Posts

Every week I post all about amazing credit cards offers, but they mean nothing if you can’t take advantage of them due to your credit score. Having good credit is absolutely critical for people who want to take advantage of lucrative credit card deals and will help you out in other ways as well, such as with mortgages, refinancing, loans, etc. There are a lot of misnomers about opening credit cards, so I’ll do my best to answer the many questions I’ve received, or at least point you in the right direction....

Qantas Airways made headlines in March when it launched its nonstop route between Perth (PER) and London Heathrow (LHR). Clocking in at 17 hours, 20 minutes on the outbound and a slightly shorter 16 hours, 45 minutes on the return, the flights rank as two of the longest in the world and the first commercial nonstops between Australia and Europe.TPG Points & Miles Writer JT Genter reviewed the experience in economy on the inaugural....

Great news! One of our favorite undervalued airlines mileage programs just made it a lot easier to book partner awards. Korean Air SkyPass will now let you book both Korean Air and SkyTeam award flights online. Prior to this change, you’d have to go through a lengthy telephone process to ticket partner awards.While you’ll now be able to book Delta, Air France, KLM and other SkyTeam awards online, unfortunately this online process isn’t available for Korean Air’s non-SkyTeam partners — Alaska Airlines, Emirates, Etihad, GOL, Hawaiian Airlines and Jet Airways....

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.Fashionistas take note: Bathing suits have come a long (long) way since the early days of beach dwelling. This throwback snap from 1928 of New Yorkers wading in Brooklyn’s Coney Island beach shows just how much swimwear has evolved....

TPG Contributor Amber Gibson is on the road about as often as she’s at home. Here are 10 of her favorite hotel lobbies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Chicago to meet your deadlines — no guest room number or name required. Follow along with Amber’s travel adventures on Instagram.If you’re one of the other 53 million freelancers around the US, you’ve probably spent time networking, checking emails or working on your latest masterpiece from somewhere other than your own home or office....

For the first time in 15 years, the GRAMMY Awards are coming back to New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The city will welcome award show patrons all across the city — from Wall Street to Central Park, every neighborhood will get into the groove in preparation for music’s biggest night. To celebrate all things New York, we’ve compiled a list of the most iconic movies that have left their mark on the city....

In the ongoing battle between hotels and vacation rental site Airbnb, it makes a grabby headline to suggest that the once-scrappy start-up is beating the traditional hotel industry at its own game. Now it seems that reports of the hotel industry’s so-called demise at the hands of Airbnb have been greatly exaggerated.As Skift recently reported, new data suggests that the homestay mainstay’s true share of the lodging marketplace may not be as large as has been widely claimed — and, in many ways, it’s inaccurate to simply compare hotel rooms with Airbnb listings since they’re two entirely different animals....

Air Italy, one of the “newest” airlines on the block, has revealed some of the first pictures of its soon to be delivered A330.Air Italy isn’t actually a new airline, but is the re-branded version of the small Italian airline Meridiana. Qatar Airways bought a 49% stake in the company and has leased five of its own A330-200s to the airline.We’ve now seen some of the first pictures of the jet that will debut on its long-haul routes this summer, including New York (JFK) to Milan (MXP) and Miami (MIA) to Milan....

As I wrote about on Tuesday, today is one of the better Daily Getaways deals: Hyatt Gold Passport points for less than a cent apiece.This is probably the sale I’ve been most excited about this whole round. Basically it is varying amounts of Hyatt Gold Passport points, which I value as some of the best in terms of hotel redemption value, for less than half the price it would normally cost to buy them, meaning you can get huge value out of them if you play your points right....

American Airlines is targeting some of its AAdvantage members with free status, handing out complimentary Gold or Platinum status for members to enjoy for the next few months.If you were targeted, you’ll have received an email from AA with the subject reading “Free Platinum status for you,” or “Free Gold status for you.” (It’s worth checking the spam folder on the email associated with your AAdvantage account.) Additionally, you can log in to your AAdvantage account and click on the Promotions tab to see if you are eligible for the free status offer....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Citi Prestige CardTPG reader Scott sent me a message on Facebook to ask about Citi Prestige benefits:“If I use the Citi Prestige card for a 10-night stay at a hotel, do I get both the fourth and eighth nights free?”Based on the emails and comments coming into TPG each day, there’s a lot of interest right now in the Citi Prestige Card, which has quickly become one of the top travel rewards cards out there....

