost 15,000 points per night when I booked them in January during an award pricing glitch just days prior to the Priority Club Rewards global hotel category reassignment January 16, 2013.

The two Toronto InterContinental Hotels were incorrectly posted for 15,000 points rather than 40,000 points. Those are probably the most advanced hotel reservations I have ever booked.

Buying 10,000 points for each Points & Cash reward night meant I paid $70 + 5,000 points per night for stays at these Toronto InterContinental Hotels.

Keep tuned for my photos of the great multicultural north and impressions of Canada’s largest city.

Now I just need to locate my passport buried somewhere in my car and I am ready to go.

Viva Las Vegas

This trek starts with another 520 mile drive to Las Vegas. I am flying from Las Vegas to Toronto since I will be attending the U.S. Travel Association International PowWow in Las Vegas June 8-12, 2013. Pow Wow is the conference that requires media attendees to take a sponsored trip and I am booked to fly over the Grand Canyon the weekend after next.

Parks and cities and people and beer. And I call this a job.

The National Parks descriptive and informational posts for Utah may take a little longer to get written.

I am fond of saying, “Work interferes with seeing the world.”

Looks like the next couple of weeks, “Seeing the world interferes with my writing work.”

Ric Garrido, writer and content owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests.

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