Flying Blue

Chase Ultimate Rewards Becomes More Valuable

May 23, 2016By Edward Pizzarello4 Comments

I carry 3 Chase cards in my wallet at all times for a reason. Ultimate Rewards is one of the best currencies out there for earning and redeeming points for award travel. Chase just quietly made Ultimate Rewards better.

Summer Vacation Day 4: Moving Our “House On Wheels” To New Hampshire

If you’re just checking in, I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing every day. That means brief daily updates on our summer camping trip. If I’m being honest about our camping experience you should be amused by my misery. Here’s the first few days of our trip: 9 Hours of Driving Gilmore The Merrier One of The Greatest Roller Coasters I’ve Ever Ridden Yesterday was mostly a driving day. We were relocating from Connecticut to the White Mountains in New Hampshire. One of the upsides of a […]

Summer Vacation Day 3: One Of The Greatest Roller Coasters I’ve Ever Experienced

I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing every day, so you should see frequent updates on our summer vacation in the RV. If that’s not your jam, I get it. I’ll be posting about the rest of the travel world from time to time as well. If you do want to follow along: Day 1 Day 2 Lake Compounce may be one of the best amusement parks you’ve never heard of. I sure hadn’t heard of it, and we only ended up here by accident. Nestled in […]

Summer Vacation Day 2: Gilmore The Merrier

These posts are meant to be quick updates about our summer vacation with the RV. Day one found us driving…and driving…..and driving. Day two would start out a bit rough and have some annoying stuff in the middle, but turned out mostly okay. After a long day of driving yesterday, I was in a hurry to get the trailer setup. Once it was level and the electric and water were hooked up I went inside to sit down and catch my breath. I didn’t bother with the sewer pipe hookups. […]

Summer Vacation Day 1: 9 Hours of Driving

Hey, guys. I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing every day. Blogging is absolutely like a muscle. If you don’t use it regularly, it will atrophy over time. Where I used to write twice a day now I look at the keyboard sometimes and can’t even figure out where to start. Some of that is due to medical issues I’ve been dealing with the past few months. I discussed them at the end of this episode if you want to know more. Mostly, it’s just not being […]

Hyatt Announces Triple Points Promo For The Summer

Hyatt announced a promotion where members can earn triple points on stays of two nights or longer. For those planning summer vacations, this is excellent news! Dubbed Bonus Journeys, this promotion will start July 20th and run through September 15th, 2021. It appears that all properties under the Hyatt umbrella are participating, including all of the participating, Small Luxury Hotels of the World, the MGM Resorts properties in Las Vegas as well as a number of brands Hyatt acquired a few years ago (Thompson, Destination, etc). You’ll need to register […]

I Flew Frontier, Saved $400 And Didn’t Die. My Frontier Airlines Review

Those low-cost carriers always have very appetizing fare sales. Who wouldn’t want to pay $20 to fly somewhere? But, what does $20 really buy you? I found out exactly what Frontier does (and doesn’t) offer customers on my first flight with them recently.

How To Use New Metro Silver Line To Get Between Dulles and Reagan National Airports

People talk about how bad the traffic is in places like Los Angeles with plenty of adjectives. And, it is quite bad. But, the traffic in DC is what I refer to as “stealthy bad”. It doesn’t get the same press that LA traffic does, but a trip that normally takes an hour can easily turn into a 3-hour ordeal. With visiting dignitaries, protests and construction as variables, weather can also wreak havoc on a system that consistently backs up during rush hour. For those of us that live in […]

Update: American Airlines Variable Choice Plus Pricing A Feature, Not A Bug

I have to admit, I was pretty pleased with the original announcement that American Airlines was creating bundled pricing that included change fees at a lower apparent cost. Things got a little better when American also announced they were expanding the timeframe you could request a same day change to your flight. And, then things started to get a bit screwy. It started with just one flight I couldn’t get to price right with Choice Plus as an add-on. But, then I did a bit more digging and found out […]

A Summary Of United Airlines Global Services Benefits

As travel has gotten more stressful the benefits of elite status are even more valuable. In some cases, what used to be free for everyone is now only free for those customers that fly most frequently. I value my American Airlines Executive Platinum status more highly than any status I’ve earned, including 1K service with United Airlines. However, Global Services is another matter. For those not aware, Global Services is an invitation-only status level that United bestows on their best customers. What defines a best customer? Well, United doesn’t list […]

Is Foursquare Dead?

Venture Beat doesn’t think so, and I’m not 100% sure they’re wrong. But, before I discuss the article, a little background on why someone allergic to social media like me became a Foursquare nut. A few years ago, a company called TopGuest came up with this concept where you could earn airline miles and hotel points for checking in at various places on Foursquare. I can’t say I thought it was a terribly good business model, but they convinced a bunch of hotel chains to hand out miles for this. […]