News and notes from around the interweb: Former Frequent Traveler University speaker Chris Guillebeau’s new book on quests and lessons learned from visiting every country in the world, which I wrote about two weeks ago, has debuted at number 3 on the new York Times’ bestseller list! Congratulations Chris! Definitely check out The Happiness of Pursuit! Low hanging fruit: It makes sense why hotels that charge for internet require you to log in for access. But I don’t understand why hotels offering free wifi make you log in. Just a thought about how to make travelers’ lives better in a small way but that would improves things at the margin every day. 1000 free Best Western points The government has shut down the original Chinatown bus line The first American Airlines retrofitted Boeing 777-200 with…
I’d Like to Share Some Personal Thank You’s — and Related Observations
The Samsung Galaxy S5 really does take good photos, even in low light and even with someone at the controls who cannot do more than point and shoot (and isn’t great at holding steady). And Las Vegas is beautiful at night… from a distance. View from Mix at the Delano Many thanks to Randy Petersen and his staff for hosting a great weekend conference on blogging. Thanks to Lucky from One Mile at a Time, to Summer from Mommy Points, and Ed from Pizza in Motion for great conversations as always. It was wonderful to re-connect with folks like Jetsetter’s Homestead and Chris McGinnis, and finally meet others like Head for Points and Travel is Free. Congratulations to Heels First Travel for being added as ‘featured’ at BoardingArea.com. The speakers — from Google, USA Today,…
American Express Centurion Lounge Las Vegas – the Original is Still Very Good
I receive compensation for many links on this blog. You don’t have to use these links, but I am grateful to you if you do. American Express, Citibank, Chase, and other banks are advertising partners of this site. I do not write about all credit cards that are available — instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). I’m a big fan of American Express Centurion lounges in US airports, which I get complimentary access to as a Platinum Card from American Express cardholder. I was in Las Vegas the past couple of days, and I stopped off in the lounge on arrival for a quick bit to eat and freshen up, and on departure for a meal so that I wouldn’t have to rely on…
A Better Mileage Deal than Others are Writing About, and Time to Book Air China Award Tickets Again!
News and notes from around the interweb: Aeroplan had a glitch booking tickets with Air China that prevented making bookings But that’s been resolved. Gogo inflight internet is pretty good about giving you make-goods when you complain.. How to keep Spirit Airlines miles from expiring Since I saw mentions elsewhere of earning 30 United miles per dollar ordering flowers, it seemed worth mentioning that you can get 30 United miles plus 250 mules from FTD, or a flat 1500 miles if you make an order small enough. Even better you can still earn 30 American miles per dollar at FTD and American AAdvantage elites get 100 miles on top of that. Frequent Traveler University will be in Amsterdam November 21-23 You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day —…
Travel Tips to Save Money, Earn Miles, And Fly for Free
In early July I wrote a post about the most useful and interesting developments in miles and points over the previous month> It turns out, surprisingly, that the feature was really popular, at least judging by the emails I got — people that don’t read the blog every day really appeciated the recap and not having to dig through all of the posts to find the most enduring ones. I didn’t do a similar feature in August, but I thought I’d revisit the 170 posts I wrote in August. I hope you were happy with some of the posts and got something out of them. These are some that were my favorites from August. Saving money Always enter car rental confirmation numbers into AutoSlash for free and easy savings. Get instant free status from Avis…
Two New Hotel Sites Get You Better Rooms for Less Money
AutoSlash for Hotels Monitors Prices and Upgrades Point Hacks writes about new pay service Stay Angel which will: Keep checking your hotel reservations for price drops Compare your bookings against better rates at online travel websites to identify opportunities for best rate guarantee claims (and submits the claims for you) Identify when prices of suites drop to close to your room rate in case you want to buy up. They monitor Hilton, Starwood, and Hyatt. And they also flag big price movements, letting you know when hotels that they track are at least 50% below their normal price. (See also How to Find Airline and Hotel Mistake Fares.) There’s a free membership and a free trial for their premium service. The free account only tells you when your reservation has been upgraded, and alerts you…
In the Future, Booking Corporate Travel Will Be as Good (sic) as Airline Websites
Companies use managed travel programs to get bulk discounts and limit the conflicts of interest inherent to having travelers make their own travel decisions. But many of those companies don’t do a very good job of it, and the tools provided to travelers are frequently not very good. Skift interviews the CEO of Concur about the future of booking corporate travel. Bottom line is that employees don’t do what they’re told, despite incentives and even threats if they don’t use corporate travel booking tools. Over 50% of hotels booked by business travelers in managed travel programs are booked outside of corporate policy. Part of this is that employees get better deals outside their corporate booking channels. Travel managers protest that they have booking goals to get big rebates and travelers don’t understand how good a…
You’ll Want to Read These Seven Stories to Stay in the Know (Number 7 is for Real Aviation Geeks Only)
News and notes from around the interweb: The Citi Double Cash Card — which in my view is the strongest cash rebate card — is targeting some people with signup bonuses. There may be a brief window to get a whole lot of extra value from the Citi Prestige card. Why Maui’s Kahului Airport three-letter code is OGG Teachers buy a UK airport IranAir will retire the last Boeing 747SP in November. It flies Tehran – Kuala Lumpur. Assembling an aircraft in a private hanger is actually illegal. So is storing gliders and balloons. Aircraft wheels can’t be stored in an aircraft hangar with the aircraft itself, either. Who knew? You can buy a bed made from a Boeing 747 GE engine nacelle. Or perhaps you prefer a conference table? You can join the 40,000+…
The Qatar Airways A380 Doesn’t Belong to Them, and the Crazy Route it Took to the Gulf
This past week Lucky noted that the first Qatar Airways A380 was delivered. It’s been a bizarre, bumpy road getting there not least of which because of the Qatar Airways CEO’s truthiness problem. Interestingly, Qatar doesn’t actually own their A380, it’s leased through a UK leasing company. And UK regulations required the aircraft to be in UK airspace when the transaction took place. So from Thursday… The Qatar Airways A380 needs to be filed under: Things that make you go hmmm. Last month I asked whether the Airbus A380 is a failure. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for…
How Your Wireless Internet Can Get You Arrested at the Airport
Not sure how I missed this story last week. A passenger was detained on a Southwest plane at Seattle-Tacoma Airport after using ominous names for his Wi-Fi hot spot, sources said. Passenger Alayna Keagle said people became concerned Thursday after noticing strange and disturbing hot spot names emerge, such as “Southwest – Bomb on Board.” …“He changed it to ‘the bomb is on this seat,’ and then he changed it to something about the stewardess being hot,” Saldi said. “And so that’s why once we found all that stuff out we realized he was probably just goofing off.” Apparently this happened on September 11th. The plane’s pilot pulled off the active taxiway, police surrounded the plane and then boarded it. The man was detained. All passengers were then pulled from the plane, and all bags…
