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An elementary mistake made by a Swiss hang gliding pilot had a US tourist holding on for his life — and it was all caught on camera. Chris Grusky, an auto-parts manager from Florida, decided to kick off his trip to Switzerland with a thrill-seeking experience on the very first day, but it didn’t quite go as expected.The horrifying video starts with Grusky and the pilot looking over the popular tourist area of Interlaken before running off the 4,000-foot mountain....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.All this week, TPG contributor Jason Steele will be covering Green Dot MoneyPaks and how you can maximize the points and miles you earn using them. In Part 1 of his series he introduced us to Green Dot and covered the basics of prepaid reloadable cards. In the second post, he compared Green Dot to Vanilla Reloads. In the third part, he took a look at the best Green Dot-compatible reloadable prepaid cards....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Citi is a TPG advertising partnerEarlier this month, I wrote that during the month of April, Citibank is providing complimentary One-Day passes to any domestic Admirals Club lounge or US Airways Club to travelers whose credit cards no longer provide complimentary access (specifically The Platinum Card® from American Express and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express) as a way of highlighting Admirals Club access as a perk its Citi Executive AAdvantage....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.As I mentioned in a previous post, as a special present, I took my grandmother to visit our cousins in Santa Barbara over Thanksgiving weekend. She’s 89 years old, still sharp as a whip, but like most people who get to that age, her mobility has become somewhat limited. She still gets around, but she uses a walker and is quite fragile....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.While US-based carriers are finally getting around to installing true international premium-economy products, British Airways has had a premium-economy cabin called World Traveller Plus on its long-haul aircraft for years. And with dozens of flights a day between the US and London, it’s past time for TPG to review the product. So I made up for it by flying it thrice — once on the newest Boeing 787-9, then on an older Boeing 747-400 and finally on the Boeing 787-8....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Hotel points can be some of the most valuable currency in the travel industry, and many of the major chains enhance their points’ value even further with deep discounts on everything from extended-stay rates to single-property specials to the ability to redeem hybrid points-cash awards. Here’s a list of some of the best hotel point redemptions.1. Starwood Cash & Points: This has to be one of the best hotel redemption values out there, especially if you’re a little short on points but have some extra cash sitting around, and because you can use this option at over 1,000 Starwood properties all over the world....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.TPG reader Doug writes:“I’ve gotten about 14 credit cards in the last year. I have gotten nearly all of the ones that I am especially interested in, and am starting to think about canceling some cards so that I can reapply for them down the line. I know the basics: keep your oldest cards to help your credit history, keep cards with good renewal benefits, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a consolidated chart of how long various cards need to be canceled before you can reapply and get a welcome bonus....

A teenager died Friday morning when he fell from the cabin balcony of a cruise ship. The ship, Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas, was docked in Labadee, Haiti, at the time.Authorities believe Laurent Mercer, 16, had misplaced his room key on Jan. 11, the day of the accident. Instead of looking for a replacement key, Mercer attempted to access his room through the balcony from an adjacent balcony. In the process, he lost his footing and fell onto the pier, according to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office in Port Everglades, Florida....

Last month, we launched a collaborative Prizeo campaign with JetBlue in which we raised money to donate to New York-based charity group The Kelly Gang.So, today, we are excited to announce the grand-prize winner of the 1 Million JetBlue TrueBlue Points giveaway. But before that, we would love to extend a huge thanks to everyone who participated in this event.The Kelly Gang, a charity organization that has raised more than $900,000 for various causes, is a fantastic group of people we hope to work with again in the future....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Today, TPG Senior Points & Miles Correspondent Nick Ewen runs through award ticket cancellation policies for major airlines, and explains what you can do to minimize or avoid change fees altogether.Booking airline award tickets is more of an art than a science. You may often want to make an award reservation before you’re even sure that you’ll be taking the trip, because it’s no fun to wait and then find out the availability you want has disappeared....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Want to see the latest flight deals as soon as they’re published? Follow The Points Guy on Facebook and Twitter, and subscribe to text message alerts from our deals feed, @tpg_alerts.Airfare deals are typically only available on limited dates. We recommend you use Google Flights to find dates to fly, then book through an online travel agency such as Expedia, which allows you to cancel flights without penalty by 11pm Eastern Time within one day of booking....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Summer in the US can be sweltering, so while traveling around the country, where better to cool off than your hotel pool? Whether you want to do some serious laps, lounge in the sun, take a quick dip or simply sip cocktails in the shade, TPG International Contributor Lori Zaino invites you to enjoy the best hotel pools in America....

