Overview
We tried to keep receipts for everything which isn’t difficult as you receive a receipt everywhere. Some were easy, as we charged on credit cards, but some small purchases probably got lost. Certainly, things like a bottle of water, stamps, post cards, gelato, etc were missed.
The largest single cost was for the three hotels that we stayed in. We selected from Rick Steves upper tier choices and are basically happy that we did, based upon the good locations of each.
Next highest expense were the business class flights, round trip between JFK and Spain/Portugal and one flight from Barcelona to Lisbon. Through the generosity of our daughter and son-in-law, we were allowed to use my son-in-law’s Amex points for our tickets. But, there were expenses for using Points Pro and then paying the British Airway highway robbery of charging to reserve business class seats more than 24 hours before your departure so that we could sit next to each other (after almost 55 years of marriage). This amounted to $640!! In the end, what we spent for business class tickets is approximately equal to the full price of economy tickets.
We spent a fair amount on tour guides but I feel we got our money’s worth. Taxi’s were another large expense as on this trip, we took very little public transportation.
Costs by Category
| Category | Amount |
| Business Class Flights | $ 2,326.00 |
| Car Rental (to/from Algarve including gas) | $ 314.21 |
| Cell Phone ($10/day/phone via Verizon plan) | $ 240.00 |
| Food (restaurants) | $ 1,237.27 |
| Gifts | $ 529.91 |
| Grocery (wine & snacks for room) | $ 142.23 |
| Lodging (3 different hotels) | $ 3,204.66 |
| Parking JFK for 12 days | $ 303.00 |
| Taxi’s | $ 372.53 |
| Tour/tour guides | $ 1,790.89 |
| Grand Total | $ 10,460.70 |