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For this week’s Thursday Giveaway, we are partnering up with MobileSuites, a brand new mobile app that’s changing the hotel experience for good. With the MobileSuites app, you can conveniently order just about any service offered by your hotel. Room service? Housekeeping? Valet Parking? Checking Out? All just a tap away.On March 1st, the app will go live with nearly every full-service Starwood, Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt hotel in the country, and 2000 travelers will receive exclusive early access to the app....

Far from the days of penning letters and sending them home “par avion,” or cutting calls short because of sky-high costs, the Internet has opened up a brave new world of staying in touch – from anywhere. Travel is made far more fun when you can share information about your adventures. Make someone green with jealousy over your infinity pool in Bali, or place a call from a speedboat in New Zealand....

Don’t get denied from boarding your flight to Canada because you’re missing proper documentation. That’s what one TPG staffer’s spouse learned on a recent flight from Lyon (LYS) to Miami (MIA) via Montreal (YUL).The traveler, whom we’ll call Jean, is a French citizen who is also a United States Green Card holder. Jean was booked on Air Canada’s nonstop flight between France and Canada, before continuing on to his final destination in Florida....

Curious why you don’t have a perfect five-star Uber rating? Good news. The company is making it easier for you to see why exactly you received less than five stars on your rides with the option for drivers to leave feedback for passengers.On Tuesday, the ride-share company announced that it’s rolling out the feature in a new app update, which will allow drivers to give feedback to the rider if that equals less than a five-star rating....

Don’t you hate it when you have a bad day at work, causing your company’s stock to lose $2.5 billion in value? Well, United CEO Oscar Munoz feels your pain.Thursday morning, the airline had its quarterly earnings call, and Munoz and the rest of the management team bungled at least one question from an analyst. When pressed for details about how United plans to compete with low-fare carriers, Munoz said the airline had “dug ourselves in a hole” and asked for patience....

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 I was in Singapore recently, I met up with fellow travel blogger Seth Miller, the man behind The Wandering Aramean blog on Boarding Area, and a FlyerTalk legend with over 56,000 comments to his username, SBM12. We met for lunch at the Banana Leaf restaurant in Little India, and I took the opportunity to get his thoughts on a variety of topics including the United/Continental merger (he’s a hardcore Continental flyer), his experience taking British Airways to court over a mistake fare to India and how to use the free tools he created to help people travel smarter (check them out here, they are pretty nifty)....

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.Specialty liveries are relatively common in the airline industry, but some are certainly more special than others. One of the more memorable liveries in recent memory is Icelandair’s Hekla Aurora. The 757 is painted in hues of blue, green and black to form a stunning, painted representation of the Aurora Borealis, a natural phenomenon famously visible in Iceland....

If there’s two things that AvGeeks love, it’s St. Maarten’s Maho Beach and very large planes. Much of St. Maarten has been razed by Hurricane Irma last month, and Maho Beach, which grew famous for aircraft flying just feet over beachgoers’ heads, was obliterated by the storm.With the recovery and rebuilding efforts underway, aircraft have begun to use Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) again. But what many probably weren’t expecting to see was the Antonov AN-124, a Ukrainian mega-jet, land on the small island....

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.Wildfires are spreading across Northern California, prompting mandatory evacuations of nearby residents and causing air quality problems across the Bay Area.California officials ordered mandatory evacuations on Sunday across Yolo County, north of Sacramento. So far, the wildfire, which started burning Saturday, has spanned 44,500 acres and continues to grow, crossing the containment lines set by firefighters and threatening dozens of structures, according to Cal Fire....

No, don’t worry — Oscar isn’t going anywhere. But there is a new president at United.Today, American Airlines announced that its president, Scott Kirby, was departing. And, moments later, United Airlines announced a new president of its own: Scott Kirby. (Yes, it’s the same Scott Kirby.)Now, it’s important to note that American also has a CEO, Doug Parker, who also serves as the airline’s chairman. Robert Isom, American’s former chief operating officer, is now AA’s president, effective immediately, so this leadership change shouldn’t be quite as disruptive as it otherwise might be....

