Windbag Miles

Since I was just in the process of planning a transcon trip, I had a chance to look into saver availability across the major carriers for the next couple months. United and American didn’t have much – maybe a few days scattered here and there on United, and slightly better on American. Still, 32,500 AAnnoying milesContinue reading “Holy transcon, Virgin America!”

This is maybe the most ridiculous post you’ll ever read on a points and miles blog, given that it concerns a review of a lounge I visited fourteen months ago. As a result, everything about the lounge could be different by now, and I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t been there in fourteen months. Why amContinue reading “Time for a new Lounge Life post! Today’s entrant: Art & Lounge in Newark airport.”

I thought I had stumbled upon the glitch of the century while putting together a trip to New York this spring… If you don’t have millions of points, New York hotels can be tough, since even the mediocre ones are high-category hotels within the loyalty program. I had planned to cash out my IHG points onContinue reading “Oh Hyatt, you goddamned tease”

That’s a rhetorical question. I stumbled on this gem today while looking for flights to NYC in April, and I was originally trying to get there on miles. As is usually the case, United had no availability at the saver level, so I started looking at standard awards. I know! But I’m kind of hard-upContinue reading “Is it worth $687 to try Polaris on a transcon?”

I’m not supposed to say this, but I haven’t really felt like blogging the past few days, given that the President of the United States is now Donald Trump. Looking through my Facebook feed, which is mostly stuffed with pictures of people marching in protest of one of the biggest pieces of shit in theContinue reading “How crazy do you drive yourself in order to maximize the return on every last dollar you spend?”

Follow me, or don’t. I just created the account tonight because apparently having a twitter account is something bloggers do. The Points Guy was the first account I followed, because his jetsetting luxury lifestyle inspires me to use my #miles to live my #bestlife.

TL;DR – I like to see things in person rather than just looking at pictures. That’s the point of all this… read on at your own risk (of extreme boredom). As much as I’d like to, I can’t take credit for that title, since it’s the title of a song in Popstar: Never Stop NeverContinue reading “Mona Lisa you’re an overrated piece of shit (also, some stuff about Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School)”

TL;DR: you may not be able to find a direct flight to wherever you’re trying to go in China, but if you’re flexible with your gateway and connecting cities, West Coast transpacific availability is wide open right now. Because my travel interests skew toward European destinations, most of the coverage of airlines and availability on thisContinue reading “You know where you can stuff your Eurocentrism, AKA how’s award availability to Asia? Pretty good, it turns out.”

I’m not some fussy elitist who thinks he’s above budget travel (I’ve happily flown Norwegian a number of times), but I’m becoming less and less interested in the almost daily hyperventilation over WOW Air’s latest screaming deal. $15 flights to Iceland! $5 flights to Iceland! Free flights to Iceland but you have to bring your ownContinue reading “Wow, I really don’t care about WOW Air.”

One interest I haven’t written about much on this blog is airline identity and branding design… I guess you could say that I actually care what the marketing departments at the airlines are trying to communicate to me. There are a bunch of books on this subject, and I’ve been building a collection of themContinue reading “Airline design files: FHK Henrion and the KLM Logo”