Ann Arbor Art Fair DO 10 (DTW)- July 19-20, 2014

We are going back to our roots.

The speaker will be Drew, of travelisfree.com. Drew and his wife travel the world year-round while maintaining a budget under the poverty level. He is pushing into areas that I love, including maximizing rewards, acquiring points and miles for minimal expense, all to see if he and his wife can travel around the world for a year for under $20,000, listing all their expenses on a blog.

Warning, most of their travel is in Y, so if you yearn for more pictures of F and C and close ups of hot nuts, this is not the year to attend the AAAF DO. However, they still stay in some very upscale hotels.

For a sample of his work, try Top 7 posts of 2013, and Last Two Years of Travel in Pictures.

And for those too lazy to click on the links:

"Out of 97 flights (segments at least) we have paid for 9.

Those 9 flights were an average of 1 hour each (6,150 miles flown in those 9 flights). A small portion of our total flights.

Out of 63 international flights “only” 8 were in business class and 1 in first class.

If you don’t understand how this is possible, simply look at my post on Best Travel Credit Cards. "

This DO started with bringing in a speaker or two to educate the attendees. I believe Drew is doing a great job of poking programs boundaries and bringing unknown or unthought of strategies to this years attendees.

I've reserved the freeSpace at the downtown library for both Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. It holds 32. Due to last minute cancellations last year, I will be offering confirmed space for 37. And guaranteed no bumps if we are slightly over. If or when we hit that number, we will have a wait list.

However, there are too many good people on the waitlist, so I secured the Pittsfield Twp Hall. Capacity 200. Open to all who want to attend. Plenty of parking, unlike the originally secured location for this DO.

Saturday dinner will be at the Original Cottage Inn (if they let me rebook, after getting 10% off a $500 bill with a square coupon), and have breakfast Sunday at Webers, as that is still a smoking deal.

Sunday's speaker on manufactured spend and rental cars will be Tahsir, who goes by tahsir21 on Flyertalk, in case anyone wants to click on his past posts.

Feel free to respond as committed or tentative, and let me know if you are bringing someone to the meeting or just to dinner or brunch. Or if you are just coming to the meeting or a meal or meals.

Saturday:

Pittsfield Township Hall
6201 W Michigan Ave
Ann Arbor, MI

This link (hopefully) takes you to a google map of the meeting site at

6201 W Michigan Ave, Ann Arbor, MI

https://www.google.com/search?q=6201...x-a&channel=sb


1PM to 5:00PM

1. Introductions
2. Drew from travelisfree.com
3. Shared Tips, if there is time

Dinner

Original Cottage Inn- 6 PM for 60 people, 512 E William St Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Sunday

Brunch at Webers 9:30 AM (res for 30-35)
3050 Jackson Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48103


Pittsfield Township Hall
6201 W Michigan Ave
Ann Arbor, MI

11:30 to 4:00

1. Tahsir21, on manufactured spend and rental cars




Transportation options, courtesy of Bob H:

DTW is about a 30 minute drive from Ann Arbor (depending on where you're leaving/going to of course!)

You need to allow about 10 to 15 minutes to get to the ground transportation center plus some time to take the rental car shuttles if you're doing that.

Michigan flyer provides bus service to certain locations in Ann Arbor on a once an hour basis for $22 RT

see

http://michiganflyer.com/ScheduleRoute.aspx

Ann Arbor Custom transit provides shared van service to any address in the Ann Arbor area for $31 one way. I used them several times this past winter and they were reliable. (Normally I park off airport and didn't want to leave a car in all that snow, or come back late at night and have to dig one out !)

see

http://www.customtransit.com/

Ann Arbor has excellent local bus service and you really don't want to take a car downtown during Art Fair

see

http://www.theride.org/Services

There are motel clusters near Briarwood Mall (I94 and State Street) and at the Plymouth Road exit off US23.

Rental cars are available here at several locations including the Ann Arbor Airport (National) and Holiday Inn North (Avis).

Motels in town are likely to be packed through Sat, it may be cost effective to stay a little farther out, such as near DTW.


Amtrak-

Amtrak does provide good service to Ann Arbor from Chicago and a few point to the east of Chicago and lots of places to the west / far west.

See Amtrak.com

Then there's the alt airport issue of places like FNT and Lan, both of which Mrs Bob H have used but not recently because DTW-FNT is gone, probably because is only about 60 miles from Ann Arbor.

Attendees:

1. Bikeguy
2. toomanybooks
3. TC Fly Girl
4. geoffco
5. bk3day
6. bostonbali
7. gomike
8.
9. HansGolden
10. MRP Alert
11. Pinky
13. TWA44 +1 meals
14. k2o
15.
17. PatMike +1
18. amolkold tentative
20.
21. KMA26
22. sesrin80
23. gpapadop
24. MelEngineersSavings
26.
27. The Deal Mommy tentative
28. bigasiannd
29. jillbrinn
30. dwbf11
31.
32. Dboy
33. RadioShow
34. grizshel
37. Ms Everywhere +2
38. TravelAuto
39. ORD-TGU
40. xshanex
41. stravels
42. santina91
43. restonva
44. buck3y3nut
45. janetdoe
46. Upperdeck744
47. tazdmb
48. bschaff1
49. nicahojo
50. sharkey
51. sfair10784
52. BaliParis
53. SkyBuck
54. Jigger
55. miffSC
56. fcgoal
57. darby1970
58. nicahojo
59. maxamilious
60. kingsmill
61. beachgirl07
62. itravelandtravel
63. beachgirl07
64. Nanny_York
65. Bob H + 1
66. ceioec
67. endingstrife
68. Fly911now
69. WanderLuster
64, actually. Patty216
65. pathfinder44
66. adamray
67. tamminh
68. tahsir + 1 for brunch

Please put me down, thanks. Always a great event.

First!

Count me in for sure for all events.

I will be there

Sign me up with a +1 for all events, please

Looking forward to another great DO!

I'm in as well, can't wait!

Count me in

Put me down. I am coming this year.

I'm coming!

I'm in Chicago till July 17th so it's perfect timing for me. Thanks to Bikeguy for organizing as this will surely be another great AADO.

I'm in as well.

Please put me down as tentative. If I come, my husband will probably want to join us at the meals.

Thanks!