Weekly Travel News Roundup Archives - Page 4 of 4

Weekly Travel News Roundup

November 7, 2014 By Trevor Leave a Comment

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know!

Do Now (if you haven’t already)

Free-quent Flyer Book reminds us of the latest Hilton promo.

On Blog Content, Copycats, and Credit Cards

Loyalty Lobby puts in a lot of time writing his posts, putting things like IHG PointsBreaks posts together. Apparently some leverage his work without giving credit.
MilesAbound weighs in on TravelBloggerBuzz’s new credit card links. Scroll down a bit on this TBB post and you can see his response.

Nonsequitars

This borders on last week vs. this week, but paying it forward is something I always like to highlight. Wandering Aramean did just that on Halloween in Air World.
American Express opened their latest Centurion lounge at SFO (I think they’re up to 4), Travelskills offers a review. While I’m not a huge wine fan (I whine enough on Sundays, right?), the wine wall looks pretty cool. In other news, I’ll be visiting their lounge at DFW a couple times in the next few days.
Airlines tend to distinguish in the types of wines they offer in First and Business Class. Not surprisingly, first class passengers are looking for validation, but apparently “the trolley [in business class] is usually empty by the end of the flight.” I’ll test that one this weekend.
It looks like Wandering Aramean made it on Etihad Residences before One Mile at a Time did.

Weekly Travel News Roundup: 31 October 2014

October 31, 2014 By Trevor 2 Comments

The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know!

Do Now (if you haven’t already)

Canadian Kilometers highlights a glitch on Aeroplan’s website where awards price at the first segment (rather than the entire trip). I’m not an Aeroplan guy, nor do I have sufficient miles in my AMEX Membership Rewards account to transfer them over at the moment (I know, tisk, tisk), but, if you do, its worth taking a look.

For Manufactured Spenders

Doctor of Credit posts on what credit cards are churnable. For that matter, he’s also celebrating his one year anniversary.
Marathon Man on the other hand is not happy. I can’t say I blame him, a lot of MS deals have died over the past few months, but the die hards will undoubtedly persevere, hopefully it takes more time for the big timers to parse it into bite sized pieces.

Nonsequitars

Hack My Trip became Travel Codex
Will Run for Miles is learning a very important lesson, one I think everyone with the miles and hobbies should read.
I posted on a different type of Mileage Running earlier in the week. If you’re looking for a resource to help fuel that approach, check out FlyerTalk. Hint – if you do it today, you can find 2 day turns and see some Pyramids and some awesome rooftop bars, or visit hotels like this.
Kenny of Miles4More highlights how a positioning flight can either be, or make a great deal (e.g. if you can find award availability from an airport not your own). This has worked for me most notably b/w DC and New York.
American Airlines (and US Airways) announced the 2015 AAdvantage program. I don’t see this as a major change for American Flyers, Carolina Travel Girl thinks this is a big change for US Airways elites. I think this is an interesting experiment, because its just about the opposite of what happened with the United-Continental Merger, and as a 1k member of United (the larger of the two), I lost out so much that I defected to American (where I’ve been happy). Only time will tell.

For AvGeeks

Last weekend was the last commercial flight of the MD-11 (flown by KLM). WanderingAramean was on it and shares his experience.

Weekly Travel News Roundup – 17 October 2014

October 17, 2014 By Trevor 6 Comments

Great Flights (some left, some not, and they do exist)

This was a fantastic week of flight deals. For example, there was $400-700 from Washington DC and others to Europe; and New York and others to India from $200.
Oh, and if you are curious where most of the flight deals come from, here’s an interview with The Flight Deal team.

Nonsequitars

For Southwest Airline fans – a major provision of the Wright Amendment has passed, as Seth of Wandering Aramean provides some of the story, but, fair warning, it is a bittersweet story. I’ll give you the brief bit – Love Field is still limited to 20 gates, so in effect, this effect makes Southwest a powerhouse there with 16 of those gates. As Seth posted last month, there is no Love for Delta, or is there?
BigHabitat poses the question – is earning 7,500 AAdvantage miles worth the time it takes to test drive a Cadillac? I think so (but, hey, I also wouldn’t mind test driving a Caddy for kicks).

Manufacturing Spend

Maximizing Money alerts us to a limited duration promotion where AMEX Blue Cash cardholders can get an extra 2% at Whole Foods. I’ve never been in a Whole Foods before, but I see myself visiting there a whole lot now.

Weekly News Roundup: October 3, 2014

October 3, 2014 By Trevor Leave a Comment

On Blog Content

Saverocity Welcomes Dia, The Deal Mommy! I’ve had the chance to meet Dia in person, and while I’m more apt to vendoming, I do enjoy her writing. In fact, my wife and I are very much looking forward to attending FT4RL2 in Charlotte.
Wandering Aramean shares the Big Business of Credit Card Marketing. Just when I thought I grasped how big affiliate link revenue is, I’m blown away again.

Miles and Points Programs and Portals

This week was like the tail of two cities, there were positives of the week, such as a continuation of shopping portal news. Frequent Miler reports that AMEX Giftcards return, and he also launched Frequent Miler’s Portal Alerts.
Of course the week also saw a couple of changes to American Express Membership Rewards and the Premier Rewards Gold Card, courtesy of Travel Summary.
Oh and there’s a 70,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus for the Chase Ink Plus. As an added bonus, current cardholders can provide referrals for the 70k UR bonus. Aptly, there is a conga-line on the Saverocity Forums.

