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Now through September 30, 2012, when you sign up for a Serve card – a digital prepaid account from American Express – you will get $25 back for a single purchase of $25 or more (you get the credit on the the first purchase that meets or exceeds that amount).A Serve card is basically a prepaid credit card that you can load with funds from a bank account, debit card or credit card, and you can only spend the amount loaded on the card, so if you’re trying to watch your expenditures, it’s a good way not to go over your limit....

Here’s a round-up of the week’s points, miles and travel industry news you may have missed:Get bonus points for booking hotel stays on the Club Carlson AppClub Carlson Bonus Points For Bookings Via App: You can earn 3,000 bonus Gold Points for each stay booked through the Club Carlson mobile app. You must book AND stay via the app by November 14, 2014. The app is available for both IOS and Android....

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.This fare war is getting nasty! Continental and United are attacking Delta in all of its main hubs, including Atlanta which rarely gets action on super-cheap fares. I just used Travelocity.com flexible search to pull up this gem; $193 to/from Atlanta to Los Angeles....

SPG is offering an extra 20% percent bonus when you purchase Starpoints this week. SPG members will be able to buy up to 20,000 points at a cost of 3.5 cents each (netting you 4,000 bonus for a total of 24,000). After the bonus, the cost per point goes down to 2.9 cents — still not the best deal for most people.We currently value Starpoints at 2.5 cents, so justifying the purchase is a tough sell if you don’t have a particular redemption in mind....

I’m currently in Bangkok and enjoying the hot, intense energy the city exudes. I’ve also been really enjoying TPG reader suggestions so far for Singapore and Bangkok- from Hawker Centers to the restaurant in Bangkok last night (Eat Me, which was phenomenal)- stay tuned for detailed trips reports including HD video that I’ve been shooting.Tomorrow I leave for Cambodia for 5 days- first spending time in Siem Reap while I visit one of the world’s man-made wonders, Angkor Wat, then my plans are less concrete: tentatively stopping through the capital, Phnom Penh, on my way to the sleepy seaside retreat of Kep....

TPG Reader Sara sent me this message on Facebook:“I’m trying to book a flight from Chicago to Rome using AAdvantage miles. The direct flight is only available when I search for one passenger, but not for two. If I buy the award flight for myself, will another spot open up?“Italy is a top tourist destination, so it can often be difficult to redeem frequent flyer miles for SAAver level tickets, especially during peak travel periods....

Things seem to be moving pretty fast in the Korean Peninsula. And now, we have a date and place for the summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un: Singapore, June 12. What the two leaders might actually discuss, and what could be the outcome of a meeting that until recently was unimaginable, is still a complete unknown. But aviation geeks are salivating over another detail of the summit: How will they get there?...

Virgin America just announced a new promotion called “Take your points on vacation with Virgin Limited Edition”, which listed travel packages that you can use your points on not only for flights but also to stay in places that look pretty great including safari camps in Kenya and South Africa, an alpine lodge in Switzerland, even Sir Richard Branson’s own Necker Island. Curious if any of these packages would be good deals, I priced them out in cash versus Virgin America Elevate points, as well as looking at it through the angle of transfer partner American Express Membership Rewards Points....

One of the Ritz-Carlton Rewards Credit Card’s best perks is access to Exclusive Events that are only available for purchase to cardholders — they’re sometimes held during special cultural, sporting and culinary festivities, like the Cayman Cookout Experience, which TPG attended earlier this year, for instance.As of Friday, October 21, Ritz-Carlton Rewards cardholders can purchase an exclusive package to one of the most popular art events in the country, Art Basel in Miami Beach, through the Ritz Events website....

Outside of travel, one of my personal passions is dog rescue. These days I don’t get to support the rescue effort as a foster home near as much as I used to thanks to having a young kid and a 14+ year old rescued grumpy husky in the house, but I try to use my wallet to support the efforts as much as I can.I also love to look for unique ways to combine travel and dog rescue, and there is one really awesome way that I want to highlight as it combines dog rescue and one of my very favorite islands, Kauai....

I’ve been waiting for an airline to match American’s double elite qualifying mile promotion, but I have to say I’m pretty surprised that the first one to match is Southwest!They just announced that their Rapid Rewards members can earn double Tier Qualifying Points between December 22, 2011 and January 31, 2012. Note: This is not a bonus on companion pass qualifying or regular points- only Tier Qualifying. Registration required.I hope this announcement forces the other major players (ah hem United and Delta) to jump in the fray and offer at least some sort of similar bonus....

The “Back To The Future” film franchise has captivated sci-fi geeks since the late 1980s, and gave the DeLorean DMC-12 instant fame for its futuristic looks. And now, it looks like DeLorean will be leaping into the future once again. On Monday, DeLorean Aerospace formally launched the DR-7, a proposed two-seat vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) personal air transport vehicle.As reported by AVweb, the brains behind the project is none other than Paul DeLorean, the nephew of the original car creator, who serves as the CEO and chief designer of the company....

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 I posted earlier today, American Airlines unveiled the first of its new fleet of domestic A319’s at Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW) Airport yesterday and our contributor Scott was impressed by the leather seats, the seat-back entertainment systems, and just that general “new plane” smell....

When you’re traveling overseas and make a purchase with a US credit card, the credit card terminal at many merchants will give you the option to pay in either the local currency or US dollars. Sounds like a great way to avoid those pesky credit card foreign transaction fees, right?Except in this case, the cure is worse than the disease. If you choose this option — known as Dynamic Currency Conversion, or DCC — the markup on the conversion will be a great deal higher than the standard 3% credit card fee you might pay for foreign transactions....

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.I’ve received some feedback that people have had a hard time finding my contact information when they discovered a good deal that they wanted to share with me. If you ever want to send me a tip (and earn a hat tip) just shoot an email to info (at) thepointsguy....

Echoing a similar promotion from last year, Starwood has partnered with Aeroplan this fall to offer Air Canada flyers up to 9,000 bonus miles for stays between now and December 15, 2013.Here’s how it breaks down:-Stay 5 qualifying nights and earn 5,000 bonus Aeroplan miles-Stay 2 more qualifying nights (7 total) and earn 2,000 more bonus miles-Stay 2 more qualifying nights (9 total) and earn 2,000 more bonus milesAll up to a maximum of 9,000 bonus miles....

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.UPDATE: Continental is now part of United.Simply register for this promo and get 100 free miles. This is targeted towards Continental Debit/Credit card holders, but its worth a try even if you don’t have the card.Tip of the hat to Points Wizard!...

When it comes to earning points and miles, lucrative credit card sign-up bonuses aren’t the only way to score big. Online brokerages frequently offer airline miles as incentive to earn your business.I’ve personally been able to take advantage of two 50,000 mile bonuses offered by Fidelity Investments for new brokerage accounts, boosting both my Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus balances, and I’m going for it again this year.Through March 31, 2015, Fidelity is awarding bonus American, Delta, or United miles when you open and fund a non-retirement brokerage account or add to an existing one....

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.Two million retweets is all it takes to have Royal Caribbean give you one of their cruise ships. Or so the Internet — and, we admit it, this website — was led to believe by a man named Dylan Baer, who tweeted a screen shot of a direct message between himself and the cruise ship company on April 2, asking “how many retweets” it would take “for a boat....

Once again, Uber makes headlines for a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit. This time, the complaint comes from within the office – again.Ingrid Avendaño, a software engineer who previously worked for Uber from 2014 to 2017, filed a lawsuit against the company Monday. Avendaño said that during her time working for the ride-share giant, she “experienced a male-dominated work culture, permeated with degrading, marginalizing, discriminatory, and sexually harassing conduct towards women....