How was she supposed to know her car would spontaneously combust?

from Elliott http://elliott.org/should-i-take-the-case/how-was-she-supposed-to-know-her-car-would-spontaneously-combust/

I’m Using Miles: Why Do My Award Tickets Have Such High Fees?

Reader Carol asked, When I try to make a reservation using my American Airline miles, there’s always a fee of $500-$1200 included. Do you know why? Yes, I do know why! It’s because you’re looking at award tickets involving travel on British Airways. And because awards on British Airways incur fuel surcharges. The idea is […]

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from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/why-do-my-award-tickets-have-such-high-fees/

My Latest Round Of Credit Card Applications

While I spend a lot of time writing about credit cards, I've actually not applied for that many credit cards the past year or so. I'm not sure why. I've been living in hotels and have been happy with my overall card portfolio. So I guess I've just been complacent.

This past Friday I planned on applying for a US Airways MasterCard before the opportunity went away, and got instantly approved. So I figured I might as well apply for a few more cards that I've been eying for a while.

In the end I applied for five cards, all of which I got approved for (eventually).

Here are the five cards I applied for:

The post My Latest Round Of Credit Card Applications appeared first on One Mile at a Time.

from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/my-latest-round-of-credit-card-applications-2/

American and US Airways Expect to Merge Frequent Flyer Programs in Just 6 Days!

On March 13, American sent out word that the American and US Airways frequent flyer programs would be combined within 30 days. Or in American parlance, that’s when they’d move to ‘Single Frequent Flyer Program’ (SFFP). When the 2015 program and details of how the US Airways and American programs would be combined were released […]

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from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/american-and-us-airways-expect-to-merge-frequent-flyer-programs-in-just-6-days/

You Can Still Book Free One-Way Awards When You Redeem Miles. These Mileage Programs Let You.

Reader fauxblogger asked, Which foreign airline mileage programs permit tag flight to/from [North American] gateway city to [North American] home city on a single award when redeeming its own program’s miles? I think I understand what fauxblogger is asking. This reader wants to know what mileage programs allow stopovers on award tickets. The reason they […]

The post You Can Still Book Free One-Way Awards When You Redeem Miles. These Mileage Programs Let You. appeared first on View from the Wing.

from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/you-can-still-book-free-one-way-awards-when-you-redeem-miles-these-mileage-programs-let-you/

Etihad Releasing Two A380 First Class Award Seats To New York

A couple of weeks ago Etihad Airways announced that they’d begin flying the Airbus A380 between Abu Dhabi and New York as of December 1, 2015.

While Emirates has well over 100 A380s on order, Etihad has only ordered a total of 10 of them, and will be flying them exclusively between Abu Dhabi and London, Sydney, and New York. Etihad’s A380s are truly one-of-a-kind, in that they feature amazing First Class Apartments.

I had the opportunity to fly the Etihad A380 inaugural flight from Abu Dhabi to London late last year, and was blown away by the hard product. The First Class Apartment is unlike any first class hard product I’ve ever seen.

The best part is that Etihad partners with American AAdvantage, and Etihad has been extremely generous about making first class award space available on these flights.

The post Etihad Releasing Two A380 First Class Award Seats To New York appeared first on One Mile at a Time.

from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/etihad-releasing-two-a380-first-class-award-seats-to-new-york/

How to Stretch Hyatt Points and Get Great Upgrades

Reader Christian asks, I have a lot of Hyatt award nights booked for this fall in Asia and planned for next summer in Europe. While building up my points, I’d intended to do a Diamond Challenge early this summer, to have the status for this year and next. Now, with the Challenge effectively dead, I […]

The post How to Stretch Hyatt Points and Get Great Upgrades appeared first on View from the Wing.

from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/how-to-stretch-hyatt-points-and-get-great-upgrades/

Top 20 #travelstoke images 3/15

Did your Instagram photo make the cut?



from Matador Network » Matador Network http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/top-20-travelstoke-images-week-march-15-2014/

Hackers stole my identity and Cruise Planners won’t help me

from Elliott http://elliott.org/from-the-trenches/hackers-stole-my-identity-and-cruise-planners-wont-help-me/

Virgin America Eliminates Award Fuel Surcharges On Virgin Australia

Virgin America Elevate is an interesting frequent flyer program given that's it's a hybrid between being revenue based and zone based on the redemption side.

In other words, when you redeem Virgin America Elevate points for travel on Virgin America, the number of points required is directly correlated to the cash cost of a ticket. However, if you're redeeming points for travel on a partner airline, they have an award chart.

One of Virgin America's airline partners is Virgin Australia, which is the airline with the most saver level business class award space between the US and Australia. The only "catch" when it comes to redeeming Elevate points on Virgin Australia is that they've imposed huge fuel surcharges. For example, a roundtrip business class award between Los Angeles and Sydney has cost about ~$850 in taxes and carrier imposes surcharges.