Award Redemptions

You’ve probably seen the great trip report about flying Singapore Suites (I originally got this link from my Brother but its every it seems). Mighty Travels wrote an interesting post on why customers who make redemptions are better customers. Perhaps even more interesting, was a report he linked to.
Pf Digest adds that one third of loyalty earnings go unused. I think a little piece of me died inside.

Reselling

Dia, The Deal Mommy reports that Kohl’s Yes2You Rewards program is now nationwide. This is a great way to get another 5% on Kohls, especially if you add that to Kohl’s other stackable offers.
In case you missed it, I shared the math that makes Kohls work, and some great tools for reselling.

#Avgeek

This was a big week for Airbus. They had the first A380 flights for Qantas Sydney to Dallas-Fort Worth, Emirates Dubai to Dallas-Fort Worth, and British Airways to Washington-Dulles.
Airbus also received their type certification for the A350-XWB and decided to do some photo shoots (courtesy of Airlinereporter)

Weekly Travel News Roundup: Friday 26 September 2014

September 26, 2014 By Trevor Leave a Comment

Nonsequitars

Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace industry analyst I read often, shared some interesting insights about Al Jazeera’s 787 documentary. He highlights not safety concerns, but rather a very damning view of Boeing’s worker morale, and it’s evolving culture. Having watched the documentary myself, I’m torn between seeing the blatant yellow journalism and Richard’s view. I think part of it is that the “ad-hoc” folks were goaded/led, I also think it was unprofessional to “blindside” of Boeing’s Larry Loftis (Boeing VP and GM of the 787 Program). Only time will tell how this plays out.
FrequentMiler has been busy this week, he’s got a QuickDeal that Small Business Saturday Returns, and it’s pretty good, allowing 3 $10 statement credits per AMEX card — which beats the $25 per single purchase of a few years ago. Recently it was not even that good.
From FlightGlobal Etihad released photos of its A380 in a new livery. Oh, and for those looking for cool aircraft – this week is UN Week, unfortunately UN dignitaries have already started leaving, but still some awesome pictures floating around.

Shopping Portals, Reselling, Oh My!

FrequentMiler summarizes this week’s great shopping portal multipliers. Some have expired, some are still left, but there is much to learn. For starters: always be ready to jump on great deals.
BigHabitat shared some insights, some little Holy Grails of Reselling, if you will. I think for the more cerebral resellers, this can be quite helpful. I know I certainly found some interesting things.

On Loyalty Programs

I think DanDeals was the first to break that Aegean Air is changing their Miles+Bonus program, that will mean that Star Alliance Gold status will need to be earned each year (rather than just maintaining activity every three years). This was for a long time, a way to lifetime Star Alliance Gold.
Lucky explain’s the impact of American Airlines baggage policy changing for separate tickets. I’m guessing it won’t impact a ton of folks, but for those traveling on American’s non-Oneworld partners, it’ll likely be felt.

Weekly Travel News Roundup: 12 September 2014

September 12, 2014 By Trevor 5 Comments

On Credit Cards

As the Joe Flies wrote a great “beginners” Guide Credit Card Tier List for Cash Back and Transferable points. I have to admit, I disagree with his putting of the American Express Plum Card in Tier 4, its totally in my personal tier 3 because of the whopping 3.5% cash back on your first $30k spend.

Nonsequitars

Gary from View from the Wing shared a post on the secrets behind airport codes. I followed it up with more exhaustive post.
Airline Reporter (among others) reported on Southwest’s new branding. When I had posted about the rumor, I thought it was only the plane, but really, Southwest is going all out, but taking their time doing it. Taking the whole picture into perspective, the livery is growing on me, but it still looks “EasyJetish.”
One Mile at a Time had a few mistakes on Monday but a successful DYKWIA salvaged the day.

On Manufacturing Spending Opportunities

Fishing4Deals shared a Safeway deal – Purchase two Visa or Mastercard variable load gift cards and get a coupon for $15 off your next purchase. Its not much, but it covers the purchase fee, and maybe even your T-Rate. Its good 10 September through 7 October, so there’s a likelihood of generating a bunch of free miles/points (note I haven’t had the chance to test multiple purchases myself).
Chasing the Points was busy this week. He wrote about New Online Portals (that may even allow double dipping with gift cards), and Free Money at Staples for Bank of America users. I struck out on Bank of America though.
George at Travel Blogger Buzz summarizes the Unfortunate fate of Amazon Payments. I have to admit though, I sure couldn’t have maintained an “Amazon Payments 4-way” with another couple for “a very long time,” but, he clearly works on his physique more than I do–which may have delayed his eulogy for Amazon Payments.

On this past Thursday

I’m usually very quiet on this date. The memory for me, like many, still weighs heavily. Some wrote posts, some didn’t. Wandering Aramean’s post struck me as notable. That day affected many of us in different ways. I don’t think its necessarily a bad thing to be angry.

On Bucket Lists

I’m still working on the rest of the trip report, but flying the Emirates A380 in First was top on my bucket list, feel free to take a look.
Matt had an interesting bucket list post, not necessarily counter to my Emirates A380 post (even though I have to say, its totally awesome to shower at 40,000 feet). I have to admit, I’m starting to re-think traveling long distances for “relaxing” vacations myself, so this is timely for me.