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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.If you’re flying with Southwest today (and you’re over 21 years old), the luck of the Irish is with you. Today the carrier is giving its passengers free drinks to honor St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, passengers must be of age in order to indulge, but that’s about as far as the restrictions go....

Summer is flying at a pace that I’ve never experienced, and August will be here in less than two weeks. This means that the Marriott and SPG programs will become one in the very near term. The exact date that two become one is still a bit of a mystery, but we know it will come in August. That could mean August 1 or August 31, but in either case, today is as good a day as any to check off some last minute agenda items to prepare for the new Marriott Rewards program launch next month....

Update: It appears that United is also targeting elites with temporary status, so if you participated in a status match earlier this year, you may have received an offer for a higher status even if you didn’t meet the challenge requirements.It looks like United Airlines is trying to create some new loyal flyers, in addition to keeping its current elite members. The carrier is targeting existing MileagePlus members with upgraded status and complimentary Economy Plus subscriptions through January 2017....

Since 2008, the Shorty Awards has recognized the best and most popular influencers on social media. The first-of-its-kind social media-driven awards include categories that range from “Best in Activism" to “YouTuber of the Year” to “Creator of the Decade.” The Shorty’s recognize influencers, brands, and organizations on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, Instagram, Snapchat and more.This year, The Points Guy himself, Brian Kelly, is nominated for the Best in Travel award for his contributions through TPG, along with Bon Traveler, Celine Bossart, Damon and Jo, Exploring with Josh, Fly with Stella, Juan-Peter Schulze, Kara and Nate, Kate McCulley, She is Not Lost, The Place I Was Telling You About and Travel Babbo....

Most frequent flyers don’t view the airport as an architectural wonder. In fact, the most travelers likely remember are the negative things — like having to wait in long security lines or settling for less-than-stellar, overpriced food.Airports are keen on shedding that reputation, however, and want to serve as a respite from the unpleasantries of travel — and it shows in ambitious grand projects like the Zaha Hadid-designed terminal at Daxing International Airport in Beijing and the multi-billion dollar renovation of LaGuardia Airport in New York City....

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.While not necessarily a “points” promotion, I thought this was a pretty good, money saving promo. Registration link.Sign up and save when you use any registered American Express® Card at any Exxon or Mobil station.Earn 5-cents back on every dollar you spend when you use your registered American Express Card to fill up at any Exxon or Mobil station between December 20, 2010 and January 20, 2011....

After over a year of planning, I’m super excited to announce the release of our new app TPG To Go! The app has a ton of awesome features that are going to help you maximize your credit card spend and get the most for every dollar you spend and the best news is that you can download for free! Available today in the iTunes App Store or from Google Play for Android, the app will revolutionize the way you spend your money and use each credit card in your wallet to the fullest....

Talk about in-flight entertainment: Passengers on board a British Airways flight to Moscow got a show when they were surprised by the Bolshoi Ballet and singer Katherine Jenkins.As Jenkins belted out “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” two dancers made their way down the aisle of what looks to be the Club World cabin for a performance at 41,000 feet.BA invited Jenkins and the Bolshoi Ballet to celebrate the launch of the airline’s Dreamliner service from London Heathrow (LHR) to Moscow (DME) on November 1, 2016....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – The Platinum Card from American Express, Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express, Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express, Gold Delta SkyMiles Credit Card from American ExpressAmerican Express and the US Travel Association (a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting US travel) have partnered to offer discounts and deals with various travel brands and loyalty programs during the next month, including hotel packages, points/miles purchase promos, rental car discounts and more....

Thanks to a post on The Flight Deal, we’ve found some good economy airfare deals on US Airways and American from a few US cities to several Caribbean destinations with prices hovering around the $300 mark - some of the lowest fares we’ve ever seen lately! Most itineraries include a stop each way, either at US Airways’ hub in Charlotte (CLT) or American’s hub in Miami (MIA).These deals are pricing out on the ITA Matrix for itineraries of up to 7 days (with blackout dates varying by destination) and for the following dates departing and returning to the US:Departures: Until June 12, or August 11-December 17, 2014, or January-March, 2015Returns: Until June 29, or August 24-December 31, 2014, or January-March, 2015You could see sunset on Aruba’s Eagle Beach for about $300US departure cities included in these deals are:Charlotte (CLT)Dallas (DFW)Houston (IAH)Newark (EWR)Philadelphia (PHL)Caribbean destinations include:Antigua (ANU)Aruba (AUA)Grand Cayman (GCM)Grenada (GND)Montego Bay, Jamaica (MBJ)Nassau, Bahamas (NAS)Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (POS)Providenciales, Turks and Caicos (PLS)Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (PUJ)Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (SDQ)St....

