Posts

Looking to elevate your travel experience, before you even step on board the plane? If you’re flying through Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), there’s a service that lets you bypass the passenger terminal entirely, making it possible for high-profile travelers to avoid unwanted encounters, and wait for their flight with amenities you won’t find at any other lounge at LAX.You’ll get a rare look behind the facility’s heavily fortified walls in the second episode of our new YouTube series, Airplane Mode, following my inside look at New York City’s completely redesigned LaGuardia Airport (LGA)....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.“Reader Questions” are now answered twice a week — Tuesdays and Thursdays — by TPG Assistant Editor Brendan Dorsey. Brendan has been with TPG for a year and a half and hails from Northern California.What’s the best card to put your flights on, you ask? Well that’s a question we’ve answered quite a few times in different forms and styles....

What was a Russian Air Force giant cargo plane doing at New York’s JFK airport on Wednesday?Aviation Twitter has been abuzz with the news that an Antonov 124, one of the biggest airplanes ever made, was headed for New York from Russia. U.S. media, including The Washington Post, reported the news as a major development; it’s not every day that the Russian Air Force arrives in America’s largest city. This time, it was bringing medical supplies related to the coronavirus outbreak....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Buy discounted Disney tickets here through MickeyVisit.comAn estimated 103 million people will be traveling between Christmas and New Years this year. 42.5 million people will travel by plane, a 3.5% increase over last year. The busiest day this holiday season is expected to be this Friday, December 23, and as we get closer to departure date, ticket prices are increasing....

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.British Airways is kicking its inflight entertainment offering up a notch. On Wednesday, the British flag carrier announced that it was set to introduce virtual reality headsets on select flights.The VR headsets will be trialled until the end of 2019 and will be available on select flights in first class from London Heathrow (LHR) to New York (JFK)....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Update 11/2/18 8:45am ET: Apple as a redemption option is now live in the Ultimate Rewards Store.Update 11/2/18 5:45am ET: Chase has reached out to TPG with information that Apple has not yet launched on the Ultimate Rewards Store, but it will be coming soon. We will update this post when the new addition is available.Chase has some big news to share this morning — Apple products are headed to the Ultimate Rewards Store, making it possible to directly redeem points earned with cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and the Chase Freedom (No longer open to new applicants) for MacBooks, iPhones and much more....

If you’ve ever flown on the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner,” you probably noticed one common airline feature is missing: the window shade. Instead, the Dreamliner’s windows are designed to tint at the push of a button — either by the passenger sitting in the window seat or the flight attendant’s control panel.Also, you’ll notice that the windows would never go completely black. Instead, the darkest window setting has more of a dark blue color to it....

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....

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.Delta Air Lines will be matching customer-donated miles through its SkyWish organization to Fisher House Foundation’s Hero Miles program and Luke’s Wings throughout the entire month of November. SkyWish is the charitable sector of the SkyMiles loyalty program....

Elon Musk announced the opening date for a stretch of his California hyperloop test tunnel. Sunday night on Twitter.“The first tunnel is almost done,” Musk tweeted about the hyperloop, a project by his Boring Company. “Opens Dec. 10.“The tunnel will be an ultra-fast underground transit system running for more than two miles beneath the streets of LA, linking it to the outer suburb of Hawthorne, where Musk’s rocket and space tourism venture, SpaceX, has its headquarters....

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.Of all the things that’ll turn passengers off from ever flying an airline again, a disastrous encounter with a customer service representative is pretty high on the list. On the very same day that United published an open letter to customers promising to ramp up its care and concern about you, the everyday flyer, Delta is making a push of its own....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Over the weekend, the news broke that some of the Chase Sapphire Reserve’s benefits will likely be changing as the card approaches its second birthday towards the end of the summer. The changes are not good news, but as they say, it could always be worse.Sapphire Reserve placing limits on lounge guestsUnfortunately for families, one of the changes on the horizon will place the Sapphire Reserve on the long list of credit cards that caps complimentary Priority Pass Select lounge guests at a maximum of two people....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Dining rewards programs are an easy way to double dip on earning miles and points. You can use a points or miles earning credit card to front the bill, and link that card to your airline or hotel dining program of choice in order to earn even more points per dollar for dining out.Join a dining rewards program and earn bonus points and miles for eating out....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.The Ink Business Cash Credit Card is a great pick for earning Ultimate Rewards points — especially if you can maximize the 5% back/5x categories. (To do so, you’ll also need to hold a UR points-earning card, but with the recently introduced Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, not to mention the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and the Ink Plus Business Card, there are some great options)....

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.US airports aren’t the only ones with current security staffing issues.At airports across Germany, security workers are on strike demanding better wages. On Thursday, more than 640 flights were canceled across the nation due to the lack of airport staffing, Reuters reports....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.I’ll be totally honest with you: It still feels surreal that I stayed here. I mean, it’s The Beverly Hills Hotel, for crying out loud! You’d be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn’t heard of the infamous Pink Palace.[Update 4/2/2019: The Beverly Hills Hotel is part of the Dorchester Collection of Hotels, owned by the Brunei Investment Agency, controlled by the government of the Sultanate of Brunei....

During a speech at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida, on Wednesday, National Security Advisor John Bolton said the Trump administration is imposing new sanctions on Cuba.“We are also announcing that the Department of the Treasury will implement further regulatory changes to restrict nonfamily travel to Cuba,” Bolton said. “These new measures will help steer American dollars away from the Cuban regime or its military and security services who control the tourism industry in Cuba....

Mechanical issues have forced a Norwegian Cruise Line ship that operates a popular Caribbean route to dock early.The Norwegian Jade ended a scheduled 10-day cruise after only a few days at sea after leaving Miami on Friday. The 2,400-passenger ship docked in Puerto Rico — its first port of call — and Norwegian began making arrangements to fly passengers home.According to Seatrade Cruise News, shortly before the ship was scheduled to depart San Juan on Sunday night, the captain announced that the remainder of the voyage was canceled....

On Dec. 14 a brand new Norwegian Air Boeing 737 Max made an emergency landing in Iran due to engine issues while en route from Dubai to Oslo. While the plane landed safely and passengers were able to fly out the very next day, the airline couldn’t have imagined what getting the aircraft home was going to involve.Due to the recently reinstated sanctions against Iran by the US, which ban the sale of products that contain at least 10 percent US content, the airline was unable to send new gear to Iran to fix the stricken plane....

Norwegian Air won’t be landing at London’s Heathrow Airport this summer after all.Late last year, the carrier won slots for three round-trip flights at the London hub in a lottery for summer flight schedule allocations.But now Norwegian has decided not utilize those slots.Sign up for the free daily TPG newsletter for more airline news.“After careful consideration, which took into account the current fleet pressures placed on the airline by well documented issues with a specific Rolls Royce Trent engine type and the continued grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, we have decided to return the slots as they do not fit into our network plan at this current time,” Anders Lindström, a spokesman for the airline, said in a statement....