Weekend Blitz

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 [...]

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:

British Airways flies a surprisingly large number of routes within the Caribbean–this can save hundreds of dollars if you’re interested in doing some island hopping and really opens up your vacation possibilities. Here are the destinations served:

Legend: Red = British Airways operated flights (confirmed bookable with Avios)Green = Codeshare American Airlines, operated by Seaborne Airlines (confirmed bookable with AA miles, not positive about Avios)

As stated in the caption, any flight in Red on the map or with a designation of BA in the [...]

You’d think that this was a cut and dry topic, but it’s far from it. What flights should count? Non-stop only? Contiguous countries? Territories and dependencies (they do often have the same currency and government as their mother country)?? As a result we’ve had to categorize the list a bit. We’ll start with a little background:  the IATA (International Air Transport Association) defines “domestic” as two places with the same ISO country code. Contrary to the IATA definition, however, the regular passenger considers domestic flights as those where they do not need to pass immigration on departure and arrival.

Plan a weekend get-away from New York-NYC to Seattle-SEA for under $220! The deal also works in reverse for those wishing to fly from Seattle-SEA to New York-NYC. The fare is from American Airlines (bookable on AA.com) for flights operated by Alaska Airlines.

gcmap.com

How to book it:

How about a weekend trip to Anchorage, Alaska in the fall?

You can book the awesome price of just $276 on either American Airlines or United Airlines. There’s still a ton of availability:

Average temperatures during the sale period:

Sept: 41°F – 55°F Oct: 29°F – 41°F Nov: 17°F – 27°F

How to book it:

Check http://matrix.itasoftware.com/ using its calendar of low fares to see all availability. Your best bets will be September, October & November.

>Drop us a line on Twitter (@weekend_blitz) or reply to this post if we can help.

Example dates available for a weekend trip:

Traveling for the long weekend? Why not join your fellow Americans and take a trip away from wherever “here” is for you.

A few cheap last minute ideas: