Ahhh...Winnie. Well done.

My +1 actually likes the current schedule, so she's more in than not. Still plenty of time for that to change, but as of right now we're booked on the CO flights Thursday - Monday for the weekend.

Thanks for organizing this, sdm1130! The Belgian Ale swirling around my liver at the moment can tell this is going to be an excellent DO. It's high time we went international... or is it just that our reputation precedes us domestically, and we're no longer welcome within the confines of N. America? :D

Colpuck banned in 37 states and the only question is "What's up with the other 13?"

So, after forking over beaucoup miles for my sons' honeymoons, I'm left with a scant 25,000 or so. That won't get me or the little woman to Europe! I looked at CO.com and saw Jan 15-19: CLE-EWR-BRU-EWR-CLE at $797.90 pp AI. Ouch! On a lark, I checked Expedia and saw Lufthansa/United at $703.50 pp AI, and they've got a "deal" on Le Meridien if you book the air and hotel together. Will I be able to earn OP miles on United/Lufthansa metal by January? As the Festrunk brothers George and Yortuk would say "Who's to know?"

you are not banned, just drank them dry :D

Maybe they missed the memo.....?

They just announced in the conference call that CO may enter Star in 2009 , so unless they meant the first 3 weeks of 2009 , UA and LH may not earn you CO miles yet.

I am extremely jealous, ameliorated only by the fact I satisfied a near-lifelong dream by having my own personal Belgian crawl in April.

Plan carefully - they roll up the sidewalks on the weekend. Literally, many bars and restaurants are still closed on the weekend, although it is getting better.

Rooms can be had cheap on Fri. - Sat. HI by Rogier (Nord) and the the EU parliament (I forget the name) can be had for under $100 US, I am sure other properties follow similar pricing.

The dates work for me....let me see how things pan out as the time approaches! ^

P.S. - Winnie was every guy who grew up in the late-80s - early-90's wet dream. Mmmmm.....so tasty....

Belgian beer, Belgian waffles...mmmm!

I unfortunately can only go down as a "definite maybe" right now because I can't book flights that far in advance. I have a work meeting "somewhere" in Europe the weekend before, so would like to wait and get them to cough up the big bucks for the flight. :D

For HH peeps, I recommend the Hilton Brussels. It's a few metro stops from Grande Place, but is in a safe area with good shopping and has a very nice executive lounge (read:free bubbly and Belgian beer ;) )

add me as a maybe

Thought I'd bump this up and ask everyone a few things. What dates are you planning to go? Are you buying tickets or going on rewards? What kind of airfare are you finding and on what carrier? Any interesting routings or side trips?

Thanks for the bump! ^

I am thinking of going 1/14-1/19 with just a plain old EWR-BRU routing on CO60/61. EWR-CDG/BRU-EWR was a thought but my other half kindly asked that I hold off on CDG until we are able to go together (she's unavailable MLK weekend) - fair enough.

EWR-BRU fares right now are $676 a/i so I am holding off for a few months in hopes of January TATL fares dropping a bit. I am alsol keeping my fingers crossed that mileage upgrades do not disappear!

Side trips will likely remain in Belgium - Antwerp, Bruges and possibly others. I looked at a few days in Prague but airfare is insane that weekend (something going on in Prague?).

We're looking at Thursday-Monday flights, again on the EWR-BRU-EWR routing. I booked the flights as Y rewards to make sure we had seats. If fares drop I'll redeposit the reward seats and pay for the flights, but I fare would have to come down to ~$400 for me to consider that.

I am going to do ATL-ORD-LHR-BRU. Why, because I want the BMI miles. I posted my ATL-ORD-LHR segments over on the flight connect map.