Delta and Air France/KLM have a very close relationship. As founding members of the Skyteam alliance, they also have a tight-knit joint venture that allows them to own a huge portion of transatlantic travel. While this relationship continues to grow (I sometimes hear, “Thank you for calling the Delta, Air France, and KLM elite line, how many I help you?” when I call Delta), their frequent flyer programs are quite different....
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to enter my Club Carlson Golden Giveaway for the chance to win one of two $500 Visa gift cards and Club Carlson Gold status. The contest closes at 11:59pm ET tonight and I’ll be announcing winners on Friday.To enter, I want you to tell me what your favorite feature of the Club Carlson Visa credit cards is, apart from the bonus award night benefit (which is the best one, in my humble opinion)....
Lithium batteries continue to cause serious problems for airlines.On Tuesday, Turkish carrier Pegasus Airlines had to conduct an emergency landing after a passenger’s electronic cigarette caught fire mid-flight.Flight 1135, operated by a Boeing 737-800, was en-route to Paris-Orly (ORY) after taking off from Istanbul (SAW) when the incident occurred.Flight crew were alerted when the aircraft’s smoke alarms went off in the cargo hold — allegedly due to an e-cigarette’s battery bursting into flames....
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.To welcome in spring — although the weather might not seem like it in parts of the upper Midwest and Northeast — United is offering bonus miles for making purchases through the MileagePlus Shopping portal. With it, you can earn up to 1,000 bonus miles for your purchases, depending on how much you spend....
I’ve been using ExpertFlyer for years, whether its searching for award availability, routing options or fare information, it’s got a lot of functionality. However, the one tool that I can’t sing enough praises about is the flight alert feature which allows you to set alerts for award tickets so as soon as the airline releases them you get an email alert. This saves you the frustration and time of having to continually check for award space and comes in handy on routes that have notoriously low availability, like Qantas awards down under....
The parents of two unaccompanied minors flying from Des Moines, Iowa, to Orlando, Florida, on Frontier Airlines flight 1756 are alleging that their children, ages 7 and 9, ended up in separate hotel rooms with other accompanied minors after their flight was diverted to Atlanta due to bad weather.The diverted flight did not reach the gate in Atlanta until 12:12am, and was originally scheduled to get into Orlando at 10:46pm.According to Today, parents of the young boy and girl say they “received a text message from their son saying a Frontier employee would take them to a hotel to stay overnight....
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.Have burning points and miles questions you’ve always wanted answered? This summer, you might just get your chance to ask TPG himself in person. On July 11, you can join Brian Kelly as he talks all things points, miles, travel and how TPG got to where it is today at the 92nd Street Y in New York City....
TPG reader William emailed me to ask:“I’m planning a trip to Hong Kong from the U.S. this summer; I’d like to fly from ATL, JFK or ORD, preferably in first class. I could fly to other cities in Asia if doing so would make things easier. What are the best options for this trip using miles?“Without a doubt, flying Cathy Pacific First class non-stop is the way to go. Cathay has a wonderful first class product, and pretty good award availability so long as you’re flexible....
Would you be willing to pay a fee every time you drop off or pick up a friend or family member at the airport? For those who live in metropolitan Boston and utilize Logan airport (BOS), it could soon become a reality. As the result of pressure from environmental groups, the Massachusetts Port Authority is now studying the effects of imposing a fee on those who drop off or pick up others from the airport....
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.Starwood is known for giving year-end gifts to their Platinum guests. Several years ago, it was a 50% off award coupon, which was an incredible points-saving value. Last year it was luggage tags, which I thought were cheap, but better than nothing....
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.It’s always a joy to see just what the TSA confiscated every month. Will it be another weapon? A live animal? All of the above? Most likely, since passengers have no shame when trying to sneak things by security agents at airports....
Just one year after adding LEVEL, a long-haul, low-cost carrier to its portfolio, IAG, the owner of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, is continuing its foray into the low-cost sector and launching LEVEL-branded short-haul European flights.Unlike the long-haul airline which is based in Barcelona (and Paris starting July 2), LEVEL’s new subsidiary will be based in Vienna, Austria. It will begin operations with flights from Vienna (VIE) to Palma de Mallorca (PMI) and London Gatwick (LGW), followed by other destinations such as Barcelona (BCN), Malaga (AGP) and Paris Oly (ORY)....
For last week’s Thursday Giveaway, we gave one lucky reader a pair of courtside tickets to a first round match at the US Open, and on Monday evening, I was invited to attend a match at the USTA with Starwood Preferred Guest. I had a great time even though the men’s matches were rained out, and one of the perks of the event was the swag bag that the other guests and I were given....
Uber has been beset by scandals so far this year — from not shutting down during a taxi strike in New York City to a Department of Justice criminal investigation into the company’s authority-evading Greyball tool. Now, in a stunning admission, Uber has confirmed that it’s been routinely overcharging riders for rides.This situation involves the “up-front pricing” method that Uber first introduced April 2016, which now operates in 14 US markets....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Chase Sapphire Preferred CardWhile I am always happy to share my own traveling stories with my family, there are tons of other great traveling families out there with kids of different ages, different numbers of kids, and who have had different traveling experiences than we have had. As part of my “Little C’s Traveling Friends”series, I am sharing different family’s stories so we can all learn from their traveling “hits” and “misses”....
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.When the American Airlines AAdvantage made award chart changes earlier this year, most of the changes increased prices for awards. However, there were some changes that dropped the prices of select awards as I outlined here. One award price drop that I think is very useful for vacationing families is the price from the lower 48 to the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America....
As mentioned here in an article in London newspaper The Independent (which I was quoted in), a new independent hotel chain is launching in North America. Voilà is currently a 250+ independent/boutique hotel loyalty program with properties in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. The program, which is similar to Stash Hotel Rewards, offers a unique alternative to your mass hotel chain loyalty programs. In my eyes, the key difference between Voila and Stash (and which I reviewed here), and that Voila has a robust elite program....
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.There’s some competition in the skies when it comes to flying side by side. Last year, we saw both Emirates and Etihad release videos of their aircraft alongside other flying objects — in Emirates’ case, two jetpack-equipped humans while Etihad used fighter jets....
TPG reader Treavor had this question:“I got the US Airways MasterCard for the sign-up bonus, but I never fly US Airways/American – only United and Delta. Should I get rid of the card before it switches over to the Aviator Silver so that I can get a sign-up bonus for the Aviator cards when they finally have one?“Unfortunately there will most likely never be a sign-up bonus for any of the AAdvantage Aviator cards, because Barclaycard is no longer accepting applications for new cardholders....
When the Virgin America and Alaska Airlines deal closed last month, we knew almost immediately that members would be able to transfer Virgin America Elevate points to Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles at a 1 to 1.3 ratio. And as of today, that transfer option is now live.To transfer your Elevate points to Mileage Plan miles, go to this Points.com website and log in to your Virgin America Elevate account.Once you log in, you’ll be able to select the option of transferring to Mileage Plan....
