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If you’re considering a trip to Aruba, Mexico or another destination in the Caribbean over the next several months, this Marriott sale could be worth a look.Now through the end of the month, you can get up to 35% off leisure rates at 14 different Marriott properties in Latin America and the Caribbean. To be eligible for the full discount, you must be a Marriott Rewards member (though you don’t need elite status) and book a two-night minimum stay....

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.Since the Starwood and Marriott merger was finalized, one of the ongoing questions has been how the co-branded credit cards for both Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott Rewards would work out. Marriott has long had an established relationship with JPMorgan Chase, and SPG has long had a co-branding relationship with American Express....

Four years after “the greatest aviation mystery of all time,” an international group of aviation experts say that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was intentionally brought down by veteran pilot Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah.“He was killing himself; unfortunately, he was killing everybody else on board, and he did it deliberately,” Canadian Air crash investigator Larry Vance said during a “60 Minutes Australia” special broadcast.Flight MH370 disappeared into the Southern Indian Ocean on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board....

The dates for the next Frequent Traveler University were just announced, and I have tentative dates for the Chicago Seminars 2013 as well, so I thought I’d post them so all those interested in learning about miles and points firsthand can mark your calendars.FTU 2013Although the upcoming edition of Frequent Traveler University taking place Friday-Sunday, November 30-December 2, 2012, at the Sheraton Gateway LAX is sold out, you’ll have another chance to attend FTU in April now that the dates and location have been announced on Milepoint....

Although in the past US Airways has run decent bonus promotions on buying and gifting award miles - most recently a 100% bonus in May - in what could very well be the last such pre-merger with American Airlines promotion, US Airways is currently offering a targeted bonus of 100% for buying or gifting miles up to 50,000 (so 100,000 with the bonus) July 1 - 31, 2013.I received an email letting me know about this targeted offer....

Three-room suites. Personal butlers. Glasses of Dom Perignon. Made-to-order meals crafted by award-winning chefs. This isn’t a dream, nor is it the plot of a drama series about rich prep-school students. It’s what life can be like on a long-haul trip through the clouds — that is, for the right price. The idea of sleeping on a plane often elicits a wince, a groan and a weary roll of the eyes — which is perhaps why the most impressive part of these ultra-high-end tickets is the luxury beds that come with them....

Like most people, I do not like to check my luggage, and bringing a carry-on means that I will need to be both smart and efficient about what I pack in my bag. Between my clothes, toiletries and other travel needs, space is limited and I need to make sure that I am maximizing every square inch that I have! The team at Genius Pack have this down to a science....

Airlines fight hard to win business from top spenders, but aside from some personalized deals for corporate clients, most incentives come in the form of matched status. For example, United frequently offers an opportunity for elites from other programs to move up to Premier Platinum status, while American has been known match all the way up to Executive Platinum.Now, United is kicking things up a notch, offering tremendous sums of miles to former top-tier elites....

I’m not usually an early adopter in the world of technology, but I made an exception today and downloaded the newest iOS 8.1 update on my iPhone 6 which enabled me to try out Apple Pay. This is (somewhat) relevant to miles and points because you can store different credit cards in your Apple Pay account and use those to pay at select stores to maximize various category bonuses without having to actually have them in your physical wallet....

If you logged into your TPG Maximizer today, you’ve probably noticed the brand-new dashboard. Like the TPG To Go app and TPG’s new Chrome extension, Maximizer is a free service to help you earn the most miles and points with everyday purchases. And now it’s more powerful than ever!Add your rewards cards.To get started, sign up for TPG Maximizer and log in to your credit card accounts. Maximizer will automatically populate with your connected cards, though you may have to match an account to its corresponding card on the website....

Quora.com is a question-and-answer site where content is written and edited by its community of users. Occasionally we syndicate content from the site if we think it will interest TPG readers. This article originally appeared on Quora.com in response to the question, What Happens If Lightning Strikes a Plane? and was written by Sky Rudolph, an aeronautical engineer working in aircraft testing and certification.The short answer is that lightning usually strikes the aircraft on the nose, then travels along the skin until exiting the aircraft at one of the extremities....

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.Authorities at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (BOM) in Mumbai, India, discovered nine kilograms of gold worth $400,000 underneath a seat on a Jet Airways aircraft. The gold was discovered during a routine inspection after the flight landed in Mumbai from Dubai....

This morning, we learned that Starwood has accepted a bid from a Chinese consortium, which consists of Anbang Insurance Group, J.C. Flowers and Primavera Capital. Marriott now has until midnight on March 28 to respond. Meanwhile, in a company-wide memo this morning, Starwood CEO Tom Mangas addresses today’s news — you’ll find Tom’s note just below:Dear Associates,We just issued a press release (attached) announcing that Starwood has received a revised binding proposal from the consortium consisting of Anbang Insurance Group, J....

If you haven’t yet seen the online buzz about yesterday’s American Airlines flight 591 from San Francisco to Dallas, I’m sure you will shortly. I’m not even sure how I feel about sharing these videos anymore since I wonder if the people being filmed always really want them out there, or if they do, is that perhaps worse?Anyway, you can find the video here if you want, but the gist of it seems to be that a woman traveling with two small children brought a stroller on-board the flight and didn’t want to turn it loose to the flight attendant....

Only days away from Alaska killing off the Virgin America brand, we have some sad news about the elimination of a popular amenity that passengers enjoyed on the carrier.On March 1, Alaska ended live TV on all Virgin America Airbus aircraft. However the airline did double the movie selection, all of which are free, in order to compensate for the reduced entertainment options.Alaska is trying to standardize the experience across all its aircraft, and that includes doing away with some of the things that made Virgin America unique....

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.Barclaycard is no longer Barclaycard. In the future, you can refer to your former Barclaycard credit card as just “Barclays.“The issuer is in the process of emailing cardholders notifying them of the rebrand — its new name will simply be “Barclays....

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.Airbus is making steady progress with Delta’s first A350 — the twin-engine jet rolled out of the Airbus paint shop in Toulouse, France on Tuesday spotting the carrier’s signature blue and red livery.Ship 3501, as it’s identified on the assembly line, first took to the skies three weeks ago, kicking off two months of rigorous flight testing, painting and cabin installation as the airline counts down to a mid-summer delivery....

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.JetBlue is offering 4X points on flights booked now through November 13, 2013, for travel through December 31, 2013. Register here prior to booking eligible travel. The 4x point offer is valid only for new bookings of JetBlue flights (one-way or roundtrip) and your TrueBlue number must be entered at time of booking....

Almost three weeks after Equifax said that hackers had gained access to the sensitive information of 143 million Americans, the credit-reporting company’s CEO has quit.Equifax said on Tuesday morning that Richard Smith, who had been leading the Atlanta-based company since 2005, was stepping down. Effective immediately, the 57-year-old will be replaced as interim CEO by Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who was most recently the company’s Asia-Pacific region president. Equifax said that it plans to conduct a search for a new permanent CEO, and it’s open to candidates from both inside and outside the company....

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.Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways has said that it’ll be discontinuing service to San Francisco (SFO), which it began back in 2014, as of October 29, 2017. What started as daily service operated by its Boeing 777-200LR has since been cut to three times weekly....