Registration for the 2015 Chicago Seminars is now live as of noon ET. Click here to register. As in past years, it costs $100 and there are 500 spots.

The seminars will take place from 5 PM on Friday October 16 until 4 PM on Sunday October 18 at the Holiday Inn Chicago -- Elk Grove, which is NOT in the city but near O'Hare. That's convenient for 4,500 to 7,500 Avios flights from much of the country.

I will be speaking at the Seminars.

Registration for the 2015 Chicago Seminars is now live as of noon ET. Click here to register. As in past years, it costs $100 and there are 500 spots.

The seminars will take place from 5 PM on Friday October 16 until 4 PM on Sunday October 18 at the Holiday Inn Chicago -- Elk Grove, which is NOT in the city but near O'Hare. That's convenient for 4,500 to 7,500 Avios flights from much of the country.

I will be speaking at the Seminars.

Every time you use your credit card, the bank is earning swipe fees from the merchant. It's these swipe fees plus other ways that banks profit off credit cards--interest fees, late fees, advertising to cardholders--that pay for the perks we get from credit cards.

How much of these fees are rebated to us? According to a recent article in The Economist:
[C]ard issuers are providing bigger rebates on purchases, more frequent-flyer miles as a sign-up bonus and longer interest-free periods for those who transfer balances from other cards.

Every time you use your credit card, the bank is earning swipe fees from the merchant. It's these swipe fees plus other ways that banks profit off credit cards--interest fees, late fees, advertising to cardholders--that pay for the perks we get from credit cards.

How much of these fees are rebated to us? According to a recent article in The Economist:
[C]ard issuers are providing bigger rebates on purchases, more frequent-flyer miles as a sign-up bonus and longer interest-free periods for those who transfer balances from other cards.

Are you sick of missing out on mistake fares, mistake rates on hotels, and other limited-time offers that you didn't hear about in time?

Here's the brand new solution:

I've created a new Twitter account, @MileValueAlerts, that I'll only use for huge deals you need to know about right now before it's too late.

Last month, the new design of milevalue.com went live, and I walked through some of the changes in "MileValue Looks Different."

The team behind the design was Third Harbor, specifically Tyler and Emily.

Tyler has a lot of experience in the field, but this specific company is new, and he was too busy working on several client projects to get his own website up until now. This is how Tyler explained to me what Third Harbor is:

My new company is called 'Third Harbor' (http://www.thirdharbor.com).

I looked back on my 2014 travels on New Year's Eve, and I want to share my 2015 travel goals today. More importantly, I want to explain how you can turn your 2015 travel goals into reality by taking the first baby steps toward your dream trip today.
My Plan
I have a general idea that I am in the middle of about a nine month trip that will follow summer from South America to Europe.

Right now I am in Chile, trekking Torres del Paine.

2014 was a great year of travel for me, and hopefully for you too.

Last year (2013) was a year of deep and broad travel since I spent almost six months in Argentina and another two months flying through 21 total countries.

Merry Christmas from Ushuaia, Argentina.

I just had the pleasure of delivering presents at midnight in full Papá Noel (Santa Claus) suit to the hostel owners' excited 1-10 year old kids. I should have pictures soon, but I was too busy ho-ho-hoing to snap any.

The Washington Post has an interesting poll running right now. It's really just one question about what you call the commercial airport closest to DC.

Beneath that, there are several demographic questions that I'm sure they'll try to correlate your answer like how old you are, where you grew up, and how often you fly out of that airport that we're trying to figure out what to call.

I grew up in Fredericksburg, VA, which is about equidistant from said airport, Dulles, and Richmond International Airport.