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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.AvGeeks are creative people. When we announced that we were inviting TPG readers to United’s exclusive Family Day in San Francisco to see two of the carrier’s 747s up close and personal, you were quick to put together farewell letters to the Queen of the Skies for a chance to win....

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.If you’ve spent any amount of time in Iceland, you know how surreal the surroundings are. And, even if you haven’t, you’ve seen the photos — it’s straight out of a movie set (and sometimes is the movie set)....

Allegiant Air abruptly canceled at least 26 flights through next week and across the country Thursday morning, saying that it was forced to do so because new planes it had been expecting hadn’t been delivered yet.“Unfortunately, some of the delivery dates for aircraft scheduled to join our fleet have fallen short of the projections, leaving us with limited resources available and the very difficult choice to cancel certain flights,” Allegiant spokewoman Krysta Levy said by email....

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.The United States is just one of 59 countries that recently received the green light for citizens to visit China’s Hainan Island without needing a visa.In a move designed to spur economic growth and boost tourism in the southern province, the Chinese State Immigration Authority announced on April 25 that passport holders from the US, the United Kingdom, Canada and dozens of other European and Asian countries will be able to enter the “Hawaii of China” for up to 30 days, beginning May 1....

The Andaz West Hollywood is my go-to property when I visit Los Angeles (which is quite often). For me, the location, amenities and price are all right, and the fact that I can use Hyatt’s Diamond Suite Upgrade certificates seals the deal.I’ve stayed in the hotel 6 times since it opened in 2009 and each time I’ve used a suite upgrade, but I’ve also purchased regular rooms for family and friends so I know what the standard rooms are like as well....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Chase Sapphire ReserveVirgin Atlantic’s offering travelers a pretty valuable sale on economy and premium economy award flights through September 22, 2016. Although you have to book your 30% discounted award ticket by September 22, travel is valid through the end of the carrier’s schedule. There’s no registration required for the promotion. Instead, you just have to search for award travel and the fares will automatically populate....

Ryanair, the largest low-cost carrier in Europe, warned investors Monday that it could see its first drop in profits in five years.The Dublin-based carrier said its profits through March 2019 could drop by as much as 14% due to factors like rising oil prices and ongoing pilot strikes. Negotiating with the pilot unions in 2017 was a significant financial drawback for Ryanair because it was the first time the carrier settled with a union in company history....

Thanksgiving weekend may be one of the busiest and most expensive, times to travel, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use miles to save money and fly in style this holiday season. I recently helped several friends book saver level award on United from New York to Los Angeles and noticed a surprising amount of saver (lowest-level) availability. I poked around on some other random routes on United and other carriers and was surprised at the amount of availability in general, so I thought I’d write a quick reminder post that now might be a good time to book Thanksgiving award travel....

Here come words I never thought I would say, or type…..I think Wyndham Rewards currently has the best award chart for certain travelers. I know, I know, I’m waiting for the lightning to come and strike me down any second for writing that on a day other than April 1st, but it’s true, at least for now.Just 15,000 Points per Night for Kauai, Paris, NYC, and More:Seriously though, their new award chart charges a flat 15,000 points at “any of the program’s more than 7,500 hotels globally with no blackout dates”....

There is little dispute in the miles and points community that Starwood Preferred Guest points are the most valuable type of point overall, but what is more useful than that general statement is how to actually squeeze the most value out of the points for your family. I think it would be a bit lengthy to describe all of the best uses in one post, so I will divide the post into two topics....

It hasn’t been a great week for airport baggage handlers. Well, aside from this gentle fellow in South Africa, more and more incidents of baggage abuse are being exposed. On Monday, A Ryanair employee was caught stealing a speaker from a passenger’s carry-on.Now, via passenger video, more evidence of poor baggage handling has been caught on video at Manchester Airport (MAN):The footage was captured by passenger Elizabeth Evans, who witnessed her own pink suitcase taking quite a beating following her flight home from Malaga....

I stay at IHG Hotels from time to time when I need an inexpensive option in a small city, or even at times when I am looking for a mid-range points option in a larger city. The stays are generally perfectly adequate, but not necessarily high end or luxurious. It is a program I generally consider as function over form. In other words, if I’m daydreaming about a hotel (and I’ll admit I sometimes do), it’s not likely to be an IHG Hotel in my dreams....

There’s a lot of buzz going around the internet about a potential American Airlines and US Airways merger, like this Consumerist piece, because someone apparently bought up a bunch of domains related to a AA/US merger.I don’ think this necessarily means anything - in this day and age of cheap domain names, it would make sense to snatch up a bunch of relevant names even if the deal wasn’t close to being done....

Employees at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) are planning to strike this weekend, potentially affecting 28,000 passengers on 180 flights. A union representing the Israel Airports Authority (IAA) announced on Tuesday that it plans to strike from Friday evening to Saturday evening to protest a plan by the Interior Ministry to charge the IAA new taxes.Airport employees are protesting over Interior Minister Arye Deri’s decision to establish a committee that would impose new taxes on the airport....

I’ve always wondered how I would actually do if I was traveling on long flights with really young kids and we started to hit real delays, one of them got sick, bags got lost, etc. I’ve given advice to others about those sort of situations, but truthfully most of my flights with kids have been pretty uneventful. Some of that has been dumb luck, and a lot has been because I keep most of our flights nonstop and no more than about 3 hours....

Thanks to miles, points, and travel deals, we have been fortunate enough to visit Disney World a number of times both before, during, and after we had kids join the crew. All of those trips have been very different, but all have been great. I even found out I was pregnant with my first daughter just days before one of our Disney trips, so even though I was relegated to morning sickness and “exciting” rides like It’s a Small World for that visit, it was still a great time....

The US is getting another airline. This one might be small, but it has big goals.With just a fleet of four Embraer ERJ145s, California Pacific Airlines (CPA) has announced it will be launching flights this fall, stepping on the turf of US legacy carriers in cities in the Western US market.The airline’s inaugural flight will take off on Nov. 1 from McClellan – Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, California (CLD), just north of San Diego to its first destination San Jose (SJC) — which will see daily service....

Seven years ago today, I hit publish on my first-ever blog post, having no idea what was about to be created would change my life (and that of many others) forever.At the time, I started the site as a way to generate business for my side gig of booking award tickets. With the award booking, I would charge clients $50 for consulting — to help them use points and miles for epic getaways....

Do you feel like a second-class citizen when you’re flying US-based carriers? In some cases, that’s actually by design. Chances are you’re a leisure traveler, seeking the lowest fare available — the vast majority of per-seat revenue comes from corporate travelers, and it’s those individuals (and their employers) that the airlines favor most.Oftentimes customers are recognized on an individual basis, through top-tier elite status (and sometimes even unadvertised perks), but carriers also recognize their enterprise partners, too, from small businesses all the way up to giant corporations....

This Sunday I decided to answer a great question from TPG reader Ben who asks about booking international award tickets:“I am planning a trip overseas in 11 months. The ability to even search for reward tickets just opened up given how far away the trip is timewise, and I am finding there are not many great flights available (let alone great flights at great reward levels). Most of the reward flights I am seeing have multiple stops and excessive travel time....