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It’s Thursday - and that means it’s time for another reader giveaway! I’m at almost 33,000 Twitter followers (just about 300 left to go!), so for this week’s giveaway, I wanted to take it to Twitter and get people talking.Since it’s Thursday, I thought it would be fun to do a Throwback Thursday post - #TBT for those of you in the Twittersphere (and Facebook and Instagram for that matter). I’m going to give away 10,000 Amex Membership Rewards points to one lucky winner....

With the amount of traveling that Team TPG does, we are constantly on the go. Be it a trip to Paris to stay at the W Paris - Opera or on a flight on Virgin Australia down to Sydney, we travel extensively and we of course need to ensure that we are well equipped for our journey.Some of the items you can get at ebags.comOne of our favorite store that we’ve written about in the past is eBags....

Screeners and security personnel working for the Transportation Security Administration can’t be sued for false arrests, abuse or even assault, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said that TSA officials are shielded under the federal statute that gives federal employees what’s known as sovereign immunity when acting in their official functions. That law, the Federal Tort Claims Act, doesn’t provide cover for law enforcement, however....

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.March 31 is a big day for US Airways as it will finally be leaving Star Alliance and joining Oneworld (though retaining some of its Star Alliance partners). To kick off its new alliance membership, the airline is launching a promo where flyers can earn up to 25,000 bonus miles for flying its new Oneworld partners now through June....

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 #BumpGate incident on a United Airlines flight when passenger David Dao was bloodied and dragged down the aisle of a plane for not giving up his seat to a United employee, there’s been a large outcry for a change in the law....

With the arrival of the hectic holiday season comes the pressure to find the best deals and make sure everyone on your shopping list is checked off — but sometimes we forget that it’s really a time of giving. This past week, you’ve (hopefully) taken advantage of the many Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals out there. But, with today being Giving Tuesday, we encourage you to pay it forward as well.There are thousands of ways you can give back....

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.All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan started flying a special C-3PO-inspired Boeing 777-200ER this week, which makes it the fourth star-wars themed aircraft the carrier has flown. It’s also featured a BB-8 inspired 777-300ER, which TPG flew from Tokyo (HND) to Los Angeles (LAX), an R2-D2 787-9 Dreamliner and a 767 that displays both BB-8 and R2D2 motifs....

American Airlines recently issued an internal memo laying out its re-accommodation policy. Since then, there’s been some fury about how AA is making it harder for passengers to be rebooked on other airlines. However, the situation isn’t as drastic as it’s been made out to be.What American Airlines has done in the past couple of weeks is clarify its policy about rebooking passengers when there are irregular operations. From speaking with American Airlines agents, this policy is meant to document what agents were supposed to be doing already....

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.An Alaska Airlines flight was canceled after a rat jumped from the jetway onto the aircraft. As passengers began boarding Alaska Flight 915 from Oakland (OAK) to Portland (PDX) on Tuesday, everything seemed normal. However, the aircraft would end up never leaving the ground....

Delta is running a July 4th sale on flights to London. In order to take advantage of round-trip BusinessElite fares to London-Heathrow (LHR) from select U.S. cities for $1,776 you must book today, July 4, 2011 and travel before September 11, 2012.I bet other carriers will match, so even if you don’t fly Delta, check your preferred carrier for similar fares.Must book today, July 4, to take advantage of these fares....

Delta, an airline that already retired its last Boeing 747 in 1977 before inheriting more in its 2009 merger with Northwest, now has the honor of being the final US airline to operate the iconic aircraft. A little more than a month after United became the second-last to retire its 747s, Delta planned to fly its last ever Boeing 747 passenger flight on December 17 from Seoul (ICN) to Detroit (DTW)....

Despite what seems like nearly ubiquitous cellular internet access across much of the developed world, over 4 billion people still don’t have internet access. But that may soon change. Social media giant Facebook announced yesterday that it had built the Aquila plane designed to deliver internet to some of these people in remote and unconnected areas.In 2013, Facebook and six phone companies announced the Internet.org initiative, with the goal of providing internet access to as many people as possible, saying that access to the knowledge bank that the internet provides boosts economic activity by a significant margin....

The first Michelin Guide for Bangkok has arrived with three restaurants receiving two stars and another 14 being awarded two stars each. In the top-three are Gaggan, Le Normandie in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and Mezzaluna atop the Lebua Hotel. There were no restaurants granted the highest level of three stars.The restaurants that received one star are Bo.Lan, Chim by Siam Wisdom, Elements, Ginza Sushi Ichi, J’aime by Jean-Michel Lorain, L’atelier de Joel Rubuchon, Nahm, Paste, Saneh Jaan, Savelberg, Sra Bua by Kiin Kiin, Suhring, Upstairs at Mikkeller and Jay Fai....

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.London is one of our favorite cities in the world, home to some of the best food, shopping, and culture in the world — and next spring, it will also be home to a Mamma Mia-inspired taverna.ABBA’s own Björn Ulvaeus made the announcement, and we’re already starting to check flight prices....

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.As many of you saw from my Tweets, I survived the world’s longest commercial flight, SQ21 from Newark-Singapore, and have been enjoying my time in Singapore so far.My Asian adventure doesn’t end here, though. Next stop: Bangkok for the weekend....

Last week, a surprise visitor made an appearance at the UK’s biennial Farnborough Air Show, having been delivered to its new owner just a few days before.Painted in the familiar EasyJet orange, G-UZMA, the carrier’s very first Airbus A321neo, is the largest bird to grace the low-cost-carrier’s fleet.And in typical EasyJet fashion, it was off and on its way almost as quickly as it arrived, operating regular flights on some of the airline’s longest European routes from London’s Gatwick Airport (LGW) — most often to a handful of leisure destinations in Greece....

It’s not new information that people will go to incredible lengths to maintain their social media aesthetic. And for Instagram influencers, keeping up that aesthetic is a full-time job. Yet, according to some, Harimao Lee may have taken it a tad too far.On board a Cathay Pacific flight in business class, the Hong Kong-based Instagram influencer sits in the footrest, cocooned in a blanket, Champagne in hand, a pensive look on her face as she stares out a dark plane window....

Congratulations, New Yorkers! Turns out you had every right to kvetch: New York - JFK officially has the worst security lines in North America.According to preliminary data compiled by J.D. Power, the California-based market-research company, New York City’s busiest airport is by far the worst when it comes to TSA lines, with an average wait time of 19.02 minutes compared to the overall average of 15.32 minutes.Orlando (MCO) came in second, with an average wait time in the TSA line of 18....

Nearly 70% of US flight attendants have experienced sexual harassment on the job, according to the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), a flight attendants’ union which represents 50,000 flight attendants across 20 airlines.On Thursday, the union released the results of a nationwide survey with responses from more than 3,500 flight attendants representing 29 US airlines. Gender ratios amongst survey participants were consistent with the national averages of 80% women to 20% men....

In order to ensure as close to 100% occupancy as possible, hotels routinely oversell a property, since cancellations and no-shows are common. Unlike when a flight is oversold, a hotel oversell situation is less understood. The process to rectify the situation and the written policies for preventing such a situation aren’t very well known. Based on TPG’s recent experience at the Renaissance Philadelphia Airport , we wanted to revisit what room guarantees are available to those who hold hotel elite status, as well as discuss strategies to employ when you face an oversold hotel....