The post Virgin America Eliminates Award Fuel Surcharges On Virgin Australia appeared first on One Mile at a Time.

from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/virgin-america-eliminates-award-fuel-surcharges-on-virgin-australia/

Disney monorail cab for sale on eBay

Christopher Nowak bought a monorail car from Walt Disney World dreaming of the day he might use it to drive his kids to school. But plans change.

from CNN.com - Travel http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/21/travel/disney-monorail-ebay-feat/index.html

What is ‘Minimum Connection Time’..?

Reader Jon Parent asks, I am looking to fly [Boston – Fairbanks] on [American] in June. I found availability for [Boston-Anchorage] only at first saver. However, when I search [Anchorage-Fairbanks], I find business availability as well at the perfect time. I am wondering why [the award search website] doesn’t display all of the segments [to […]

The post What is ‘Minimum Connection Time’..? appeared first on View from the Wing.

from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/what-is-minimum-connection-time/

How Do Different Credit Cards Define “Travel?”

Admittedly I spend a larger percentage of my income on travel than most others, given that I basically live in hotels and on planes. Fortunately there are several credit cards that offer bonus points for travel purchases, which takes just a bit of the sting out of some travel purchases. After all, the more you spend, the more points you earn. ;)

What's interesting, however, is that each card defines travel in a different way.

So I figured I'd look at four of the most popular "flexible" travel credit cards, and how they each define travel differently. This includes the:

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from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/how-do-different-credit-cards-define-travel/

This Week In Travel – Episode 185

This week’s guests are Dave Bouskill & Deb Corbeil from ThePlanetD.com. News TSA officers attacked with machete and wasp spray at New Orleans airport Ryanair is not flying to North America Egypt requires a visa, Indonesia gets rid of their visa requirement. Picks Jen – tixchart.com Dave – Sky Safari App Deb – Canva.com Gary [...]



from Everything Everywhere Travel Blog http://everything-everywhere.com/2015/03/22/this-week-in-travel-episode-185/

9 magical lost letter stories

The ocean's not just for sharks and pirates. It's also a place for amazing, old-timey messages in bottles.



from Matador Network » Matador Network http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/lost-letters-magical-9-stories-bring-serious-feels/

Don’t be fooled a sexy six-figure salary – you’ll pay the price

from Elliott http://elliott.org/advice-you-can-take/dont-be-fooled-a-sexy-six-figure-salary-youll-pay-the-price/

An Extreme Way To Express Your Displeasure With Pilots On Strike…

Lufthansa pilots have staged 15 walkouts in the past year, in their never-ending negotiation over cost cutting and early retirement. The situation is getting so bad that Lufthansa's CEO joked that he would hire Akbar Al Baker to negotiate with the pilot union on his behalf.

Well, Lufthansa just finished up their latest four day walkout, and it seems like some of their ground staff weren't so pleased about having to rebook hundreds of passengers due to cancellations. One person decided to take it upon themselves to send the pilots of LH493 (Vancouver to Frankfurt) the following note through ACARS:

The post An Extreme Way To Express Your Displeasure With Pilots On Strike… appeared first on One Mile at a Time.

from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/an-extreme-way-to-express-your-displeasure-with-pilots-on-strike/

How to Get By All Over the World Without Foreign Language Skills

Reader TJ asked, Are most people who follow these blogs fluent in several languages? I only know English and would like to know if I could travel comfortably on my own to Asian and European countries even though I don’t speak the native languages. Here’s what it’s like when I travel: My language skills are […]

The post How to Get By All Over the World Without Foreign Language Skills appeared first on View from the Wing.

from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/how-to-get-by-all-over-the-world-without-foreign-language-skills/

How I’m Flying Home From The Maldives

As most of you probably know about by now, I’m soon headed to the Maldives, despite not really having a great reason to do so. The planning process has been an adventure, to put it mildly, from figuring out the flights to deciding whether or not to upgrade at the Park Hyatt.

Another thing I've been trying to figure out is how to fly home after my trip. The Maldives is close to Colombo, Sri Lanka, which has some of the best premium cabin fares in the world. So I figured I'd just book a paid ticket home, given what a great value it represents.

As I posted about a couple of weeks back, I was originally trying to decide between flying Qatar Airways business class and Kuwait Airlines business class.

The post How I’m Flying Home From The Maldives appeared first on One Mile at a Time.

from One Mile at a Time http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/how-im-flying-home-from-the-maldives/

How to Earn Miles for Paying Taxes — Without Getting Killed by the Fees

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, […]

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from View from the Wing http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2015/03/22/how-to-earn-miles-for-paying-taxes-without-getting-killed-by-the-fees/

Success Story: The Reunion of La Famiglia Italiana!

Over the years, we’ve had many readers share their success stories with us. Folks for whom traveling domestically once a year was a luxury are now traveling the world with just a few credit card sign-up bonuses. And the best part? They are sharing their stories with us and others who benefit from knowing that […]



from Frugal Travel Guy http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2015/03/success-story-the-reunion-of-la-famiglia-italiana.html