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Check out the week in travel contests and sweepstakes for your chance to win trips to New Zealand, New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu or Southern California.Win 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport pointsWin 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Bonus Points From MakeVegasYours.comYou have five chances to win a set of 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points, and five winners will be selected at random.To enter, you have to tweet how you you would use your winning points and make sure to hashtag #MVYentry on Facebook or Twitter....

For more on Air India’s 777-300ER, see our full review.I know, that headline sounds pretty harsh… but this was a rough flight. Not so much the turbulence (though there was plenty of that); Air India’s business-class product is decades behind the competition, and not something I could imagine having been happy flying even way back when it was brand new.Although it sure looks special in this legendary Air India ad:So, joking aside, why in the world did I redeem 80,000 precious United MileagePlus miles to fly business class on Air India?...

South Africa is home to three capitals, six distinct ecosystems and 11 national languages. It boasts the world’s richest gold field and a history that thrusts race relations and colonialism into worldwide headlines. Yet not far from its diverse cities, the bush is host to free-roaming lions and leopards, giraffes, zebras, and much more. But before you strap on your pith helmet, here are seven things you’ll want to do before your first visit....

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: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Marriott Rewards Premier Credit CardRecently I blogged about a pretty great deal for the Marriott Premier - 50,000 points and a bunch of other benefits....

American Airlines is making anti-racism training mandatory for its employees as well as implementing a series of institutional changes to address bias, it announced last week. The move came in direct response to a travel advisory the National Association for the Advancement for Colored People (NAACP) issued in late October warning African-Americans that they might be treated unfairly by the airline."[D]iscrimination and implicit bias sometimes create outcomes that are less than ideal for many of our team members and customers," AA CEO Doug Parker said in a letter to employees sent on Nov....

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 interesting story came out on Saturday in the LA Times about savvy frequent flyers who purchased American Airlines’ storied unlimited lifetime first-class AAirpasses back when they were first launched in the 80’s. Not only did these AAirpasses, which started at about $250,000 (you could add a companion for another cool $150,000) and eventually went up to $3 million, include airfare on any route in first class where there was an available seat, but they even included taxes and fees, and you would rack up AAdvantage miles....

Well, that escalated quickly. Last week, we got the news that Air Canada was experiencing potential-breakup regret with its long-term mileage program Aeroplan. Air Canada gathered a few friends and offered to buy Aeroplan from its current parent company Aimia for C$250 million (US$191 million) in cash, plus assuming unredeemed Aeroplan point liabilities which Air Canada says are worth C$2 billion (US$1.54 billion.) The airline won’t provide details on the number of outstanding points or the point valuation used to get to this number....

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 a part of United.Not surprisingly, Continental announced today that they are moving to the new United award chart and will begin allowing one way awards. I assume they will also allow awards on all partners, so I look forward to possibly booking a Virgin Atlantic one way award this summer for an upcoming trip....

An employee for Delta Air Lines and his wife have been charged for smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars through security checkpoints at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL).Bubacarr Drammeh and Matako Drammeh were charged Wednesday by the US Justice Department’s Atlanta office for smuggling bulk cash through security. Bubacarr faces an additional count of bribing security officers with money to let the cash through.Atlanta’s US Attorney’s Office says that Bubacarr smuggled the cash through employee security checkpoints at ATL from November 2016 to September 2017, using his status as an airline employee to circumvent screeners....

For the past several years, Delta has refused to publish an award chart for travel that didn’t originate in North America. So if you wanted to use your Delta miles to fly from Paris to Australia, you had to call in and manually price out the award. Yesterday, Delta finally unveiled their international awards charts, which can be found here.As I wrote about recently, we already knew Delta made changes to Asia redemptions, but I was getting nervous about any other negative developments coming down the pike....

Etihad is adding an exclusive partner for its chauffeur service. Effective Wednesday, eligible Etihad passengers traveling in a premium cabin will have access to a complimentary Mercedes-operated chauffeur service when you’re arriving at or departing from Abu Dhabi (AUH).In June 2017, the carrier announced that it was eliminating its complimentary chauffeur service with the exception of destinations within the UAE. That policy will continue, but with Mercedes vehicles. In addition, this new Mercedes chauffeur service will take eligible passengers between AUH and anywhere in the UAE....