The massive A380 jumbo jet, largest passenger plane in the world and beloved aircraft of shower enthusiasts everywhere, is slowly losing its place in airspace. Unfortunately for fans of the double-decker aircraft, Air France has chosen to retire its very first A380, tail number F-HPJB, after completing a flight from Johannesburg.Thus begins the retirement of Air France’s fleet of 10 A380 aircraft. The plan is to retire all 10 by 2022, marking the end of a short-lived run begun in just 2009....

There are 237 Airbus A380s in the fleets of the world’s airlines. The biggest passenger jets ever, which can carry more people than any plane, have been a staple of long-haul travel since the late 2000s. But not anymore.Now they are all grounded, rendered useless by the precipitous drop in travel demand this year due to the coronavirus crisis. The sight of huge double-deckers parked in the desert, dwarfing smaller planes and just as unable to fly profitably, is a perfect visual summation of the airline industry’s current troubles....

London Heathrow Airport has introduced a new precautionary area to help in the containment of the coronavirus. U.K. transport minister Grant Shapps announced on Wednesday that the airport will introduce a separate area for passengers arriving from the region that has been affected by the fast-spreading virus.As of Wednesday’s announcement, Heathrow is containing arriving passengers from the Chinese city of Wuhan. Currently, there is only one nonstop flight from Wuhan (WUH) to LHR, which operates three times weekly by China Southern....

If you are headed to Atlanta for the big game, or just happen to be in town that week, Lyft is offering a discount for rides. Lyft is promoting its service and encouraging people to use the public transit system in Atlanta — known as MARTA — during Super Bowl weekend.To get the discount, simply add the promo code SUPERMARTA to your Lyft app. The code is good for up to 50% (up to $10) off a total of 10 rides over the week....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.This is an installment in the My 2012 Points Strategy Series. Posts include: Taking Credit Card Inventory, Future Credit Card Applications, Airline Elite Status, Hotel Elite Status.If you are a frequent traveler, elite status is critical. Not only do you get valuable perks like upgrades and priority boarding, but you get mileage bonuses that can make a real impact on the number of miles you accrue from flying....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.It’s always nice when credit card issuers enhance their offerings, whether it’s adding new benefits (like we saw earlier this year with the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express) or increasing the sign-up bonus (like with the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card). Today, American Express has announced an entirely new product, so I’d like to go through the new SimplyCash Plus Business Credit Card to see if it’s worth adding to your wallet....

In August 1961, a newly-built Douglas DC-8-43 passenger airliner climbed to over 52,000 feet over Edwards Air Force Base in California, during a routine certification test flight. The crew nosed the plane over, and in a controlled dive through 41,000 feet, the four-engine jet broke the sound barrier, reaching a speed of Mach 1.012.Until the Mach 2 Concorde entered service in the mid-1970s, that was the only documented example of a plane intended for passenger service exceeding Mach 1, or the speed of sound, which is about 760 mph at sea level....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.For the next Award Redemption of the Week, I want to share a story from TPG reader Angie, who booked a business-class trip to Madagascar and beyond:Madagascar has been my number one bucket list destination ever since I learned about its amazing wildlife and unusual species. In the last few years I discovered travel hacking, and knew I could use points and miles to book an amazing trip to see the so-called eighth continent for myself....