Best Ways to Australia with Points and Miles

Many travelers have Australia on their bucket list. There really is something for everyone, from the snorkeling and diving at the Great Barrier Reef to wineries, cool cities and spectacular beaches. 

The competition for the very limited number of award seats to get there, however, is fierce. Airlines’ frequent miler programs certainly don’t make it easy and finding award space on the nonstop flights from the U.S. could be quite a challenge.

Best Ways to Earn United Miles

Most people gravitate towards domestic airline loyalty programs. After all, it is easier to stick with programs that you’re familiar with rather than learn the ins and outs of another program. That’s why it is so important to know the best ways to earn United Miles.

Although United doesn’t have the most competitive award rates, one big benefit of booking with United is that it doesn’t pass on fuel surcharges on award tickets.

Traveling During Covid-19

The purpose of this post is not to tell you whether or not you should be traveling. Rather, I’d like to share my experience and my impressions of what it’s like to travel right now. I’ll share my experience with booking flights, what it’s like to fly and stay at hotels during the pandemic and my overall impressions of the precautions taken by hotels, airlines and tourist attractions.

Planning the Trip and Finding Award Space

At the beginning of September, my friends and I felt safe enough to travel abroad and decided to take a trip to Turkey.

How to Book Cheap Domestic Awards – Star Alliance

If you’re anything like us, nearly every moment of this pandemic has been spent dreaming of travel. Especially as we try to avoid nauseating headlines like “Corona” being on the rise for baby names. With U.S. residents barred from entering Europe for the foreseeable future, now is the time to focus on feasible travel.

In this three-part series, we are looking at the basics of the cheapest domestic awards.

United Drops Award Chart November 15

United published some heavy-hitting changes to their loyalty program over the weekend. In a nutshell, United is following Delta down the path towards a totally revenue-based loyalty program.

United has announced dynamic award pricing effective immediately for flights with travel dates of November 15 and on. This means that instead of having set, published prices for award flights, the mileage price will fluctuate based on the cash price. No more award charts.

I Was Just Approved for the United Business Card

In January of 2018, I began a credit card fast that lasted for nine months. In other words, I stopped applying for new credit cards. At that point I had been cutoff from Chase credit cards for a long time, years, and was tired of it. I had opened a number of new credit cards, more than five in the prior two 24 months, which is where the Chase 5/24 rule gets its name from.

The Five Chase Cards to Apply for if You’re a Points Omnivore

In the context of food, an omnivore eats all types of energy sources: animals and plants, and even algae, fungi, and bacteria. In the context of travel rewards, a points omnivore collects any mile or point they can to get more travel. Their motto is a dollar saved is a dollar saved.

This post is for all my points omnivores out there and particularly for those who strive to be one and are just starting to collect rewards cards.

United Business Class to Australia Widely Available Early Aussie Winter

The cheapest level of Business Class award space on United--that is also the only kind of award space bookable with partner miles--is pretty wide open in the early winter months of Australia's winter, which is early summer in the United States. May and June 2019 have the most days available, and with a few scattered seats open in April, July, and August. All beds are fully lie-flat.

This is news because it's not common to see this many Business Class award seats open to Australia, a notoriously hard destination to get to with miles.

The Five Chase Cards You Should Apply For: Combo #1

If you're just starting to collect miles and points, possibly the single best piece of advice is to sign up for five Chase cards before moving on to any other bank's rewards cards. This post is going to talk about which five cards you should choose, depending on a few factors, and why.

The fact of the matter is that Chase will cut you off from eligibility for their travel rewards credit cards once you've opened five credit cards from any bank whatsoever in the last 24 months (not counting most business cards).

$358 Roundtrips to Hawaii From Tons of US Cities

I tweeted this deal first from @MileValueAlerts. Follow @MileValueAlerts on Twitter and follow these directions to get a text message every time I tweet from that account. I tweet from @MileValueAlerts only a few times a month because it is designed to be used only for the best and most limited-time deals–like mistake fares–so that you aren’t bombarded by text messages.

American Airlines and United are in a fare ware right now, both offering cheap roundtrip economy fares to Hawaii.