Weekend Blitz

As I wrote about here (How-to: Book US Airways Flights With British Airways Avios), US Airways officially joined the Oneworld Alliance a few months ago. Joining the ranks of American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, LAN, etc., US Airways is now eligible for bookings with Avios. This opens up lots of opportunities for maximizing short, non-stop flights out of US Airways’ hub cities: Charlotte-CLT, Philadelphia-PHL, Phoenix-PHX and Washington-Reagan-DCA.

First in this series was Charlotte, North Carolina-CLT, then Philadelphia-PHL and now we’ll look at Washington, D.C. It turns out that the Washington-Reagan hub has the fewest international [...]

A few months ago I wrote about the advantages of getting a credit card or debit card with EMV or “Smart Chip” technology (Great Travel Tool: Get a Credit Card with a Chip). Check out the post for more info on why you need one for traveling. I also included a brief list of U.S. banks and financial institutions that have recently started offering this new technology but now have a more comprehensive list. Check out the list, there’s a good chance that a card that you already have is now offering a chip and all you have to do is call up and ask for one.

Chip-and-PIN

A true Chip-and-PIN card offers the ultimate in security (including in [...]

As I wrote about here (How-to: Book US Airways Flights With British Airways Avios), US Airways officially joined the Oneworld Alliance about a month ago. Joining the ranks of American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, LAN etc…, US Airways is now eligible for bookings with Avios. This opens up lots of opportunities for maximizing short, non-stop flights out of US Airways’ hub cities: Charlotte-CLT, Philadelphia-PHL, Phoenix-PHX and Washington-Reagan-DCA.

First in this series was Charlotte, North Carolina-CLT, and now we have flights out of Philadelphia-PHL. There are easily 60+ million people that can reach Philadelphia International Airport in less [...]

My sister, Elizabeth, is studying abroad in Argentina this semester and we just finished up booking a trip to visit her soon. I needed to book 2 tickets, one for me and one for McCown, and wanted to use either Delta SkyMiles or United MileagePlus miles. I really preferred to burn my Delta SkyMiles first, given their impending devaluation/restructuring in 2015:

I quickly ruled out United– they’re down to only 1 daily flight from the U.S. to Buenos Aires-EZE out of Houston-IAH and the award availability is pathetic, even in economy. The only other choice is to connect in Panama City-PTY using their Star Alliance partner, Copa Airlines, but that got pretty [...]

Hey travel-savvy friends, My fiance and I are planning a trip to Paris and Rome in September. We are working with a travel agent and she has us at a pretty nice hotel in Paris but the hotels she suggests are always so expensive. I’m all for staying in a nice place but it’s basically a place to sleep, right? For our hotel in Rome I’ve been looking into deals on hotwire and they have, what seems like, really reasonable prices for 4-5 star (much cheaper than anything our agent has offered.) Would y’all recommend going this route or is this risky for travel abroad? And how would you go about scheduling touristy things to do while there? Our agent says it’s [...]

For those of you saying, “Enough already! How do you get started?” here’s a quick crash course on racking up the points required for a free trip. This is written from the perspective of someone with no frequent traveler points that is starting from scratch.

This is imperative to getting in on the free miles game. Start by reading our Credit Score Crash Course post here. This will give you an idea of what is behind your credit score.

Before going any further, figure out what you’re working with. Please don’t go to just any website for a credit report– there’s a reason [...]

As I wrote about here (How-to: Book US Airways Flights With British Airways Avios), US Airways officially joined the Oneworld Alliance about a month ago. Joining the ranks of American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, LAN etc…, US Airways is now eligible for bookings with Avios. This opens up lots of opportunities for maximizing short, non-stop flights out of US Airways’ hub cities: Charlotte-CLT, Philadelphia-PHL, Phoenix-PHX and Washington-Reagan-DCA.

First in this series is Charlotte, North Carolina-CLT. From my research, appx 30 million people live within a 5-hour drive of the city, making it relatively easy for them to drive and take take [...]

Simply put, fifth freedom routes are cool. They’re unique and unusual. It’s the whole idea of how small and interconnected the world is that I find the coolest.

Real quick, the fifth freedom right of the sky is what enables United and Delta Airlines to fly many routes from Tokyo-NRT to a whole host of Asian cities. It allows Emirates Airlines, a Dubai-based carrier, to fly revenue passengers between New York-JFK and Milan, Italy-MXP, two foreign countries.

There are other examples (many of which will come in a later post), but here are a few:  Delta flies direct from Amsterdam-AMS to Mumbai-BOM and Air China flies [...]

Starting on March 31, 2014, US Airways officially joined the Oneworld Alliance as part of its merger with American Airlines. The biggest news and best part about this change is that you can now use British Airways Avios to book award flights on US Airways.

British Airways/Iberia Avios miles are [glossy term=”distance based awards”]:  on the surface, it seems like you’re getting a bad deal on award redemptions. But, as with anything involving miles, it opens up possibilities to find great values on non-stop short distance flights.

Here’s the British Airways Avios award chart:

So, this might be the best thing that has happened to U.S.-based International travelers in a while (aside from U.S. banks offering Smart Chip credit cards, of course–click for link):  T-Mobile’s Simple Choice Plan started offering Unlimited International Roaming in late Fall 2013. This is a complete game changer when it comes to communications while abroad.

The basic plan you’ll need is the “Simple Choice” plan, starting at $50/month for 500 MB of data and up to $70/month for unlimited data. All simple plans offer unlimited talk and text. If you choose the $70 plan, this will get you: