Cheap Fares To LAX and SFO, Triple Avios on Hyatt Stays And TripAdvisor Trickery. Best of the Rest For Tuesday, July 7th 2015
Don’t forget I’m giving away two months of your own free travel assistant to everyone.
The Best of the Rest is my effort to summarize all the travel/miles & points stories that interested me on a daily basis but didn’t have time to write about in length. On a daily basis, I try to keep track of roughly 100 different blogs (try being the operative word) that have interesting things for you and I to learn from. Some are passed along without comment, while I add my analysis to others. This is your shortcut to find out what’s going on in the travel world without having to read dozens of travel blogs to get all the best info. Here’s what I’m reading about today:
Just a few hours left on a pretty decent Virgin America sale. I had actually missed it this morning until my sister noted it. $158 one-way from New York or DC to LAX and SFO is not the lowest we’ve seen, but reasonable. $118 one-way from New York to FLL is solid as well. I’ve seen some AA fares in the high $300s, but no straight matching by them during my last look.
And, there are cheap $200 fares from DC to Long Beach on American/US Airways right now (HT: The Flight Deal).
Club Carlson has announced their summer promo. One Mile at a Time reports it’s a 2,000 point bonus per night for any stays booked through the website or mobile app. I wasn’t a big fan of Club Carlson but recommended them from time to time mostly for the free night on every award stay if you held their credit card. Alas, when they killed that benefit, they killed the remaining value I saw to recommend the program. There’s still value there, but I think there’s better currency to earn elsewhere.
That’s messed up! A guy walks into an airport with $44,000 in cash (first problem). TSA seizes the cash (second problem). Government won’t give him the money back because he didn’t file an appeal in a timely manner (biggest problem).
May airline stats are out for on-time performance, baggage issues, complaints, etc. My favorite airline, American, has improved noticeably, with Southwest seeing considerable improvement. The shocking one for me is Spirit Air averages only 61% of flights on-time. Yikes!
Speaking of Spirit, Mommy Points details the absolutely the best use of Spirit miles I’ve seen.
Tagging Miles has a list of hotel chains that are pet friendly.
Majesty of the Seas is getting massive reconstructive surgery and staying with Royal Caribbean. Majesty is a smaller ship without a ton of amenities. Small ships can still be fun to sail, especially given the things Royal has planned for it. I’ve been a cruising fan for a number of years and can’t wait to get back out on the water in 2016. MJ on Travel has the details of this change, with the most important detail to me being that the ship will offer free (real) wifi.
Heels First Travel has a report on the changes to the Avis Preferred program based on how much you spend.
More in-flight wine expertise from One Mile at a Time.
Wandering Aramean has updated his complete list of Transatlantic routes served by Star Alliance. This can be a very helpful resource when trying to plan award travel between the US and Europe. There are so many ways to get there from here that I frequently forget some of them.
A magazine in Italy created a fake restaurant and got it to the top of TripAdvisor rankings in that city. There any many hotel and restaurant owners who don’t like TripAdvisor because of inaccurate or fake reviews. And, I still wonder how much the Marriott tie-up with TripAdvisor is going to skew their rankings. HT:Doctor of Credit.
These new routes Air India is launching to the US are further proof how big air travel is growing in India as the country continues to modernize air travel.
Triple Avios points from British Airways on Hyatt stay through the end of September as reported by Loyalty Lobby.
