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Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.I maintain a healthy stable of credit cards — and while I could easily do without a few, there are two cards I wouldn’t dream of canceling, even though each carries a $95 annual fee after the first year and I rarely use them for purchases.I’m talking about the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express....

Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.The holidays around the corner, and that means we’re about to enter peak travel-time in the US. With plane tickets, booking accommodations, family and friends – the last thing you want to worry about is if your hotel is infested with bed bugs....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Whether you’re a foodie, a history buff or just want to be part of the hustle and bustle of some of the world’s most vibrant cities, there’s nothing quite like China. It’s a country full of impressive temples, historic sites and incredible natural scenery once you leave the big cities behind.We recently asked our TPG Lounge readers to share their best tips and go-to ways for traveling to China on points and miles....

Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Officials confirmed two cases of measles in travelers who passed through Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW), and who may have exposed other flyers to the highly contagious disease.Health department officials for Detroit’s Oakland County said Tuesday that two residents of the northwestern suburb were diagnosed with measles after they passed through DTW at 5pm on Oct....

It’s a moment many frequent flyers dread — just after takeoff, the flight attendant activates the PA, pausing the in-flight entertainment and immediately waking anyone lucky enough to have dozed off after boarding “to share more details of today’s flight.“Typically, it’s a mix of a rehash of previous announcements and some additional info, including the flight time, meal service, drink options, lavatory procedures — and, if you’re especially lucky, a “special offer” for a co-branded credit card, often incorporating some creative marketing claims....

Bombardier’s commercial jet program has really been on a roll recently. Last year, the manufacturer joined forces with Airbus for the popular A220 series while also going to great lengths to improve passenger comfort on one of its largest regional jets, the CRJ900.Now, in a somewhat-unexpected move, Bombardier is introducing a new variant of sorts, in partnership with United. The CRJ550 — which, until today, essentially didn’t exist — is a 50-seat version of the CRJ700, headed to some of United’s more profitable regional routes....

Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.TSA PreCheck is fantastic, and you should definitely have it (better yet, get Global Entry), but you shouldn’t redeem your miles to get it for “free,” as tempting as that may be....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Premium credit cards typically have high annual fees, but they offer a ton of benefits that can make paying that amount worthwhile. My partner and I were able to take advantage of some of those perks this summer to have a cheap out-of-pocket trip to the UK with our family.Earlier this year, we realized that my partner needed to be in Edinburgh, Scotland for a meeting, so we started looking at flight options to and around Edinburgh for our kids and me (work picked up the tab for her flight)....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.British Columbia is known for epic hiking in the summer and stellar skiing in the winter. But its shoulder seasons are sorely overlooked.With fall fast upon us, now’s the perfect time to visit one of North America’s most beautiful regions without the crowds you’ll find during peak season. It’s also the ideal time to discover one of the most underrated road trip routes, the Sea-to-Sky Highway....

We at TPG get dozens of tips and requests for stories each day. We can’t tackle them all, but one popped into our inbox this weekend that I personally just couldn’t ignore:“I find great value in what you do. I was recently in a argument with another that in no uncertain terms said you were “full of it”. The reasons he gave were based on a Dave Ramsey video. Can you please show where this course of thinking is wrong?...

To me, there’s something exciting about the unknown, and that’s exactly why I love traveling on new airlines.There’s not much information out there about Seaborne Airlines, so my flight from San Juan to Antigua was indeed a trip into the unknown.Seaborne is a small Puerto Rico-based airline that’s fully owned by Silver Airways. Seaborne operates a number of routes around the Caribbean using its small fleet of Swedish-made Saab 340B turboprop aircraft....

This summer we spent three nights in Edinburgh as part of a trip to the United Kingdom, and we honestly didn’t really know much about what we were going to do before we got there. With two young kids, one of whom is only a one year old, we didn’t want to over-plan and then end up disappointed when we weren’t really able to do very much. Since much of Edinburgh is pretty walkable we decided to just take advantage of our well situated hotel on the Royal Mile and just go with the flow....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.As I posted yesterday, American Express just raised the sign-up bonus on the Starwood Preferred Guest Personal and Business credit cards to 30,000 points. To celebrate, they’ve given me two sets of 30,000 points to give away to readers so instead of a random drawing, I thought I’d make you all work for it a little bit!-I’ll give 30,000 points away to a reader who finds the best Cash & Points (my favorite type) redemption value using a maximum 30,000 points....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.A few months ago, TPG Contributor — and former Travel Editor — Melanie Wynne pounced on a sweet JetBlue flight deal to Cartagena, Colombia, and spent six days wandering between the past and present in this elegant, sexy (and crumbling) city on South America’s Caribbean coast. She shot all the photos too.Ask a cross-section of Americans what the word “Cartagena” invokes for them, and chances are they’ll mention the movie Romancing the Stone or their fears about Colombia’s long-running drug war....

If the #1 complaint non-families often have about flying families is crying or misbehaving children, the #1 complaint by flying families is often that the airlines are sometimes less than helpful in seating families appropriately. This is not a new issue, but it is one that is worth repeating because I can’t emphasize enough how important airline seat assignments are for families with young children.This issue resurfaced this week via a blog post from Sword and the Script when a father flying Delta Airlines had to pay $88 to get a seat assignment next to his four-year-old....

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ned Russell (@airbus777) on Aug 27, 2019 at 2:37pm PDT View this post on Instagram View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ned Russell (@airbus777) on Aug 27, 2019 at 2:37pm PDT

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 Orbitz or Expedia, which allows you to cancel flights without penalty by 11pm Eastern Time within one day of booking....

American Airlines has made an impressive investment in its lounges in the past few years. And while refreshed Admirals Club are nice, the way AA has really impressed is with its new Flagship Lounges. The airline has opened four (New York JFK, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles) of these new premium lounges since May 2017, and there are three more on the way: Dallas/Fort Worth (opening in April 2019), London Heathrow and Philadelphia....

Bek Air flight Z92100 carrying nearly 100 passengers and crew members crashed shortly after takeoff near the Almaty airport in Kazakhstan Friday morning, killing at least 12, including the plane’s captain. Dozens of others have been hospitalized.The plane was headed from Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan, to Nur-Sultan, the nation’s capital. According to The Washington Post, the Kazakh deputy prime minister told a news conference that pilot error and technical malfunctions were considered the preliminary causes of the crash....

Talking Points took a trip over to Chase’s flagship branch in NYC for this week’s episode, and had a chat with JPMorgan’s Head of Branch Banking and Wealth Management, Pam Codispoti. For this live chat, Codispoti led the conversation with Talking Points host, and The Points Guy himself, Brian Kelly. Brian talked about how he earns and utilizes his Ultimate Rewards, and provided advice for people looking to maximize their points — plus tips on how to choose the right credit cards....