point fu

This last flight had nearly all of them, I think I'm going to actually make this into a Bingo card! Ooh, or maybe a pack of Tarot cards! the drinker - she loves herself a pour-it-yourself lounge bar and she keeps ‘em coming once the plane is airborne. She’s also often: the talker - the one who talks loudly and incessantly even after the lights have gone out and everyone else is trying to sleep. the eater - not only do they eat all of the food they’re served, they order the entire in-flight snack menu as well. i once watched a guy on ANA consume approximately 9000 calories on a 12 hour flight – and this was after hitting the pre-flight buffet in the lounge. Impressive. He also often becomes: the farter – that guy who somehow thought that having kimchi and hefeweizen and beans before boarding the flight was a smart idea. his antithesis is the monk – the person who brings a single brown rice ball for a 16 hour flight and refuses any and all food offered to them...

A quiet, 15 hour late-night flight with a spacious-but-hard bed. Great service, decent food. PROS new A350 plane with higher cabin pressure and humidity friendly and helpful staff seat design allows for a flat bed with lots of leg mobility and possible sleeping positions EWR is deserted at that time of night so it feels extremely calm and private good in-flight entertainment options good award availability flight is fairly well timed for anti-jetlag fasting, NYC traffic, and first HK airport train decent lounge with snacks and pour-your-own liquor   NEUTRAL food was decent but unremarkable   CONS no pajamas no air vents very hot cabin seat is quite hard, despite its nice design   TIPS avoid row 11 (first row of Business), especially the center seats there’s a second, smaller business class cabin that seems like it’d have less flight attendant foot traffic beautiful view of Montreal not long after takeoff HOW I DID IT 75,000 A...

I started this blog because I wanted to help people travel. It's turned out to be a great crutch against my senility, too, but first and foremost I like helping people check things off their bucket lists. A good friend of mine – let's call him Jim – returned from his first visit to Japan in 2016 eager to return "in a couple of years". He asked me for help, and I feel like there were some great lessons for everyone that we learned along the way.   Background Like many millennials, he's got crushing student loan debt and is early in his career so he's not too flush with cash (nor does he have a trust fund or wealthy parents). He does, however, have great credit (above 750), a stable job, and a good credit history with a Chase Freedom card.   Getting to Japan One of the very sweetest spots in the world of airline points is the All Nippon Airways (ANA) reward chart – in low season you can fly round-trip in Economy from the US to Japan for 40,000 miles ...

Great news today! Chase announced a 30% bonu s when you transfer Ultimate Rewards points to British Airways Avios points. Historically, Amex has these kinds of bonuses a few times a year, and they can dramatically increase the value of your Membership Rewards points . Since we know that Avios points are near-useless for flights to the UK, due to their criminally-high surcharges , what ARE they good for? Last-minute/direct domestic flights in all classes This bonus would have saved me a bundle when I booked a last minute flight from NYC to Louisville, Kentucky on their partner, American Airlines. The cheapest direct flight I could find was $735, and all I'd have needed for a points reward was 11,000 Amex points – bringing the value of my Amex points to well over 6¢ each. Furthermore, doing a partner reward on American Airlines via British Airways lets you avoid American's annoying $75 "close-in" fee when you book a flight that's fewer than 21 days...

Priority Pass (PP) is a membership club that grants you access to a worldwide network of airport lounges. Several of the most popular credit cards (Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve) include Priority Pass memberships as part of their annual fee. This caused many lounges to become overcrowded, so PP added a new option – dining credits at select airport restaurants. Capers Market I've written about my own experience using these credits at Portland International Airport's (PDX) Capers Market. It's a great perk, and I take advantage of it every time I'm back at PDX visiting friends and family. Honestly, though, I’d been wondering about the economics of it all after my last visit. I saw a couple with a basket full of stuff at the check out, and they each had two PP cards that they proceeded to max out. They were joking with each other that if they had more room in their carry on bags they would have used the guest benefit on each of them and go...

Apple and Amex currently have a targeted promo where you can earn up to 1000 bonus points just by using ApplePay. I figured that we wouldn't be targeted since we're avid users of it already, but I logged in to our Amex accounts did a quick scan of the Amex Offers section and one of our cards actually had it. We added the offer the card and this well end up being an easy 1000 points given how often we use ApplePay. I periodically check my Amex Offers list because it's a great way to rack up some big bonus points – in 2018 I made 42,000 points from them, and 39,000 in 2017 .