Cheap Flights To Hawaii, Lots of Etihad Award Space and Chris Christie Weighs In (Heh!) on Cuba Flights

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.  Culled from over 100 blogs/authors I follow, 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:

Cheap Flights of The Day: Decent prices on flights to Hawaii from the East coast.

InsideFlyer Thread of the Day:  Do you prefer to check-in via kiosk or an agent?

Norwegian Air places largest 787 Dreamliner order with Boeing of any airline in Europe, worth roughly $5 Billion.  Now, that’s list price and I’m sure they paid less.  But, it’s a pretty big commitment for an airline of this size.  This has the feel of “boom or bust”.  If the economy turns a bit or there’s some other catalyst (like Ryanair flying older planes but dropping prices to hurt them), then this order doesn’t likely meet completion.  At any rate, I’ll get a chance to try out their product (though not a 787) in about a month on their new Caribbean service, barring a family wide 102.7.

When I saw the title of this post, I just thought it was crazy New Jersey politics.  But, I actually agree with Chris Christie here.

Amazon has decided to get out of the travel business, for the most part.

Tons and tons and tons of Etihad premium cabin award availability!  I’ve never flown Etihad, and this one is winking at me to cross off my list, though I did just ticket a 4-day trip to Australia to try out Qantas’ F product.

Is the United Airlines/Marriott Rewards double bonus points promo worth exploring?

Meanwhile, United is testing a partial “Southwest-ification” of their boarding process.

American Airlines is building a new headquarters right beside their existing one.  I didn’t know that was the old Sabre headquarters beside them, but that kinda makes sense.

Did you buy a pair of power lace shoes from Nike to celebrate Back to the Future day?