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With all the latest advancements in air travel, train travel may have fallen a bit out of fashion these days but the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) is hoping to change that. While its JR Tokyo Wide pass is letting rail-riders spend several days exploring the area around Tokyo, the company’s new ultra-luxurious sleeper train, the Train Suite Shiki-shima, could very well change the way people think about it.Making its debut earlier this month, the Shiki-shima was created as a vessel for discovering the wonders of eastern Japan, many of which go largely unexplored by visitors to the area....

If you’ve ever flown to Canada or within, you know that fares are usually pretty high - even for relatively short flights. In fact, I often recommend using miles for Canadian flights since they are usually the same as domestic US roundtrips, but cost more to buy so the value of each mile is higher (for example Canada redemptions are great with Avios points and even Aeroplan has reduced priced 15,000 mile awards for certain short-haul flights)....

Surfs up! Summer is coming, and Airbnb is partnering with the World Surf League (WSL) to add more surf-based activities and tours to its Experiences platform.Airbnb first teamed up with WSL in 2016 to offer curated home options to travelers in top surf destinations. Now, the two companies are joining forces again to bring surf experiences led by local businesses to travelers in top surf destination around the world. Travelers can book one of 75+ experiences hosted by surf pros, certified coaches and influencers including an exclusive, one-time surf lesson and experience led by Aussie ex-pro Luke Stedman at The WSL Surf Ranch in California....

TPG reader Michael sent me a message on Facebook to ask about booking awards on Southwest Airlines:“I have a stash of Southwest points, but I’m not sure how best to use them. Can Rapid Rewards be transferred, or can I use them internationally?”There’s plenty to like about the Rapid Rewards program: You can get solid value by redeeming points for Wanna Get Away fares, Southwest offers two free checked bags and no change fees even on award flights and members who earn 110,000 points in a calendar year can take advantage of the highly lucrative Companion Pass....

United’s spring was rocked with scandals — from BumpGate, LeggingsGate and ScorpionGate to SundaeGate, RantGate and TobaccoGate. All of these incidents left a lot of flyers taking to social media to swear off the airline. However, numbers can tell a whole different story, so we’ve been keeping a close eye on United’s traffic releases.In May, the airline posted an impressive 79% drop in involuntary denied boardings with strong traffic. But, June’s numbers are even better — more than 13....

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.Last night, passengers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) received word of gunfire inside terminals 6, 7 and 8 around 8:45pm. Police acted fast, setting up a command post and not allowing anyone to enter the central terminal area....

It’s no secret that United’s new Polaris business class launches tomorrow morning, with improved catering, new bedding and airport amenities, such as the airline’s new Polaris Lounges. The first such lounge opens at 7:15am at Chicago O’Hare, located next to gate C18 in Terminal 1. We were invited to take a sneak peek earlier today.The Polaris Lounge is a big step up from the United Club, and that’s by design. Polaris Lounges are only accessible to business and first-class passengers booked on United or Star Alliance long-haul flights — even Global Services members flying another UA route won’t be able to get in....

Greek carrier Aegean Airlines has placed an order for 20 Airbus A320neos and 10 Airbus A321neos in a deal that is worth $5.8 billion.Neo stands for “new engine option” or more recently, “new environment option” and outfits the aircraft with new engines that are designed to save 15% to 20% in fuel, cut down on emissions and aircraft noise. Because the Neos are more fuel efficient, they’ll be able to fly further and serve more distant destinations....

If your idea of vacation is a one-way trip to Flavortown we’ve got news for you: Guy Fieri is coming to Disney World (whether you want him to or not) and he’s bringing a whole lotta fried chicken with him, Walt Disney World announced on Wednesday.The Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives host is setting up shop at Disney Springs in Orlando. The fast-casual restaurant, slated to open in August of this year, will be called Chicken Guy!...

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 Thursday, Hawaii’s most active volcano Kilauea erupted anew after a series of earthquakes. In the days since, the island has been rocked by its strongest tremblor in 43 years: a magnitude 6.9 earthquake that opened new lava-spewing fissures....

On Wednesday, Aug. 22 (about 4:30am in Bali on Aug. 23), Michael Lythcott posted a single message to his Facebook. “Help,” it said. “In danger. Call police.”Lythcott, a 36-year-old American traveling with a friend, Stacey Eno, had just arrived in Bali, Indonesia, earlier that day. The two were riding a scooter back to their hotel when the bike wiped out on a curve. “We hit the brakes like normal, but we didn’t stop for some reason,” Lythcott said....

Hurricane Florence has officially made landfall in North Carolina. The Category 1 storm has been predicted to cause severe destruction with winds of over 90 mph and an average of three inches of rainfall an hour. According to emergency officials, Florence has already caused 1,300 flight cancellations, the evacuation of a Jacksonville hotel due to a collapsed roof and over 300,000 North and South Carolina residents to lose power.Civilians in the local area need relief, so TPG has rounded up some ways to get involved....

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 rare Lockheed Starliner that spent decades sitting in a Maine airport is headed to New York City for its second act — as a cocktail lounge in the much-anticipated TWA hotel at New York-JFK.According to an airport employee, the four-engine, triple-tailed, dolphin-shaped plane, manufactured in the late 1950s, was packed up onto a flatbed and headed south by way of truck, where it will be parked right outside the hotel....

Update 11/25/16: The strike is still officially on through tomorrow, November 26, but now Lufthansa is allowing passengers to make changes to all booked flights through November 30.Update 11/24/16: More bad news for Lufthansa passengers. The strike will now affect all intercontinental routes on November 26 as well. Be sure to check your flight status before you head to the airport.Update 11/23/16: The strike has been extended an additional two days, through November 25....

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.Have you ever accidentally left your credit card at the bar after a big night out? Or waited 20 minutes just to close the tab? MasterCard is attempting to solve these problems with Open Tab, a new feature it’ll be adding to its current mobile paying service, Qkr....

Chicago-based band OK Go is known for their unique music videos that usually go viral, and their latest one for the song “Upside Down & Inside Out” is no different. This time, it’s filmed in the cabin of an aircraft … in zero gravity.The band teamed up with Russian carrier S7 Airlines to film the music video inside a plane normally used for cosmonaut training. According to the video’s description, the video was filmed while the plane was in flight and used no green screens or wires....

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.It’s no secret that here at TPG, we really like things that fly. While usually those things are in the form of various types of flying metal tubes, we recently came across something else that really grabbed our attention: A human catapult....

I was supposed to go to Las Vegas at the end of the month so I as I wrote about last week, I was looking into what events were available through SPG Moments since they often offer exclusive access to otherwise sold-out or hard-to-buy tickets as well as extra add-ons beyond the price of a ticket alone.I was planning on attending the Shania concert in Vegas.One of the experiences I was interested in was the Shania Twain concert at Caesar’s Palace - part of SPG’s new partnership with Caesar’s - and since I was going to be in Vegas, I decided to purchase it for 10,000 Starpoints....

It’s not unusual to find loose change or even a lost cell phone in the bathroom on a plane after a flight, but it’s hard to top a $150,000 diamond ring in the trash.That’s exactly what the police at Dubai Airport say they found in one of the airport’s most memorable lost-and-found cases, and the story even gets a happy ending, because the woman who lost the ring got it back....

The three US legacy airlines — United, Delta and American — succumbed Wednesday to demands from Beijing that airlines around the world stop referring to Taiwan as an independent nation on their websites.The three US carriers’ websites simply list the island’s capital, Taipei, as a destination without referring to Taiwan at all.Other international airlines wholly obeyed Beijing’s push to refer to Taiwan as a Chinese territory, listing “Taiwan, China” as a destination they serve....