ATX Fun — Austin-San Antonio Fun, Travel & Educational Opportunities
How Austinites Can Have Fun, Travel Cheap, Learn Something, Save Money and Enjoy Life!
In general, you need some sort of activity in your account to protect your miles and points. In a few cases, such as All Nippon Airways, your miles do expire and there is nothing you can do to prevent it…use them or lose them.
Which Points Transfer to Which Airlines? Handy Chart for Converting!
Many consider Starwood Starpoints to be the most valuable “currency” because they can be transferred into the most different airline frequent-flyer programs. Plus, for every 20,000 Starpoints you transfer, you receive an additional 5000 frequent-flyer miles.
The bad guys phone when you are sound asleep, say they work at the front desk of your hotel and that your credit card payment at check-in didn’t go through…will you please give them the numbers again.
It’s middle of the night, your brain is still half-asleep, so you comply. As soon as they have your number they begin charging things to your card.
Of course, you can call the credit-card company and reverse all these charges, but you may not know you’ve been scammed until you receive the bill back at home.
Airfare Steal: Los Angeles to Tokyo from $444 Roundtrip on Four Major Airlines!
http://www.secretflying.com/2016/07/los-angeles-to-tokyo-japan-for-only-444-roundtrip/
Each of the airlines has its own rules and restrictions, see the blog post for details.
How I cancelled a Priceline ‘Name Your Own Price’ hotel reservation for free
The comments to this blog post are very instructive.
The idea is to call the hotel first and get them to agree to a cancellation. Then call Priceline, tell them the hotel has agreed to cancellation and give the name of the hotel person. A Priceline representative will call the hotel to verify, then refund your money.
https://skift.com/2016/07/29/you-can-soon-fly-to-cuba-but-only-after-satisfying-all-the-rules/
American, JetBlue, Spirit and other airlines are cleared to begin scheduled service to the island, some as early as September. JetBlue will have fares as low as $99 (or 3500 points).
https://booking.flyfrontier.com/Flight/Select
The above link should take you to Calendar View, which will show you many available dates for this low low fare.
If you want to avoid the fees that Frontier charges, you can fly on Southwest for just $117 r/t or United for $133 r/t.
Nonstop Flights: Austin to/from Denver $117 r/t – United / Southwest
Get Into These Countries Faster With Their Trusted Traveler Programs
As you read the blog post, you will realize that the U.S. Global Entry program is much less expensive ($20/year) than most others.
You need to schedule and attend an in-person interview to get Global Entry. Most major U.S. airports have enrollment centers, and a new temporary one is opening soon in London.
I have had Global Entry for several years, and I highly recommend it. GE not only lets you re-enter the U.S. quickly, but it also gives PreCheck which gets you through domestic airport security without the nuisance conditions (shoes off, laptops out, liquids out) that other flyers face.
Thomas Cook: An Airline You’ve (probably) Never Heard of Before
Thomas Cook is a real airline, which previously flew mostly charters but is now branching out to scheduled service. It is associated with Condor Airlines, a low-cost carrier operating a few routes in the United States.
Thomas Cook flies a trans-Atlantic route from New York to Manchester, England.
One of the tips that I always use is, do not make eye contact with a person that you will or just did photograph. I always pretend to look at something else after taking a candid photo, and I don’t recall ever being “caught.”
Well, except for that time in Shanghai…but the guys I photographed were engaged in a criminal activity and they were polite in “inviting” me to erase the photo (and making sure I had). Except for that time, it’s always worked for me.
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