American Airlines and JetBlue have announced a very interesting partnership this morning. For over a decade, I flew American Airlines every week. During those times, there were always two weak areas in their coverage. The northeast and northwest parts of the country were lacking great connectivity. American Airlines solved the northwest issue by forming a much tighter partnership with Alaska Airlines earlier this year. Side note: it’s been such a crazy few months I thought this happened last year….. Now, American has worked to shore up their lack of connections […]
Beginner’s Guide To Renting An RV During COVID-19 Crisis: Choosing A Rental
Our family loves to travel. We’ve frequently bypassed desirable destinations in the United States in favor of using our miles and points to travel abroad. Italy is one of our favorite places, but we’ve also had incredible trips to Australia, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam and many more great destinations. Disney parks around the world are another of our favorite destinations. Those trips have made it difficult to explore very much of the US. COVID-19 turned that formula on its head. Most countries won’t even let Americans in right now. Many of […]
Hyatt Offering Up To A 25% Discount On Award Stays And Free Parking Until October
This may be the turning point where we start to see really meaningful offers from travel companies looking to motivate us to start traveling. Early on in the COVID-19 crisis the scramble was to confirm to customers that their elite status would be extended. Brands like Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott, American, Delta and United made announcements to put customers at ease. There were also some early offers of shortcuts to higher status levels to try to spur customers to travel more. Marriott even introduced a pretty lucrative discount on gift cards […]
From Our Daughter: Hersheypark During a Pandemic With Anxiety
Earlier this week our family took a socially distanced visit to Hersheypark. There was general nervousness as parents. The risk was really low that someone in our family would contract COVID-19. But, we didn’t have to go to a theme park. We took lots of precautions and came up with strategies to help manage our daughter’s anxiety. The more we talk to folks about her anxiety, the more we hear from other families who deal with something similar. To that end, a friend asked if our daughter would share what she […]
Is It Safe To Visit Hersheypark? Here’s What To Expect When Hersheypark Opens This Week
For those of you that follow our families travels on a regular basis, you can usually find pictures of us in a theme park somewhere. We’re equal opportunity people, hitting up popular parks like Disney World and Universal Studios, while also visiting Legoland and Hersheypark multiple times a year. My friend Richard Kerr asked this week, “Does the Pizza family have season passes to every theme park in the country?” The answer is no, but we do have season passes to more than one. After a one-year hiatus, we decided […]
Europe Is Closed To Americans, Canada Too. What’s The Human Side?
Aside from all of the fear over the past 90 days (wow, has it really only been a few months?) while the COVID-19 pandemic ramped up in the US, there have been so many interesting things to watch in the world of travel. How does an airline go from full planes to virtually empty, with hundreds of planes grounded? If you’re a government agency, how do you effectively enforce a quarantine? These are very, very different issues than what we normally deal with. And, now that people are starting to […]
Marriott Rolls Out A Summer Promo. Is It Worth It For You?
As things start to thaw slowly from the absolute freeze on travel during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, travel brands are trying to figure out what it will take to motivate us to spend our money on travel again. Hyatt was the first into the market with a triple points earning promotion across their entire portfolio of properties. They traditionally focus their summer promotion on rebating points to folks who hold their co-branded credit card. This summer, they’ve chosen so far to incentivize paid travel (though they did offer […]
What Does A Complimentary Hotel Breakfast Look Like During COVID-19?
There are so many things I wonder about in the post-COVID world. I still haven’t gotten on an airplane since March and don’t have any tickets booked. My friend Mike who writes the Coworkaholic blog took a road trip from Chicago to Orlando this week. He stopped at two different Hyatt Place properties on the way. Here’s what he found. It took me a while to get comfortable with the idea of traveling in a post-COVID world. And almost as long to put my thoughts together on my first experience. For over […]
Wow! Air Canada Offering 50% Rebate On Award Flights
Air Canada has definitely been making some noise lately. We should expect to hear announcements soon about their new loyalty program, but they’re still busy ahead of releasing those details. Just a few weeks ago they had a really incredible mileage sale. I had a package of miles sitting in my shopping cart when they went on sale but ultimately wasn’t able to get the purchase confirmed. Still, it was an incredibly popular deal that some folks were able to score. Now, they’re back with what may end up being […]
The Two Credit Cards At The Top Of My Wallet Right Now
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a lot of challenges on people. Way down the list of important items are the decisions we’re all making with the credit cards in our wallet. Many of us have plenty of travel-related credit cards in our wallet. I’ve got a podcast episode coming up later this week that goes through my entire wallet. For now, though, I wanted to share my short-term credit card strategy. There are a ton of short-term opportunities to earn extra miles with credit cards right now. Many cards have […]
