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I love planning and taking complex trips using points and miles to fly in international business class and stay at luxury hotels for a fraction of the retail cost, but sometimes all I want is a relatively close destination for a quick and inexpensive trip.

The romance of travel can die quickly when you see your credit card statement. Few of us enjoy being charged to use our own money and when it comes to foreign transaction fees, it’s no different.

What might feel like just a few extra dollars in fees can quickly add up to a hefty end sum. For example, if you charge $2,000 to a credit card with a foreign transaction fee of 3%, that’s an extra $60.

Anna’s note: Israel is still closed to tourists and only Israeli citizens are allowed to enter. Please check updated travel restrictions before making any plans.

Know the Entry Requirements for Each Country

As travel resumes, it’s paramount to know each country’s requirements, even if you are just transiting through and are there for a short layover. I like IATA’s Travel Regulations Map and Kayak also maintains a comprehensive list of travel restrictions by country. 

United has its own resource where you can check international travel requirements.

Let’s face it, 2020 has been a pretty crappy year for travel. If you’re like me, you likely had to cancel at least one trip. I have more than five trips that were planned for this year, and even some for early next year that I had to cancel.

Cancelling trips sucks. You often look forward to it for so long, only to wave goodbye to a trip you may have spent a year or so planning.

However, now is really the time to start planning future travel.

Full disclaimer, we aren’t psychics here at MileValue.

The purpose of this post is not to tell you whether or not you should be traveling. Rather, I’d like to share my experience and my impressions of what it’s like to travel right now. I’ll share my experience with booking flights, what it’s like to fly and stay at hotels during the pandemic and my overall impressions of the precautions taken by hotels, airlines and tourist attractions.

Planning the Trip and Finding Award Space

At the beginning of September, my friends and I felt safe enough to travel abroad and decided to take a trip to Turkey.