Good morning everyone. The points and miles blogosphere is abuzz about the latest Points Match offer from JetBlue. I sent an email with my Virgin America and JetBlue account details to JetBlue on Saturday morning (7:38am PT) and eagerly awaited a response from JetBlue.
That response came Monday afternoon (3:37pm PT) and now I just needed to book and take a round trip JetBlue flight before August 31, 2016 to receive the points match bonus.
Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. I will be in Orange County for 4th of July weekend and I wanted to do a (long overdue) OC Travel Hackers Meetup on Saturday afternoon at the Tustin District In-N-Out. I’m looking forward to seeing a few familiar faces and meeting some new travel hackers in Orange County.
Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend. A few months ago, I wrote 2 Centurion Lounge Meetups: SFO @ 12pm and LAS @ 6pm (Saturday, November 7). In that post, I announced that I would be holding 2 meetups at 2 different Centurion Lounges on the same day. Some of you thought it was a great ideas, while others of you thought it was a crazy idea. I actually agree with both parties. A few weeks after writing the above blog post, TravelCon Las Vegas was announced and it is being held the exact same day as my meetups. The easy thing would have been to reschedule the meetup for another weekend and go to TravelCon Las Vegas. Unfortunately, I know a few people who booked flights and made hotel reservations in anticipation of the event. I would have felt terrible changing the meetup date and costing people money, so I decided to forgo the TravelCon Las Vegas conference and hold my meetups as originally planned.
A few weeks ago, I received an email from an American Express Public Affairs & Communications representative. To my surprise, she was very excited and enthusiastic about the meetup idea and asked if there was anything she could do to make my meetups more special and memorable. I thanked her for reaching out to me and I asked her if she could reserve a few tables in both lounges and if we could receive a behind-the-scenes tour of the lounges. She responded,
“We look forward to hosting you all. We’ll be sure to hold tables for you at both locations. I am copying in our lounge manager for SFO, (name), who will help set up a space for you all at SFO. (name) is also working with our LAS team to make sure you all have a few tables held as well. Additionally, the team is happy to provide you all a mini tour behind the lounge, per your request.”
(Hat Tip to Travel Codex’s post and my friend Victor)
A few months ago, I wrote Access Centurion Lounges without your American Express Platinum Card. In that post, I showed how you could enter any Centurion Lounge (or Studio) without having your American Express Platinum Card. All you need to do is have the lounge attendant look you up by your SSN in American Express’s system. Until recently, it was impossible to access a Priority Pass lounge without presenting your physical Priority Pass card at the lounge. With the updated Priority Pass app (iOS or Android), you can now access most Priority Pass lounges with the app, no physical card required. Since I have an iPhone, I will show you how to access the lounge with the iOS app, but the process should be very similar for Android devices. Here is an introduction to the Priority Pass app. If you are new to the app, read about some of the built-in features and functionalities of the app.
Greetings from the American Express Centurion Lounge in San Francisco. I couldn’t think of a better place to hang out until my evening flight down to Orange County. In my hurried packing this morning, I forgot to grab my American Express Platinum Card (and any other travel credit card or lounge card). I was freaking out because I was going to get to SFO 2-3 hours before my flight and I didn’t want to hangout by the gate.
I was tempted to grab the BART back to Walnut Creek and walk home to get the card, but I was hoping there was a better solution. I have an American Express phone number saved to my phone (I don’t remember which credit card it is for), so I called the number and pressed 0 a few times until I got a helpful representative on the phone. I told him my problem and he was able to find my account by using my SSN. He said that the American Express Platinum Line (800-525-3355) would be able to answer my question.
He transferred me and I told the second gentleman my problem. He knew just what to do. He told me to go to the Centurion Lounge and tell the front desk that I forgot my American Express Platinum Card. They would be able to call a special number to verify my American Express Platinum Card membership and allow me to enter the Centurion Lounge. Continue reading