Brian Kelly — The Points Guy himself — was featured earlier today on CBS Sunday Morning in a segment about traveling for free on points and miles.For those of you who saw the program and found your way here to TPG, welcome! We’re glad you’re here. If you hoping to learn the secrets of how to travel using points and miles, you’ve come to the right place. Start by checking out our Beginner’s Guide, where you’ll learn how to quickly earn travel rewards and travel in style for little to no cost....

Last week, Delta and Korean Air deepened their 17-year partnership by tying a financial knot: a trans-pacific joint venture agreement. The two companies first became friends in 2000 as founding members of the SkyTeam Alliance. They announced their engagement this March via a memorandum of understanding.The relationship hasn’t been without its ups and downs. In October 2015, tensions grew when Korean Air started limiting partner access to award seats. It’s improved more recently with Korean Air now allowing travelers to book SkyTeam awards online, starting in December 2016....

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.Thursday morning, budget carrier Frontier Airlines announced a massive addition of 35 new nonstop routes this spring, just a week after announcing nine additional routes beginning in April.With this expansion, the Denver-based airline will enter four new cities: Birmingham, Alabama (BHM) on April 11; Savannah, Georgia (SAV) on May 1; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (MYR) on May 20; and Branson, Missouri (BKG) on June 13....

I have found that it is very common in our hobby to have one person in the relationship be all about earning and redeeming miles and points and the other be ambivalent or even anti-miles and points. In fact, it is so common that one of the sessions I am doing at the Chicago Seminars in October is devoted to the spouses, partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc., that are brought along to the miles and points conference, but that are not miles and points junkies themselves....

Getting to the airport:The day had finally come for my show stopping vacation of the year: Paris and Seychelles (details here on how I used points to fund almost all of this trip). Since I had more than enough time and I wanted to keep costs down so I could spend more on food and wine in Paris, I decided to take public transit. From the Financial District, I took the 2 train to Penn Station (free with my monthly MetroCard, but otherwise $2....

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano saw a new eruption Tuesday night that spewed plumes of ash and smoke as high as two miles into the sky, officials said.According to pilots’ reports, the wall of smoke swirled as high as 12,000 feet into the air after multiple small earthquakes shook the Big Island on Tuesday.“We are observing more or less continuous emissions of ash,” Steve Brantley of the federal Hawaiian Volcano Observatory told USA Today....

Meals served in the sky are rarely newsworthy. Certainly not for anything positive, anyway. Delta provided a welcome exception last year when the domestic carrier announced a partnership with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo — two of Los Angeles’ most prominent chefs.The duo are responsible for a spate of eclectic eateries across the city, plating everything from elaborate meat-focused fare to simple, hand-tossed pizza pies. The collaboration (available on trans-con flights to JFK and DCA) marked the highest-profile example of the airline’s push for “restaurant style experiences” in its Delta One cabins....

Update: Since this post was originally published, AA has updated its site to allow travelers to book tickets on all of its Cuba routes. Previously, tickets to Santa Clara and Varadero were not bookable.Late last week, the Department of Transportation approved routes for several US airlines — including American Airlines, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver, Southwest and Sun Country — to begin service to Cuba. As of last week, Havana (HAV) routes had not been awarded, just those to Camaguey (CMW), Cayo Coco (CCC), Cayo Largo (CYO), Cienfuegos (CFG), Holguín (HOG), Manzanillo (MZO), Matanzas (VRA), Santa Clara (SNU) and Santiago de Cuba (SCU)....

United’s retiring the Boeing 747 next month, following a final flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Honolulu (HNL) on November 7. But you probably already knew that, given the ballyhoo surrounding UA’s Queen of the Skies in particular.Most of the festivities have focused on employees, giving everyone from managers at United headquarters in Chicago to ramp workers at Tokyo Narita a chance to say farewell to the 747. A final series of events kicked off with Family Day at SFO in early October, followed by a US hub tour, with stops and employee flights in San Francisco (SFO), Los Angeles (LAX), Houston (IAH), Washington, D....