Whenever I'm talking with people who are just getting started with miles and points, I'm often surprised by both what miles they're accumulating, and how intimidated they are by actually using those miles. The natural instinct is to look for shortcuts…
Rewards cards in the U.S. can be extremely lucrative, particularly in the travel sector. But what are your options if you're still building your credit, or otherwise don't have those Very Good to Excellent credit scores that you need to be approved for…
One of the longest standing annual miles & points “events” is the Chicago Seminars, which has been held at the Holiday Inn in Elk Grove, Illinois (near Chicago O’Hare Airport) for the past eight years. Eight years. I'm getting old. The Chicago Seminars…
While we often see a bit of an arms race in terms of airline champagne offerings, those who enjoy other spirits are often left out. I'm always a bit surprised at the lack of thought and selection for spirits in premium cabins. It's odd to me that you'd…
The Chase Freedom is one of my favorite no annual fee credit cards, as it offers 5x points in rotating quarterly categories, for up to $1,500 of spend per quarter. Most people use this as a cashback card, meaning the 5x points really translates into…
Today marks 50 years from when the first 747 aircraft rolled off the line at the Boeing factory in Everett. That first aircraft is now an exhibit at the Museum of Flight, and Boeing spent a few minutes talking about the plane and its history earlier…
Whew this has been an exciting week! Ben is off getting hitched this weekend, and has been making an admirable effort to not work. While challenging, it's actually been extremely enjoyable for me to set aside the bulk of my usual responsibilities to…
Okay, maybe "need" is a strong word, because roughly 99% of the time you're not going to need to know this information in order to book award tickets. But there were a lot of questions earlier in the week about how I was able to get a Kenya Airways award…
There's nothing quite like a Friday afternoon announcement on the last day of the quarter to demonstrate confidence in your business decision, but that's the approach United MileagePlus has chosen to take with these updates to their elite program. In…
My cousin Heather and I have been talking about taking our moms on a trip to Vietnam for a few years now. It's not somewhere either of them would naturally go on their own, and the kind of trip we're envisioning isn't necessarily conducive to a big family…
Buried deep in a press release on growth and optimization plans for the Lufthansa Group is an almost throwaway announcement that Lufthansa will begin serving Austin, Texas on May 3rd, 2019. British Airways began flights to Austin from London in 2014,…
A few hours ago an Air Niugini 737 on approach to Chuuk, Micronesia, appears to have undershot the runway, resulting in a water evacuation of the aircraft. The pictures, and rescue efforts, look incredible, and all 47 passengers and crew are accounted…
On the heels of British Airways' double Avios promotion, American has sent out a targeted promo to certain AAdvantage members. Because some have asked, I don't think these are related (though the two carriers have coordinated promotions in the past),…
In Spencer's guide to Amex Offers yesterday he mentioned stacking the offers with shopping portals, which reminded that I've been meaning to put together a post on how to leverage Cashback Monitor for...possibly months. If you aren't familiar with the…
This is an interesting development, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Booking Aeroflot with SkyMiles has always been complicated (though possibly not as complicated as visiting the ticket office in Minsk). Aeroflot gives painfully little award…
One of the questions we frequently get is how to use miles for business class flights to Europe, which is usually closely followed "okay, but what are the best flights with miles?" So I set out to write a post with all the best options, and quickly ran…
British Airways has announced a new promotion for Executive Club members, which begins today and runs through December 31, 2018. The press release heralds the promo as "Members of the Executive Club can collect double Avios when they book and fly before…
Reader Max posted a question on Ask Lucky last Saturday, wondering why he was getting a higher price for fuel surcharges than Ben had paid on his recent trip with his dad. I should probably have had a second cup of coffee, because when I looked at the…
As Ben and Andrew experienced on their recent trip to Whitehorse, small airlines can be an important part of remote communities. The more isolated the area, the more valuable the services of small airlines become. And in places like Alaska and northern…
This could shape up to be a tough week weather-wise. If you haven't heard, there are several large storms brewing in the Atlantic, with Florence being the most imminent and aggressive. Florence is now a Category 4 hurricane, and is expected to reach…
If you're one of the people who was able to take advantage of the killer Hong Kong Airlines deals last week, you might be wondering where to credit the miles. I personally booked tickets to Vietnam -- a trip with our moms that my cousin Heather and I…
