You might want to check and see if you can downgrade it [continue reading…]
The other day on Twitter I saw a few tweets that read ‘If I win a trip to Vegas, the first thing I’ll do when I arrive is (insert Vegas activity or something about some Hyatt or MGM property)’. Of course most of the people who fly to Las Vegas do just that – arrive, enjoy the Vegas activities and atmosphere and leave. Which is all fine and good, but in Las Vegas you’re in a sea of nice fake stuff built just for show, and just a couple hours drive from some of the most spectacular natural beauty in the United States. After awesome trips to national parks in Alaska and Wyoming this year, I wanted to put together a resource on getting to these treasures using miles and points. I’ve assumed that 2 hours from the airport to the park is an easy drive and about 4 hours is about as far as most people would be willing to drive after flying in. Oh yeah, and my tweet that didn’t win: [continue reading…]
One of the most-common barriers to family travel is a lack of time. Parents have jobs and responsibilities. Kids have school and activity schedules. And there’s only so much you can do with a 3-day weekend. But I think if you give it a shot you’ll find the 3 day weekend trip can be an amazing experience for the whole family even if it doesn’t fit all your criteria for a ‘good vacation’. This past Labor Day weekend we flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming on our way to Yellowstone National Park. [continue reading…]
Unfortunately this is yet another limited time offer, but I was having withdrawal symptoms after not getting any new cards for a couple months and saw some articles on 60K Citi ThankYou Prestige cards that are available only in a Citi branch. The problem is, Citi closed all their San Antonio (maybe all of Texas?) branches a couple of months ago and most of them were converted to a bank I’d never heard of, BB&T. Browsing around their site, I found a really interesting offer for a cashback card with this earning structure: [continue reading…]
Recently we’ve been on somewhat of a miles burning spree. Our miles aren’t earning interest and, oddly enough, we’d like to do some traveling in 2015. Let’s look at these trips, what to do when none of the sweet spots work, and the definitive answer to how much miles are worth. I’m [continue reading…]
Last week, I called AA to reserve 4 tickets to Bali for next summer, on the only dates I have seen that work for a trip that makes the most of the weekends on either end of it. I had put the outbound trip on hold a couple days before and had no problem getting the 4 seats we wanted on US Airways and Cathay Pacific, with the Hong Kong-Bali segment in coach. All was well although I thought the taxes the agent quoted me were high for Asia, where departure taxes usually range from zero to not very much. Yesterday it finally ticketed at the cost I had been quoted but I didn’t really look at it. Today I checked the receipt that was emailed and something seemed really screwy. What’s wrong with this picture? [continue reading…]
There has been a really fun and lively discussion on credit cards, hype and promotion of marginal card products recently. Drew wrote about some overhyped cards, Matt and Doctor of Credit dove into Citi’s latest cashback offering, Greg responded to some of the criticism and George did his best to call the play-by-play.
The thing is, these are all good bloggers doing their best [continue reading…]
Are you ready for the next devaluation, mistake fare or major change to your favorite MS method? Let’s take a look at some recent events that gave us good reasons to book tickets that we might not have without the fare or concern involved. And why it’s worth knowing what you would book if the chance came along. These are some of the things that changed the way I plan to book travel.
…or not. As you probably heard if you were on any type of miles and points related site yesterday, an (update: maybe relatively new) Iberia award chart for partners other than those owned by IAG got noticed by The Freequent Flyer. I wondered out loud on Twitter whether British Airways would follow suit, since the two airlines are both owned by IAG and share many aspects of their Avios points programs. Until recently, they (update: maybe) also had nearly identical award charts, and if BA does follow Iberia’s lead without warning it would be a massive devaluation on some of the most popular Avios redemptions. [continue reading…]
I wish this one were sweeter, I really do. After all, this is the one Avios sweet spot that includes my home airport. But as sweet spots go, using Avios through and out of Dallas and Chicago is like a diet drink. They can add cherry and chocolate flavor (or berries and cream and whatever other concoctions they’ve come up with) but unless there’s some sugar in there, it just won’t be that sweet. Similarly, as long as AA releases comparatively few seats out of Dallas and Chicago, they lag behind the other Avios sweet spots we’ve looked at from the West Coast, the East Coast and Florida. Still, there’s lots of great potential here, [continue reading…]