Author Archives: Shelli

About Shelli

Shelli Stein is a health and fitness entrepreneur who travels the world in search of culture, food, and fun! Besides contributing to Travel with Grant, you can find her at Joy in Movement.

the tail fin of an airplane

My Lunch Conversation with a 30+ Year Airline Veteran (She Started with PSA in 1968)

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have had a 30+ year career with the airlines? I know people who are currently working in the airline industry, but I’ve never had the chance to really sit down and talk to an airline veteran of so many years… until the other day. I was on one of my walks in Coronado making notes for my Coronado / San Diego series when I struck up a conversation with a woman who was also taking a walk. I figured she was a Coronado local, which she was, but I came to find out she was also retired from a 30+ year career with the airlines. So later that week, over coffee and scones at Tartines, I talked with Janet. I figured if I was intrigued by the changes she’d seen in all those years, and her other impressions of the airline industry, as well as any places she’d been and enjoyed, you might want to eavesdrop on our conversation and hear what I learned from Janet.

I’ve always wondered how people got started when they work for the airlines for so many years. Janet had one of those I-guess-it-was-meant-to-be stories. In her early 20s, she and a girlfriend came out to San Diego from the east coast. No job. No plans. They stayed with a friend and, one day, a neighbor came by. Naturally, he asked Janet what she would do for work, and when she said she had no idea, he said he worked for the airlines, they were hiring, and she should come by and see about getting a job.

That was the summer of 1968 and the airline was PSA! Pacific Southwest Airlines was the first large discount airline and billed itself as the “World’s Friendliest Airline”. Maybe you remember PSA, I sure do! At first, they only flew intra-state in California. So imagine a lot of up and down and up and down in one day kind of flights. Janet mentioned that this was great for the women crew because they could be home with their kids every night.

Another interesting fact she mentioned was that one of the reasons the PSA crews were so young was because they could hire 18 year olds. PSA didn’t cross state lines. They did, however, serve small bottles of alcohol, but didn’t open them for you. The bigger airline carriers did serve alcohol, so they couldn’t hire anyone younger than 21! The crews were young and fun, and Janet told me they still have PSA get togethers and parties :)

a group of women wearing pink and red outfits

PSA Pacific Southwest Airlines flight attendants. Image source: http://www.psa-history.org/sights_and_sounds/stewardesses

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Free American Express Card Benefit: Free 2-Day Shipping with ShopRunner

Did you realized that at the end of 2016, American Express started offering a free ShopRunner membership to all their cardholders? This offer doesn’t expire, as long as you have an active American Express account. So it’s basically a lifetime ShopRunner account. Did you sign up? I realized today I had forgotten to sign up for this benefit!

ShopRunner provides the following benefits:

  • Complimentary 2-Day Shipping
  • No Minimum Order Size
  • Free Shipping on Returns
  • ShopRunner Member Deals
  • Shop Thousands of Brands

So if you never signed up, do that now. I’m now a ShopRunner member and it’ll be great for ordering items online and having them delivered fast.

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a green and yellow flag

Top Picks & Favorite Places to See, Swim & Eat in Jamaica

There are people who travel to the same spot year after year. Their special spot speaks to them in many ways, so they return again and again. Recently, when discussing special spots, a friend started talking about his favorite spot: Jamaica. I’ll admit to never having even thought about a trip to Jamaica, so I got really curious and asked him to tell me more. He said that while Jamaica has grown, which means more resorts, hotels, and restaurants, but he still loves the climate, the people, and the land itself. He loves the scenery. Here are his top picks and favorite places:

Blue Hole Mineral Spring is his go-to place for swimming. It’s in Negril. Naturally occurring minerals from the surrounding limestone keeps the water clean and clear.

a blue water in a cave

Blue Hole Mineral Spring in Jamaica. Image source: https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g1625485-d1640953-i154099470-Blue_Hole_Mineral_Spring-Little_Bay_Westmoreland_Parish_Jamaica.html

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Want to Track Hotel Reservations for Price Drops? Try Pruvo!

A few weeks ago Pruvo, a new company in the hotel booking niche, contacted me to see if I wanted to give them a try. Why me? They saw the blog posts I wrote about AutoSlash. Pruvo figured if I liked using a car rental site like AutoSlash to save money, I’d like a site like Pruvo that saves me money on my hotel reservations. I agreed to test them out, and let them know up front that I would also be writing a review of my experience. Pruvo’s management team was very responsive to my emails and we were off to a great start.

Though it may seem obvious, let’s first talk about what a hotel booking site is. A hotel booking site finds the lowest price possible for hotel rooms. And in Pruvo’s case, even after you’ve made the hotel reservation. Pruvo doesn’t actually consider itself a booking site, but rather, they see themselves as a hotel rebooking site! But they sure do rely on hotel booking sites to monitor prices. Pruvo sees itself as a complementary service that is used after a hotel reservation is made.

a screenshot of a hotel room

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How to Create a British Airways Household Account

Do you remember the first time you used British Airways Avios? I do! And for me, that was also when they took their special place in my heart. And a special place in my award booking world as well! I use British Airways Avios for short haul domestic flights, getting me from the states to Europe or within Europe. I realized that not a year goes by without me using British Airways Avios. When I found out about being able to pool Avios among family members, I became an even bigger Avios fan girl because this really simplified award bookings for me. It created more value to my stash of Avios as well. Did you know that British Airways allows pooling points among family members? It’s called a Household Account!

Benefits of Creating a Household Account

Creating a Household Account allows you to redeem Avios from any member of the household to create an award booking. So if you don’t have enough Avios for an award, but a member of your household does, you can pool points. Of course this works both ways.

If you find a Household Account too restricting, you don’t have to have one to move miles between accounts. For a fee, British Airways does let you do this. And you can book one-way award redemptions, so if you don’t have enough Avios in your account for a roundtrip award, someone else can book one leg for you. But maybe a Household Account WOULD work well for you! Let’s take a closer look at how Household Accounts work. Continue reading