Weekend Blitz

Ever since US Airways and American Airlines announced their merger, I’ve been excited about the prospect of having many more options of using British Airways Avios for award flights within the US. This thought became reality on March 31, 2014 when US Airways offically joined the Oneworld Alliance and thus, overnight, travelers in the US had many more options to maximize Avios redemptions.

This opens up lots of opportunities for maximizing short, non-stop flights out of or to American Airlines’ and US Airways’ hub cities:

First stop on our whirlwind, nostalgia-inspired tour of France & Italy (index here) was our flight from New York-JFK to Paris-CDG. I was able to find low-level award space using Delta SkyMiles for the flight (which is a feat in and of itself), but throw in the fact that I found Air France Business Class low-level award space using SkyMiles and it was downright impossible.

The trip really started for me about 2 or 3 days before takeoff as a winter storm was pummeling the Northeast. You see, because of Delta’s horrible award space availabilty, I booked the JFK-CDG, CDG-FLR and then VCE-JFK legs on the award ticket. To get from CHS-JFK-CHS, I [...]

JetBlue is at it again with their “NYC Flight Week” Deal of the Day.

At 80% off these are phenomenal deals as long as you can travel on short notice. The good news is that there are finally some good “long-weekend” choices out there.

Best WEEKEND BLITZ choices:

En route to Georgetown, Guyana and having just gotten finished with the free transfer from LGA to JFK, we had a lengthy layover in JFK. At the time of our trip, there were extensive renovations underway at the airport.

The flight was set to leave out of JFK’s Terminal 4, the main international terminal. It’s a pretty popular terminal and in fact, it’s the only one at JFK that isn’t operated by a specific airline. They say that, even on your first visit, you’ll feel right at home given that it’s been the setting for many movies: The Terminal, Syriana, Get Him to The Greek etc….

But I digress… point being, it’s a pretty cool terminal. [...]

We took advantage of an awesome secret Delta perk when we took a free “shuttle” between LaGuardia and JFK airports. The shuttle ended up being a voucher with a $73 face value providing Town Car service to JFK!

Update 1/5/14: This still works! We used this last week on our way back from The Maldives. We were provided a free taxi ride from Newark-EWR to LaGuardia-LGA.

Delta has 2 hubs in the NYC area: LaGuardia and JFK. It is possible, based on flight schedules, that you’ll have to fly into one and out of the other. In most cases, the transfer is up to you and it’s not an easy one. If, however, you fly into Newark (EWR) or LaGuardia (LGA) and [...]