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 a Chase banking customer, this announcement came as terrible news - they will discontinue awarding miles for debit card purchases as of July 12, 2011. But, at least there are a ton of other lucrative credit card offers out there (check my Top Deals page) and I’ve heard rumblings that there may be an amazing new offer coming soon (rest assured, I’ll announce it here if it happens to be true)....

“Bill Burr is the only person who can make me cry laughing with a text message,” veteran comic Dom Irrera says about Burr, who has become one of the most respected stand-ups in the business — The “Chappelle’s Show” alum became a viral hero a decade ago when he destroyed a hostile crowd that heckled his pal Irrera. Here, Burr, who created the Netflix series “F is for Family,” shares why an eye-opening vacation in Asia turned out to be his favorite travel experience and his favorite cities in America....

Update: Continental is now a part of United.I was searching for awards to Honolulu today for a client and decided to use Continental.com, which has a decent award engine. I was happy when I saw low-level business class awards for Newark-Honolulu through Chicago on United for 40,000 miles each way.EWR-ORD-HNL in “Business"When I was checking out, however, I noticed something odd. The Chicago- Honolulu legs were in economy. You know, no big deal that 80% of the flight time of the award was actually in economy class....

Starting Friday, some of the biggest credit card companies will no longer require a signature at store checkouts in the US.The changes were announced several months ago by Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express, saying that no signature would be required beginning in early April 2018. Mastercard announced it would officially ditch the electronic signature starting Friday. American Express and Discover are also retiring the signature on Friday, with Visa expected to make the change later in April....

I’ve been involved in the frequent flyer community for years and the thing I love the most is when people go above and beyond to help each other out and expect nothing in return. When US Airways launched their Barclay’s credit card in 2006, they ran a crazy promotion where they sold 50 cent fares to various cities around the world. I remember a fellow Flyertalker couldn’t go on one of the trips they won and gave it to me out of the blue....

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.Hilton is offering a fast track to Gold elite status after only 4 stays or 9 nights. This is a pretty decent deal, considering it normally takes 16 stays, 36 nights, or 60,000 points. I’m not 100% sure what the Hilton MVP program is, but it let me sign-up and I’m a current Hilton Silver (they gave it to me after only two stays last 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.A version of Qatar Airways’ new business-class product, Qsuite, is on the ground and available for you to test out at New York-JFK’s Terminal 5. Until February 7, 2018, you can visit the Qsuite display in Terminal 5, past the security checkpoint....

Spoken word artist Nupur Saraswat got an unwelcome surprise last week when she traveled from Singapore to Hyderabad, India, for a performance but wasn’t allowed to check into her already-booked room at the Hotel Deccan Erragadda. Why? Because the hotel’s policy prohibits “single ladies” from staying there. Nonplussed, Saraswat quickly posted a status update to her Facebook page, which has since gone viral and been shared more than 1,700 times.While Saraswat admitted that it was her “first experience with this form of discrimination,” she also didn’t place the blame for her travel nightmare solely on the hotel’s shoulders....

I don’t like elite status because I need to feel fancy or important…I’m clearly not. I like elite status because it can save my family real money on our trips, while at the same time making travel more comfortable. With some hotel programs one way that elite status can help is by providing us lounge access on our stays. We have spent the last several days at the Hyatt Regency Maui, and I am so impressed with how much we have saved each day by having Regency Club access that it’s time I share a some information about the lounge with you....

TPG reader Sholom sent me a message on Facebook to ask about AAdvantage award changes:“Is there a limit to how many times I can change an American Airlines award ticket if my origin and destination stay the same?”Whether you’re flying on an award ticket or a paid fare, most airlines impose a fee for changes made to your itinerary. Some carriers have fairly harsh policies for changing awards, like Delta’s flat fee of $150....