The ticket price from Ljubljana to Bangkok through Istanbul was just around 1600 eur which translates to around $2,300.

That’s a good price for a business class since most other airlines charge double or more for the same distance (Austrian Airlines through Vienna and Lufthansa through Munich or Frankfurt).

There’s not much difference flying business class on Airbus 319-100 which took me from Ljubljana to Istanbul except that there is more leg room and that flight attendants bring more drinks and food.

But the business class on the Boeing 777-200 flying from Istanbul to Bangkok is a high tech luxury seat.

Business class on Boeing 777-200 Turkish Airlines

The Boeing 777-200 has 16 of these small suites and you’re basically sitting alone in your own adjustable seat which can go to completely flat position. You get a pillow and a blanked and can sleep quite comfortably for a few hours.

Adjustable seat and TV on Boeing 777-200 business class

The only » problem« is that you get served dinner at around 1:00 AM since the flight starts from Istanbul at 23:45.

Our flight started 40 minutes late and so our dinner was served even later – at around 1:30 AM. We were going quite fast and it’s amazing when you consider that the plane is going at over 1000 km/h at 11 kilometers high and the outside temperature is -54 degrees Celsius – while I am having a delicious dinner.

About 9 hours later we landed safely (and softly) in Bangkok and I was really not tired since I could sleep for about 4,5 hours during the flight.

I think I have a small problem now; because once you fly business class on a long flight, you REALLY don’t want to go back to the economy.

I don’t mind economy at all for up to 2 hour flights (which covers most of Europe from Slovenia), but there is a huge difference in comfort when you fly 8 and more hours over night.

Turkish Airlines has really lowered their prices recently and if you book an economy flight from Ljubljana to Bangkok for example, you’d pay only 620 euros (return flight). Most other airlines charge around 1000 euros for the same distance.

And if you can pay for your flight with paypal, that’s even better…

There are two reasons why I wanted to share this with you; it’s my first time (but definitely not last) flying business class and I wanted to record this on my blog (so that I can check this in a few years ).

And secondly, to motivate you, to give you some exciting goals for which you’ll focus more on improving your online business and earning more so that you can easily afford a business class flight next time you travel somewhere.

If you want to stay motivated and keep working on your sites for many hours, you need to have strong reasons WHY you’re doing this.

»Having more money« is not strong enough motivator. You need to know WHY you want to have more money.

What are you going to do with it?

And looking forward to flying business class to Thailand is definitely an exciting goal for me – since I like planes, traveling and Thailand.

So… What are your specific goals and things you want to do with the money earned from your online business?

In other words, I’ve been looking for websites where I could book a cheap flight or book a hotel and complete my payment with Paypal.

There are some very useful sites that offer Paypal as the payment option and here’s what I’ve found so far:

Cheap Flights in the USA

If you’re travelling in the USA, these companies allow you to pay for your flight with Paypal:

1. American Airlines (only for US, Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands residents)
2. Northwest Airlines
3. JetBlue Airways
4. US Airways
5. Hotwire.com (I tried booking one hotel in Paris, France with Hotwire and was unable to select Paypal as my payment option. The Hotwire support answer: »The reason why it would not let you choose this payment option is it is not available for this hotel.  The hotel may not accept Pay-pal for payment.« So it seems that Hotwire accepts Paypal only if the airline or the hotel does. Please share your experiences!)

Cheap Airline Tickets In Europe

The following websites allow bookings for flights (in Europe only) with Paypal:

1.    Jet2.com

International Flights – Any Country

The best website I’ve found so far that allows Paypal payments for cheap flights to any destination is Jetabroad from Australia…
1.    Jetabroad.com
2.    Air Asia X (mostly Asia and Australia)

Hotel Bookings Payable with Paypal

The best one I’ve found so far is Hotelopia which allows you to book a hotel and pay with Paypal anywhere…

1.    Hotelopia.com

2.    Excelloz.com

3.    Hotwire.com (check my note above…)

4.    Agoda.com

If you have come across any other websites that allow payments with Paypal for cheap tickets or hotels, please email me at tomaz (at) freedomideas.com and I’ll update the post. Thanks!

Why Payment With Paypal?

There are various ways to earn money online and get paid through Paypal. The most well-known is eBay.com, but if you’re into internet marketing, then consider these programs which I use, that pay to my Paypal:

1.    Chitika.com – Chitika is my biggest earner and they pay on time. I could easily now live only on my Chitika earnings, if I could pay for other stuff with Paypal. Chitika also sends you a check if you wish.
2.    Sitesell.com – The Sitesell Affiliate Program also pays to Paypal (or check).
3.    Infolinks.com – They pay to Paypal or wire transfer to your bank.
4.    Shoppingads.com – If,  like me, you cannot use the eBay Affiliate Program, Shoppingads is a good alternative and pays to Paypal too.

So why is using Paypal so cool? Because you don’t pay tax for the money in your Paypal account, whatever you earn, you get to spend.

I’ve just completed my planning for a trip to the Roland Garros Grand Slam tennis tournament and was able to pay for my plane ticket and 8 day stay in Paris all with Paypal. Great!

Now I only need the real money for the tennis tickets, food and souvenirs!

It’s been a great experience from the holiday perspective and from the online business perspective – or maybe I could say enjoying freedom while doing almost nothing for my websites.

