The Distant Points Story of 2020 (and plans for 2021)
2020 was a memorable year, but not necessarily for good reasons. The world may appear to be farther apart, with borders closed, the travel industry (and services in general) in ruin amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. While it’s been tough on everyone, I’m lucky that my family has been healthy and I’ve kept my job throughout. That being said, I wanted to thank everyone for their support of www.distantpoints.com, as this was our most popular year yet.
The Beginning
Westin Punta Cana
2020 started with a bang, considering I had arrived back in Canada from our quick Punta Cana trip about 4 hours before midnight marking the start of the year. After our stay at the Westin Punta Cana, I decided that I was going to spend January saving money for our epic summer to come - I won’t be engaging in dry January again this year!
I did manage to get one trip out before COVID-19 seriously changed the world. My Whistler / Vancouver Ski Trip was an awesome connection with friends while getting to ski and explore a great mountain. Both the Delta Whistler and the Hilton Whistler are fine hotels, I wouldn’t consider them to be anything but a convenient use of points.
After returning from Whistler, COVID-19 really started to come onto my radar after I had to re-book my parents homeward journey from their epic Aeroplan around the world trip. I published an article about the flexibility of award travel in this uncertain time on March 7th, I followed it up with an article on March 13th about the seriousness of the ongoing restrictions in the world.
Most of the earliest lockdown I caught up on publishing articles about my previous trips, but also about the need for a government injection of liquidity in Canadian airlines and some old reminiscing about past travel.
As the month of May came to a close, Ontario’s cases were declining rapidly, making it seem like the possibility of travelling within the country safely in 2020 may be an option. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to go to PEI this summer, where my parents spend a lot of their time,I was able to plan some safe summer activities by doing some in-depth research on Marriott’s best hotels for social distancing activities.
In order to take advantage of the spring and see people for the first time in months, I took a socially distant cycling trip to Prince Edward County to ride my bike and enjoy the outdoors for a few days - what a great place Prince Edward County is!
After a few weeks, I recognized that there would be a time and place to travel again so I wrote a in-depth researched article on the things that I would need to be in place in order to travel again. While this did lead me to travel twice within Canada, it has ultimately never gotten to a place where I was ready to travel outside of the country.
With that research, I planned a much needed getaway in British Columbia, exploring the outdoors of Whistler (the Westin Whistler is the place to be), Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Flying on Air Canada’s business class, we felt safe on the plane when there was limited COVID at the time. A couple weeks later, I went back to explore Whistler again.
With travel limited in the fall to a distant visit to my partners parents in London, Ontario, and a stay at the Delta London (a sneaky amazing hotel for Bonvoy loyalists) and a new job celebration trip in Niagara, I took some time to look at the loyalty landscape, with the rollout of the updated Aeroplan, the best Skiing hotels in Canada on points and Westjet’s sham ATC charges on their international flights.
In addition to my writing, my friend Alex provided some of his experience travelling in a COVID world, flying Westjet Economy to see family in June of 2020 and taking a (train) trip to Montreal in late Summer while COVID cases were at their lowest. It was great to have him writing for me, providing a different perspective, and I can’t wait to see what he has to offer in 2021.
The Top Articles
Many of my most popular articles blew past what 2019’s most popular article (The Longest Flights from Canada). As you can see, opinion articles do much better during the pandemic than reviews, although flight reviews bring in a lot of traffic from Google.
The top 5 articles:
Social Distancing Friendly Canadian Marriott Bonvoy Redemptions
Flying in June 2020 - WestJet Flight Review 719 Toronto to Vancouver
The Plan for 2021
I truly think Canadians who really want a vaccine will have one before Summer, even though the Government is promising that Canadians will be vaccinated by September. If the vaccine works (while we know it protects against symptoms in most cases, we don’t know for sure if it will stop the spread of the virus), then I think Summer 2021 will be like no other. I’m hoping to use this time to physically connect with friends and continue to explore the world. Until then, I’ll be covering all things in the Miles&Points space in Canada, including a few surprises along the way. I hope you stay safe and continue to come along for the ride!
Me running to the first plane after i’m fully vaccinated