Singapore Airlines just took delivery of 9V-SKU, its first Airbus A380 with the brand-new suites. But in addition to that out-of-this world first-class product, the carrier’s latest aircraft is also the first to offer SQ’s newest business class product — a step up from the biz seat available on recent deliveries, such as the Airbus A350-900, and a huge improvement over the older seat currently installed on most of the carrier’s A380s....

2018 may be the year of the flying car. More and more companies are showing off their prototypes of their flying taxis with two major brands actively displaying their arsenal at CES 2018 in Las Vegas.Volocopter’s air taxi took flight for the first time inside the US last night when it lifted off in front of a crowd at Intel’s keynote presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show.Intel has partnered with the German company to develop an autonomous air taxi that will one day ferry people throughout cities....

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 was the Frequent Traveler Award Ceremony and the results for the Americas were:1) Program of the Year: Air Canada Aeroplan2) Hotel Program: Marriott3) Best Loyalty Credit Card: Alaska Airways Visa4) Best Elite Program: United Airlines5) Best Hotel Elite Program: Hyatt6) Best Airline Redemption: Air Canada Aeroplan7) Best Hotel Redemptions: Hilton HHonors8) Best Airline Redemption Promotion: Delta9) Best Airline Earning Promotion: Air Canada Aeroplan10) Best Hotel Redemption Promo: MarriottSpecialty award1) Loyalty Leadership: British AirwaysOverall, a fun night with great TPG readers, but I disagree with some of the results....

The recovery is coming along slowly for Puerto Rico. Two and a half weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall on the island, 88% of residents are still without power and 83% of cell towers are still offline.But, there’s a solution that just got a green light on Friday. Google’s Project Loon spinoff has received approval from the US Federal Communications Commission to launch a network of balloons to restore cell service to Puerto Rico....

Last Friday at New York’s JFK Airport, Korean Air’s vice president of in-flight services, Heather Cho, delayed a Korean Air flight in order to boot off the supervisor of a steward who improperly served Cho’s pre-flight macadamia nuts. This action, which caused the Seoul-bound Airbus 380’s 250 passengers to arrive at Incheon Airport (ICN) 11 minutes late, has proved so unpopular in South Korea that today, Cho resigned from the airline....

Airline partnerships are a great thing for award travelers, as they unlock additional earning and redemption opportunities outside of flights on a single carrier’s metal. Unfortunately, these agreements aren’t always mutually beneficial, and earlier this year we learned that one such partnership (between American and Jet Airways) would be no longer as of the end of 2017. As a result, you now only have a couple of weeks left to redeem AAdvantage miles on Jet Airways, so if you’ve been eyeing one of these redemptions, it’s time to pull the trigger!...

Update: You can no longer purchase Vanilla Reload cards using a credit card and Vanilla Reloads are no longer available in Office Depot.This week TPG contributor Jason Steele took us through the basics of Maximizing Prepaid and Reload Cards for Points and Miles with a series including Maximizing Reload Cards for Points and Miles: Vanilla vs. Green Dot vs. PayPal vs. REloadit and Maximizing Prepaid / Reloadable and Reload Cards For Points And Miles - Choosing Which Credit Card To Use....

It’s no secret that I love the Airbus A380. While the 747 is the Queen of the Skies, the A380 is the king. I’m 6'7’’, and by nature I don’t fit well on planes, but I definitely fit on the A380. In fact, it’s a lot like me in general — maybe not the prettiest, but the largest!It’s a smooth, quiet ride, and commercial airlines (especially Etihad) have gone all out making the aircraft luxurious for flyers....

As much as it pains me to say it, I wasn’t the first on my team to fly Emirates’ new first-class product. TPG Editor-at-Large Zach Honig was the first TPG employee to fly the all-new product — and I’ve been jealous ever since!I finally got a chance to test it out from Brussels (BRU) to Dubai (DXB) in February, and made it a point to not only fly this new product on Emirates’ 777-300ER, but also Singapore’s 50-square-foot first-class suite on the Airbus A380 and Qatar’s new Qsuites business-class product on its A350-1000, all by the end of the first quarter of 2018....

As I reported last week, Qatar Airways plans to join the Oneworld alliance, and it made the announcement official today at a Oneworld press conference.Hat tip to Jaunted.com for this Instagram shot at the press conference.The exact date hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s likely to take at least a year until the airline is fully integrated into the alliance. Though this move has been expected for a while, it’s bound to shake up the airline alliance status quo....