Tag Archives: Frequent Flyer Miles

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Reminder: San Diego Travel Meetup at Park & Rec (Saturday, April 29 @ 12pm)

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Good afternoon everyone, happy almost weekend!  I just wanted to remind those of you in the San Diego area that I will be in San Diego this weekend and partnering with the San Diego Churning Meetup group.  I spoke with Eddy, the organizer of the meetup, and we are very excited to do a joint meetup on Saturday afternoon.  The meetup is at Park & Rec, a cool bar in University Heights.  They only serve drinks there, but there are a few restaurants nearby (Bahn Thai, Soltan Banoo Restaurant & Plumeria Vegetarian) that we can order food and bring back to Park & Rec.

  • Where: Park & Rec, 4612 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA 92116 (Google Maps)
  • When: Saturday, April 29 @ 12-2PM

San Diego Meetup Park Rec Google Map

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a screenshot of a hotel

An Introduction to Hotel Hustle (My Favorite Hotel Award Search Tool)

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It seems to me in the travel world of my dreams, the best possible world would be the one where we make a choice, set an alert either for availability or price, and then technology kicks in and does the rest. I don’t have coding or software design skills, so for me, it’s still like living in the world of the Jetsons that my travel dream world has been here for some time already. But in my dream world, of course, this all goes off without a hitch :)

I’ve found that Hotel Hustle is the best and easiest hitch-less hotel tool to use, and I was reminded of this just yesterday. Grant hasn’t written about Hotel Hustle, so I wanted to make sure that the TWG posse is aware of just how great Hotel Hustle is. Hotel Hustle is the brainchild of Seth Miller, The Wandering Aramean. Seth writes code to relax, and I’m sure glad he does! The basic idea is that it’s a hotel award search tool.

Hotel Hustle Searching for Hotels

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Chasing American Airlines Elite Status and Knowing When to Stop

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Buenos dias everyone. Last weekend, I was doing some trip planning for May, based on the following parameters:

  • I’ll be in Washington DC for work from April 29–May 5
  • My partner and I want to go to Japan in early May to see the wisteria at Ashikaga Flower Park and the Ghibli Museum (we have tickets for May 13). Dates are still up in the air because we’re waiting for him to get his university class schedule
  • I have a meeting in New York City on May 20th
  • I have a Qatar business class mistake fare booked from Denpasar to Los Angeles on May 26 that earns nearly 20,000 Elite Qualifying Miles and 2,600 Elite Qualifying Dollars each way towards AAdvantage status
  • I need to be in Providence for the graduation of one of my best friends on May 28, and then have a work meeting in Boston for several days afterward
  • I’ll be away from home for a month from mid-June to mid-July

I was racking my brain trying to figure out a way to make this all work, and came up with the following options, which I sent to my friend Jon, a fellow travel hacker and food blogger:

A flight map illustrating the following routing: MEX-SFO-TPE-NRT-HKG-NRT-JFK-NRT-HKG-DPS-LAX-BOS-EWR-MEX

Option 1: stay in Asia after my partner leaves, fly to NYC for meeting, fly back to Asia, return to US on QR mistake fare then go straight to Providence/Boston, return home June 1 or 2. Over 44,000 miles in less than a month

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PSA: Book 2 One Way Flights on Southwest Airlines & Direct Message them on Twitter

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  The Easter Bunny took a liking to me and gave me a small box of See’s Candy, but enough about me and my love / addiction to sweets.  A few days ago, I needed to make a change to an existing Southwest Airlines reservation, but I booked it as a roundtrip flight (San Francisco to San Diego).  I wanted to change my trip so that I would be able to fly from San Francisco to San Diego, but return from Orange County and fly into Oakland (I know we have all done that a few times, right?).

Long story short, when you want to change a roundtrip Southwest Airlines flight, you cannot change the departure and arrival cities for a leg of your reservation.  I could probably change the return flight to fly San Diego to Oakland, but that wouldn’t work for me.  I also couldn’t cancel just the return flight either.  Lastly, if I canceled the entire reservation, I would end up paying much more since my outbound flight from San Francisco to San Diego had gone up in price since I originally booked the flight.

Luckily, I have a secret weapon when it comes to making complicated changes to Southwest Airlines reservations… Twitter direct message.  Unlike Ben who wrote Why I Don’t Bother With Airline Customer Service Via Twitter Anymore, I have gotten great customer service from Southwest Airlines, Virgin America, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue (among many other companies).  I have sent direct messages to Southwest Airlines in the past and they were always very quick to respond and always provided great customer service.  In this instance, I clearly explained that I wanted to cancel the return flight but keep the outbound flight intact.  A few minutes later, my direct message was seen and my reservation was updated.  I then had a travel credit available which I used to book my return flight from Orange County to Oakland.  The entire process took about 20 minutes.

Southwest Airlines Direct Message 4-11-2017

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Award Booking Services are like 21st Century Travel Agents

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Do you ever use a travel agent? Maybe that’s a silly question to ask miles and points people, but maybe not! I came across a blog piece written by Christine over at Frugal Travel Guy. She points out that there are several situations where it’s “prudent and even beneficial” to use a professional. And I agree. I have two cousins who are long-time travel agents and are dedicated to their clients, but you know what I found out? Neither of them knew much at all about miles and points.

Christine’s reasoning for using travel agents got me thinking, and so much of what she said also pertained to using a miles and points award booking service like Juicy Miles. So let’s take a closer look at 4 reasons and see if you should EVER use an award booking service.

1. An event that’s too important to leave to chance is a good reason to use an award booking service. Special occasions are, after all, special. I’d say getting to safari locations, big events where you need multiple seats, and honeymoons, certainly qualify. I’m not saying getting multiple awards seats is always easy, but I’d certainly suggest that a professional has a bird’s eye view into whether or not that’s even possible given your miles/points, destination, and dates. Continue reading →