JetBlue emailed out a promotion this morning offering 20% off domestic fall fares through December 17 using coupon code OCTOBER14.  In addition, the same code is good for 15% off international fares. The fine print isn’t onerous, either.  It excludes Friday and Sunday travel, plus November 1, 8, and 20 through December 1. The code itself is only good for the next two days, so act fast if the timing makes sense for you.

I haven’t seen this posted elsewhere, to the extent that I don’t read every other blog on the planet.  I received an email this morning from the NEXUS program informing me of some changes that are rolling out at Canadian airports.  The big change is that you will now be required to insert your card into the kiosk.  While this seems minor, it was previously not necessary, and therefore also not entirely necessary to carry your NEXUS card with you at all.  You would scan your passport, look into the mirror for your iris scan, and be on your way.  Those steps still exist, but will be preceded by the act of inserting your NEXUS card into the machine. For those that might be unaware, and this might also be [...]

Effective October 1, 2014, American Airlines will no longer allow you to check bags through to your final destination unless your tickets are on AA, US or a Oneworld partner.  This means, for instance, that if you have booked two separate reservations on two separate carriers, you cannot check in with American and have your luggage tagged through to the airport where that second carrier is taking you. Most reservations are on one reservation and one ticket, so no matter the mix of carriers, this rule change will not impact that.  There will also be no impact if your second itinerary is with another Oneworld carrier, as might be the case if you needed to position for a BA or US flight.  Still, this is an important change to those [...]

Career blogging might be an even more crowded space than travel or family blogging, so to paraphrase the great Homer Simpson, let’s cram another salty snack into America’s already bloated snack hole. What Gives? This blog has been on hiatus for a little over a week now, but I think the coast is clear for me to get back into the swing of things.  A lot has been going on in the last month, and very little of it has involved travel, so I may diverge into some other topics here and we’ll see how that goes.  I’ve been fairly focused on work lately, and very little of that is interesting enough to write about.  Nonetheless, I’ve found myself pontificating in real life on early career advice, and people mostly [...]

For those with the day off, I hope you’re enjoying it.  For those reading from abroad, Labor Day is a national holiday celebrating the labor movement’s economic and social impact – and you’d be challenged to find many folks that knew that without looking it up (me included).  Forget Ferragosto and the two weeks that follow it, we in the U.S. celebrate with a single day off.  We lag the industrialized world in paid time off so don’t forget to support the Vacation Equality Project, which despite its tourism industry ties, would be a step in the right direction. It happens to be raining here in Southern Maine this morning, and I’m left thinking about a few travel and miles-related things – Other than getting paid commissions for promoting it, [...]

Barely two days after our multi-meltdown adventure at Paciarino we licked our wounds, still hungry for dessert, and gave it another shot.  And this time, we made it through dessert!  The scene of this evening’s success was Pine Point Grille, over in Scarborough.  It’s a newer restaurant on one of the main streets that will take you from Route 1 to the beaches.  That means a great deal of tourist traffic, although you will find the locals here too.  Well, us at least, but usually a few more. I mention this only because I’ve written before about selecting restaurants when you’re first getting back into eating out as new parents – one point of emphasis is that tourist traffic tends to bring an implied welcoming of children.  You’re very likely to find high chairs [...]

It may interest some that the Air France/KLM FlyingBlue loyalty program is now a transfer partner with Citi ThankYou Rewards.  For me, this is a lukewarm development, but still a very encouraging sign that Citi is in the market to compete for your loyalty.  To quickly recap, Citi only recently began an airline transfer program for their ThankYou points program, but in the past few months has added some interesting partners, including Singapore KrisFlyer and now FlyingBlue.  The full list of partners, all of whom transfer at 1:1, is as follows: Cathay Pacific EVA Air Etihad Guest FlyingBlue Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer Malaysia Airlines Qatar Airways Singapore Airlines Thai Airways On the positive side, FlyingBlue provides more space on its own AF/KLM metal than you will find with Delta.  They [...]

This past week has left me in a slightly sour mood with regard to travel, offset by some solid handling by the airlines.  I didn’t get to hang out with my college friends this weekend, and I have to tell you, drafting your fantasy football team from your basement while everyone else is partying up the occasion is slightly depressing.  I normally have no problem with the remote draft in most leagues, but I digress… a quick roundup of this weekend’s travel interests, as told to me by The Internet (which they have on computers now) – Speculation is rampant that British Airways may devalue the best short haul award chart on the planet.  Free-quent Flyer and our very own Kenny have both pointed to a strong hint at what [...]

I haven’t written much lately, mostly because I have been distracted by my actual employment, but also because I’ve recently experienced a string of frustration regarding travel that has not materialized due to delays and cancellations.  I try to stay away from the negativity in travel since it is easy to get wrapped up in it and take the focus off of actually enjoying myself.  That said, this weekend I had another trip delay to the point that it made no sense to go.  While it is a bummer that I won’t get to join my friends for our annual fantasy football draft – and let me tell you, drafting online by yourself is not even 10% as fun – I am impressed with how US Airways and British Airways [...]