I took my laptop and found some nice places on Koh Samui where there was free wi-fi in the restaurant. So I had my pad thai, checked my emails, updated a few Content 2.0 pages and went swimming again.

Free wi-fi on Koh Samui

The power of internet allows you to earn money while doing minimal maintenance work on your authority content sites. I’ve had my best month so far and I’ve done the least work in this month in the last 3 years of my journey into the internet marketing arena…

Here are a few more pics from my travels…

Having breakfast on a ferry to Koh Samui

Beautiful temples on the island

Thai food is great!

I hope you also take some time ocassionally from your work and enjoy life. Otherwise you may happen to die with thousands of dollars in your bank account. What a waste…

Before you check the photos, I want to add something; a few months ago I was reading a blog post which was something like “A Day in the life of… (I forgot the name)”.

The guy who was interviewed was making around $20,000 per month, mostly on passive income (Adsense, affiliate programs, …).

Here’s how I remembered his day description: wake up at 8, quick breakfast and start checking and replying to emails (1 hour), writing articles for his websites (2 hours), checking the RSS feeds (1 hour), lunch and a short break (1,5 hours), uploading articles to his sites and uploading them to other sites + social bookmarking and voting (1,5 hours), checking email again (30 minutes), doing other website related stuff (design, planning new sites, link building, … – 2 hours), short break and dinner snack, then maybe watch some TV news or play a computer game (1,5 hours), checking email and RSS feeds again (1 hour), going to sleep at a around midnight.

This story always reminds me of how I NEVER want to live my life. Having more than enough and still wanting more and more and more…

Here’s what me and my girlfriend did:

The really sad thing is that some people start this journey to financial and personal freedom, manage to free themselves from working for someone else, but then become slaves of their own obsession for money.

I’d be really interested in hearing your thoughts on that…

Sorry for the lack of useful posts but sometimes we have to take the really needed vacation.

And this post won’t give you any special ideas on how to become financially free but hopefully it will show you what kind of lifestyle you can afford with a successful online business on autopilot.

So let’s start the SBI cruise!

Bye bye Slovenia! I am leaving for Paris and then for Miami on the 16th of January. I left Slovenia at 7.30 AM and arrived in Miami the same day at 5.00 PM! And lost 6 hours of time difference somewhere on the road…

Soon after arriving I met an old friend from my town of Skofja Loka – Ales. Ales works in Miami as a waiter and is really enjoying the warm climate and generous tipping in this area.

Freedom of the Seas – the BIGGEST cruise ship in the world. Wow!

When 3500 people want to check-in at the same time, it can get pretty crowded. There were more than 25 booths for checking-in so the whole process went relatively smoothly.

Leaving Miami on a cloudy and windy day. Most of the people were on the deck so it was one the rare times when I could get a good feel of how many people are actually on the Freedom of the Seas.

The first meeting of all SBI-ers on the boat. Dr. Ken Evoy, the CEO of Sitesell.com, gave a welcome speech and shared his thoughts on making money online, freedom and what it really means to him.

Ken also shared his journey from the days of being a doctor, to starting a toy company and ending up helping people achieve financial freedom through small home based online business.

Day 3 – Labadee, Haiti. Warm weather, beaches and fun activities on the beach.

Day 4 – Ocho Rios, Jamaica. I went on a tour with a bus, checked out the forests of Jamaica and spent some time waiting for the warm rain to stop. Oh, and I also climbed the famous Dunn’s River Falls – a waterfall climb lasting 45 minutes.

Day 5 – Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands. The offshore haven with more than 500 banks. So far I am paying my taxes in Slovenia but I have considered an offshore account in the past. The tax rate in Cayman Islands is 0! Hmm…

Day 6 – Cozumel, Mexico. The older brother of our cruise ship came into town on the same day – Voyager of the Seas. Impressive ha? I asked a local taxi driver how often do they get cruise ships in their port. “Every day.” Wow.

Day 7 was spent on the sea and in the morning of day 8 we arrived in Miami. Everyone had to leave the ship by 10 AM since new passengers were arriving at 2 PM.

I noticed that this cruise ship business is a massive money making machine. The amount of money a ship earns in one week of cruising with all the extras you can buy and enjoy on the ship is staggering.

NBA – Miami Heat – Boston Celtics. I finally got to see a NBA game live but it wasn’t a really good game. And yeah, that’s another money making machine…

Boeing 747 – the journey home begins. Very soon – I will buy a first class ticket. Very soon…

Alps above Austria – soon I’ll land in Slovenia, back to cold, grey and rainy winter.

The SBI cruise was a very joyful and interesting experience. I got to meet more than 30 SBI-ers and even had a chance to get an exclusive interview with Dr. Ken Evoy.

The SBI forums are already buzzing with excitement since the planning for the next year’s cruise, seminar or something like that has already started.

Are YOU coming?

I am still used to Thai time at the moment since I wake up at 3 am which would be 9 am in Thailand.

Oh yes, and I am writing this post at 5.45 am too.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I am still alive and that the transition from 35 degrees C:

to -2 degrees C was quite shocking.

By the way, I’m planning a special competition for all the commenters who add value and different points of view to this financial freedom blog.

You’ll know all the details tomorrow so stay in touch!