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Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.The Capital One Venture Rewards Card has doubled its sign up bonus from 20,000 miles to 40,000 after $3,000 in spend within the first 3 months and the $59 annual fee is waived the first year.While 20,000 miles was equal to $200 you can now get $400 in travel when redeeming those miles to cover expenses like airfare, hotel stays, car rentals and more....

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.Booking a stopover en route to your final destination can be a great way to maximize your travel and get two destinations checked off your bucket list at once. Right now, you can get two free nights at 15 different hotels in Abu Dhabi when you book a stopover with Etihad....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Usually when we have airline travel waivers, it’s for a natural disaster like a hurricane (or typhoon), earthquakes or wildfires. However, in the crowded air space around New York City, even bad thunderstorms can cause a ripple effect that can wreck airline schedules. And, that’s what’s in the forecast for Tuesday.So far, four airlines have issued travel waivers for NYC for Tuesday....

Update 12/21/16 8:39pm: That was fast! The event is now sold out.A handful of loyalty programs offer experiences that members can book with points, ranging from dinners to a yacht tour of Cuba. One such program offering this type of redemption is United MileagePlus — typically you’ll need to redeem tens or hundreds of thousands of miles for access to an event, but for one reason or another, UA is currently handing out tickets to an upcoming PGA Tour event for free....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.The Chase Sapphire Reserve wasn’t the first ultra-premium travel rewards card on the market, but it absolutely changed the game when it launched in 2016. The response to this card — which debuted with a 100,000-point sign-up bonus (which has since been changed to 50,000 points), 3x points on travel and dining, a $300 annual travel credit and a host of over perks — was overwhelmingly positive....

A week after the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels and the Air Force’s Thunderbirds overflew New York City to show support for health care and essential workers, JetBlue is about to do the same.The New York City-based airline will fly three Airbus A320s at low altitude over the city’s five boroughs on Thursday, May 7, between 7 and 8 p.m. in what it called the “JetBlue Flyover Salute.” A map published by the airline shows the planes taking off from their home base at JFK airport then proceeding to fly over every borough before returning to JFK....

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.A man was killed by an elephant in northeastern Thailand while driving last Wednesday.Police Lt. Col. Kemchat Paedkaew said that the man was driving near Khao Yai National Park when the elephant appeared on the road. Allegedly, wild animals have strayed from the park in the past....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Update: You can no longer purchase Vanilla Reload cards using a credit card and Vanilla Reloads are no longer available in Office Depot.American Express launched a new checking/debit alternative called Bluebird and it presents some super exciting opportunities to rack up points, as I learned while sitting in on Frequent Miler’s keynote speech at the Chicago Seminars. First take a look at the video below where I explain just what’s so exciting about this card and why it can help you rack up multiple points with every dollar you spend - even on purchases and expenditures that you can’t ordinarily use a credit card for (think mortgage, homeowners fees, rent, insurance, etc)- and then find the rest of the details explained below....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Don’t look now, but your Priority Pass membership just got even more valuable with two new lounges at Indianapolis International Airport (IND) and Greenville–Spartanburg International Airport (GSP).In recent months, Priority Pass has become quite creative with its expansion. Rather than partnering with airport lounges to provide respite to weary travelers, they’ve begun to partner with airport eateries. For the million milers in attendance who have consumed a positively embarrassing amount of dated carrots and processed cheese, this news is welcome....

Last week, TPG shared one family’s story about traveling from the U.S. to Israel to South Africa during the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. The family planned to ride out the threat to the U.S. in South Africa but decided to come home once the U.S. issues a level 4 travel advisory. Here’s the rest of their story.After spending a week in an apartment just outside of Tel Aviv, Israel, there’s nothing that feels as socially distant as driving six hours from a major city to stay in a game lodge with no other guests....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.From lounge access, to points, travel perks, Amex Offers and more, there are many very good reasons to have multiple American Express cards. You can organize those cards in your wallet at home however you’d like, but until recently, you couldn’t change how the cards were organized in your virtual wallet when you log in to your American Express account online....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available – View the current offers here.TPG reader Mike sent me a message on Facebook to ask:“I currently have the Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express, and have been offered an upgrade to the Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American Express. I’m a bit apprehensive due to the lack of transparency Delta now has regarding its award travel structure. I’m also a Platinum member with SPG, but don’t have their co-branded credit card....

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.Southwest has offered service to select international destinations for some time now, but passengers on these flights haven’t been able to use TSA PreCheck. Fortunately, it looks like that just changed, based on travelers’ comments on FlyerTalk and the airline’s response to a customer on its Facebook page:If you’re enrolled in PreCheck — and you definitely should be, especially considering you can get access through the Global Entry program — and you have any existing reservations with at least one international segment, you’ll need to call Southwest at 1-800-435-9772 to add your Known Traveler Number....

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.On this special episode of Talking Points, TPG sits down with travel expert Lee Abbamonte, AKA the youngest person to travel to every country in the world — plus the North and South Pole. Abbamonte shares his story, travel tips and advice to those looking to do the same....

Someone talk me out of this.I qualified for Marriott Platinum status about a month ago by registering for a Marriott status challenge. It’s great – I receive suite upgrades on an absurd percentage of stays, free breakfast at hotels has already saved me $700+ (thanks in large part to a recent stay at the St. Regis Maldives, where food is exorbitant), and guaranteed 4:00 pm late check-out has been a luxury I didn’t know I needed....

In 2016, United embarked on a massive aircraft retrofit program. Since then, we’ve mostly focused our attention on the new Polaris and Premium Plus cabins. But some of UA’s smaller jets are also receiving notable upgrades.For instance, the Airbus A319 is getting another row of first class and some CRJ700s are being converted to the much-superior CRJ550. But the one plane that hasn’t drawn much attention is the Boeing 757, even though it’s receiving a small makeover that’ll be great for a few lucky coach passengers....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.The Point’s Guy’s digital nomads, JT and Katie Genter, recently took me — Grace the Cat — on my first trip to New York City! After Miles, one of The Points Pups, had such a memorable stay at the Kimpton Hotel Palomar, I was excited to check out one of Kimpton’s supposedly pawsome pet-friendly properties for myself.Kimpton’s Ink48 is in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City on the west side of Manhattan....

Oh, the irony.It seems that some of the only people in the world who can legally search through your belongings, view your body through an X-ray machine and essentially pat you down in public are experiencing some privacy issues themselves. An employee of the Transportation Security Administration, Jason Edward Harrington, recently came forward to The Atlantic and discussed how the micromanagement of some higher-ups affects worker efficiency on the job.Employee surveillance is nothing new — especially when it comes to the TSA, since it’s essentially what they do....

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.Uber isn’t exactly known for its stellar reputation as far as passenger privacy is concerned — and today’s revelation that staffers have been able to track passengers’ whereabouts this whole time isn’t helping.According to court documents, Ward Spangenberg, a forensic investigator for Uber from March 2015 through February 2016, is suing the company for wrongful termination, age discrimination and defamation....

Take a close look at the photo below. What do you see: a popular food item cooking on a grill on a warm day – or airplane fuselages?If you’re hungry, you might have needed to look twice. Social media this week made light of what looks like grilling frankfurters in a story about the now-grounded Boeing 737 MAX jet. The fuselages, without paint or anything resembling a plane, are currently sitting in storage at a facility in Kansas....