American Archives - Your Mileage May Vary

Oops! What To Do When You Book Flights To The Wrong Airport

You ever spend hours looking for flights to a location, finally decide on which flight you’re going to take and how to pay for it (cash or points) and then head off to bed, happy that you’ve finally finished booking a complicated itinerary? You wake up the next morning to book the corresponding hotel and realize that you booked flights to and from the wrong airport. Really? Really?? Ugh.

Here’s what to do when you’re finished beating yourself up about how stupid you were not to check this before spending hours on finding flights to somewhere that’s nowhere near where you need to be (Note from Sharon: And when your wife is done teasing you. Because oh yes I did!).

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Should You Earn Rental Credits Or Frequent Flyer Miles For National Car Rentals?

I’m a big fan of National Car Rental’s Emerald Aisle program. I’ve been a member for 20 years now (Ugh, Really? 20 years?) (Note from Sharon – when did I marry such an old man? LOLOL!). For all that time and for all those rentals, I’ve never earned a single rental credit with National. I’ve earned frequent flyer miles for my rentals instead. For my travels, I just don’t rent cars often enough so it would take me forever to earn a free rental day.

National gives you 1 rental credit for each rental and if you rent a car for more than a week, you can earn extra credits. Here’s a breakdown of the earning for longer rentals since this information isn’t easily found on National’s website. It took some digging and I’m not surprised they want to keep it a secret: Continue reading “Should You Earn Rental Credits Or Frequent Flyer Miles For National Car Rentals?”

What Happens When Everyone Is Elite?

“… and when everyone’s super, no one will be.” – Syndrome from “The Incredibles”

Not the quote you’d think would inspire me to write a travel blog, is it? However, it popped into my head when reading Nick’s post on Frequent Miler about how having Diamond Hilton status may or may not have helped him out on a recent stay. He has top-level Hilton status because he holds the Amex Hilton Aspire credit card, with an annual fee of $450. He mentioned a comment from a reader introducing the idea that when everyone has access to something, be it status or superpowers, that thing no longer becomes important because anyone can have it.

There was a time, not too long ago, that to achieve top-level status with any travel company, like an airline or hotel chain, you actually needed to use their services and use them a lot. This meant you either had to be a true road warrior, spending much of your work time staying in hotels and flying from worksite to worksite, or a dedicated travel hacker who spent days or more likely weeks making mileage and mattress runs trying to rack up credits for the least amount of money possible.

Those days are gone.

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Hints For Last Minute Shoppers Who Will Buy Just About Anything For Travelers

It’s Christmas evening. Most of the presents have been exchanged but maybe you’re on the way to a party and didn’t purchase a gift for that frequent traveler in your life. Fortunately, several airlines have items for sale perfect for the last minute, non-discerning shopper.

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We Flew Like Frequent Flyers (Which We’re Not) On American For One Flight. What’s Different?

When Sharon and I fly, we’re usually sitting somewhere in the back half of the airplane because I’m too cheap to pay for a better seat and we have no status to allow us to get the better seat assignments. There was the one exception this year when I paid way too many miles for a last-minute seat on a Delta flight and ended up getting upgraded to a Comfort Plus seat, but that was just a lucky break. However there was one flight this year where I knew we were going to get a better seat, unless it was taken away from us. The flight home from New York on the Monday after Thanksgiving on American Airlines.

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