Garuda Indonesia, the flag carrier of Indonesia, has formally requested to fly into LAX. This will be the airline’s first destination in the US with a planned launch date of November 2017. Garuda hopes to operate 3 weekly flights between Jakarta (CGK) and Los Angeles (LAX) via Tokyo Narita (NRT).The potential new route from Jakarta to Los Angeles on Garuda Indonesia. Image courtesy of The Great Circle Mapper.The airline plans to fly a 777-300ER, which Garuda offers with two seat configurations — one with 26 seats in business and 367 in economy and the other with 8 in first, 38 in business and 268 in economy....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Hilton Honors Surpass Card from American ExpressUpdate 6/1/17 9:13am: Citi has confirmed that cardholders will eventually be moved to a new account:Accounts will be moved to a new card account and Citi will communicate the new credit card information – including anticipated delivery dates and any other pertinent details – to cardmembers prior to the end of this year....

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.Hyatt just announced the launch of their Q2 promo for 2013, with the name “More Possibilities, More Points.” Gold Passport members can earn 3,000 Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points after every three eligible nights at any Hyatt hotel worldwide from March 1 – May 31, 2013, up to a total of 45,000 possible bonus points....

It is pretty incredible what hotels and airlines do via social media these days, and I strongly advise you to utilize social media accounts such as Twitter if only to follow travel related companies (and friendly neighborhood bloggers, of course). A couple of days ago Hyatt tweeted the following via their @HyattConcierge Twitter account:“Looking for a new loyalty program? DM us and let’s talk.“I’m sure it is not at all coincidental that this offer was made the exact week that it was announced that Marriott was acquiring Starwood....

It’s been speculated that Priority Club would be discontinuing their uber-discounted “PointBreaks” hotel promotion, where you can get free nights for a mere 5,000 Priority Club points. However, Priority Club just announced a new list of properties that are available for booking from now until July 30, 2011. There are a decent number of nice properties on the list, so see if they coincide with your summer travel plans.Hat tip Frugal Travel GuyList of Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental properties, followed by the master listUSCROWNE PLAZA JACKSONVILLE AIRPORTCROWNE PLAZA CHICAGO-NORTHBROOKCROWNE PLAZA LEXINGTON NEAR UK / KEENELANDCROWNE PLAZA EXECUTIVE CENTER BATON ROUGECROWNE PLAZA BLOOMINGTON MSP AIRPORT / MOACROWNE PLAZA ST....

The regulations on what passengers should do with their personal electronic devices have seen quite an evolution over the last year. In March 2017, the US banned all electronic devices larger than a cell phone on flights from certain airports in the Middle East and Africa. Thankfully, that rule was replaced by new security procedures in July 2017.Then in October, the FAA swung in a different direction entirely, suggesting all large electronics should be banned from checked luggage....

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.Back in March, there was a great promotion that allowed you to score 55,000 bonus Aeroplan miles when transferring loyalty points. And now, the promotion is back. The current promotion runs through August 15, 2016, and allows customers to transfer hotel loyalty points and receive up to 55,000 bonus Aeroplan Miles, which can then be used toward future award travel....

Club Carlson—the family of hotels that includes Radisson, Radisson Blu, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inns and Suites and Park Plaza—just keeps the promos going. After May’s 138,000 collective Big Night Giveaways, the chain emailed members of Club Carlson about a 30% discount on bookings made between now and June 12 for stays from June 22-September 1 on select dates and various properties. There’s also a 2,000-point sign-up and first-stay bonus going on now through December 31, 2012....

Throughout August, Marriott Rewards is hosting a “What’s Your Travel Type” Facebook game where members can win one of six grand prizes tailored to their personal travel tastes and preferences. To celebrate this promo they’ve given me 50,000 Marriott Rewards points to give away to a lucky TPG reader as well, so read on below to find out how you can win.Here are the details on each of the packages Marriott is offering on Facebook:Family TravelerPackage includes:10 rooms for 4 days / 3 nights at any Residence Inn in the U....