point fu

I used JetItUp.com to look at my flying for the year (it interfaces with TripIt) and got some fun stats: 26 Flights (11 of them international) on  7 airlines on  13 aircraft types to  6 countries I've been trying to rebuild our points balances since we booked the big Japan trip, and to that end will probably churn another Chase card now that I'm below their 5/24 cutoff again. I also milked a bunch of holiday promotions and Amex offers so we're now at around 350,000 points split fairly evenly between Amex and Chase. With the constant point devaluations, though, we'll need 300,000-ish in a single account to repeat something like our Taipei trip this year. (Well, unless we find some unicorn-level availability on ANA and pull the Virgin Atlantic trick to access both our Amex and Chase points for a single redemption). We don't have any big trips planned at this point. We're doing our annual Mexico trip , and we're thinking we'll look for a che...

Gay bars in Japan Gay visitors to Japan often have trouble finding and visiting gay bars. Many of them are unlisted, very tiny, and are more like little private club houses for friends than public watering holes. I was very fortunate to be welcomed into Tokyo's scene by a popular, longtime resident and despite the warm welcomes and introductions to these intimate spaces, you're basically being invited to sit at the counter in Cheers and you've never met Norm and the gang before. His photo series about Shinjuku's gay bars is over on Vice if you'd like to check it out . If your Japanese is good and you're an extrovert, you're all set. If not, well, most people at a bar after a long day at work likely don't want an awkward throwback to their high school English class, so you're going to need to use a combination of that Duolingo Japanese you did on the plane, charades, karaoke, iPhone picture show-and-tell, and maybe a little flirting to get you...

Chase is trying to promote Chase Pay for in-person and online transactions so they're offering a couple of great deals through December 14th when you shop at Walmart.com or a Best Buy brick-and-mortar store. Details are here . Since both my husband and I have Chase cards, we double-dipped on those (i.e., we each spent around the $350 maximum), PLUS we visited Walmart.com via the Alaska Airlines shopping portal and got yet another point per dollar for a total of 11 points per dollar.  After our recent trip to Japan and Taipei, our accounts are feeling a little empty so it's time to fill 'em back up again. There have been a few good Amex offers these past few weeks so we've snagged another 10,000 there via Martha Stewart Wine and Google Express offers.

  Pros Cuteness Kawaiiiiii-overload! Din Tai Fung catering! Did you read what I just wrote? I said they have Din Tai F&#@ing Fung onboard! Super friendly staff Great lounges with hot food and pour-it-yourself liquor Cons Honestly, none.    How I did it I bought an open-jaw ticket (Taipei - Tokyo Narita, Fukuoka - Taipei) on EVA's website with my Amex card for USD$865 per person, so this half effectively cost $433. It would have been nice to somehow integrate this with our NYC–Taipei reward flight , but it was impossible for me to construct that routing on United.com (where all of my points for this flight were). To be fair, the itinerary we wanted was a bit strange (12 hour layover in Taipei inbound to have lunch with a friend, 3 day layover on the way back to hang out in Taipei), plus I absolutely positively had to be on a Sanrio character plane so I coughed up the cash. I credited the flight to my United account, where this leg earned ...

Pros Cuteness Kawaiiiiii-overload! Din Tai Fung onboard Did you read what I just wrote? I said " Din Tai F&#@ing Fung onboard! " Super friendly staff Great lounges with hot food and pour-it-yourself liquor Cons Honestly, none.    How I did it I bought an open-jaw ticket (Taipei - Tokyo Narita, Fukuoka - Taipei) on EVA's website with my Amex card for USD$865 per person, so this half effectively cost $433. It would have been nice to somehow integrate this with our NYC–Taipei reward flight , but it was impossible for me to construct that routing on United.com (where all of my points for this flight were). To be fair, the itinerary we wanted was a bit strange (12 hour layover in Taipei inbound to have lunch with a friend, 3 day layover on the way back to hang out in Taipei), plus I absolutely positively had to be on a Sanrio character plane so I coughed up the cash. I credited the flight to my United account, where this leg earned 1695 miles (≈$33) in...