Columbus, OH

Frequent Miler

Save 20% when booking Southwest award flights and using promo code MAX20. Must book by June 30th and travel between August 20th and November 20th. 20 percent promotion code savings valid for one-way or round trip Wanna Get Away® and Wanna Get Away Plus® fares booked on Southwest.com® from June 28-30, 2024 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (the “Booking Period”) and flown between August 20-November 20, 2024 (“Travel Period”). Travel to/from Orange County (SNA) excluded. Promotion code savings are applied before government taxes and fees.

Southwest Sale: Get 20% Off Both Cash and Points Bookings

Mark your calendars: if you have Bilt points, Monday will be a great day to consider transferring them. If you’d like to fly Air France or KLM in business class, we published a couple of helpful tricks this week, whether that’s how to find a calendar of availability or how to book via chat with Virgin Atlantic. Read about all that and a lot more in this Frequent Miler Week in Review.

Bigness from Bilt, tricks for booking Air France & KLM, updated hotel point values and more [Week in Review]

Richmond, VA

Southwest isn’t the only one running a sale today. JetBlue is running one too, giving 25% off when using promo code FALL2024. You’ll need to be quick though as bookings have to be made by tonight (July 10). The Deal. Save 25% on JetBlue flights when using promo...

JetBlue sale: Save 25% with promo code FALL2024 (Book by 7/10/24)

Hawaii State

Save up to 40% on flights to/from Hawaii with Southwest when using promo code HAWAII40. Up to 40 percent promotion code savings valid for round trip Wanna Get Away and Wanna Get Away Plus fares booked on Southwest.com from July 9-11, 2024 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (the “Booking Period”) and flown between August 13-December 17, 2024 (the “Travel Period”).

Southwest Hawaii sale: Save up to 40% with promo code HAWAII40

Sonesta is a hotel program that’s tended to fly under the radar for most points and miles folks (including me). It’s been around since the 1930’s, but remained fairly small for several decades. That’s changed in the last ten years or so and it’s now become one of the fastest-growing hospitality companies in the US. In 2020, Sonesta had a total of 80 properties. Today, it’s grown to over 1100, in part due to its acquisition of Red Lion Hotels.

Complete Guide to Sonesta Travel Pass

Virgin points are often the cheapest option for booking Air France or KLM flights. For example, for a trip to Paris I’m planning, I found a great Air France business class award that was available. If I booked through Air France Flying Blue, I’d have to pay 303,000 miles plus $225 per passenger. No thanks! Meanwhile, Virgin Atlantic showed the same flight for 48,500 points plus $281 per passenger. Much better! Exciting right?

Solved: Problem booking Air France/KLM with Virgin points

Update 3:13pm Eastern time: If you’re having trouble finding availability, try using the Hilton Honors app. I’m finding many properties available in the app that aren’t available on desktop. Also, it appears that availability continues to be turned on — I had been searching for the Grand Hotel Victoria all morning and just found it available about an hour ago (around 2:30pm Eastern).

[Update: Search via app] Hilton / SLH partnership live with nearly 400 properties – book now

New York City, NY

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Cheryl E Preston

Yesterday was the third time this year that an ad stating Chelsea Clinton lives in a beautiful Virginia home popped up on my laptop. My computer did not warn me this was a dangerous site, so this time, I clicked on the link.

Chelsea Clinton is rumored to be living in Virginia but probably still in NYC

Las Vegas, NV

Atlantic City, NJ

Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City, NJ has long offered a status match for those with competing casino status all the way up to Ocean Prime status. We’ve covered that match pretty extensively in our post about How to get free cruises by gaming casino status matches. One of the other benefits of Ocean Prime status was a complimentary 2-night stay at Resorts World Las Vegas (I reviewed my complimentary stay at Conrad Las Vegas here). As of today (7/1/24), the partnership with Resorts World has ended, but some will be excited to see that Ocean is back to partnering with Wynn Las Vegas — so Ocean Prime members now get a complimentary 2-night stay at Wynn Las Vegas, which can be an incredibly valuable benefit.

Ocean Prime now offering 2 free nights at Wynn Las Vegas + $50 dining credit

Lancaster County, PA

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NewsByJoshua

Fans of Frisco's Chicken were left reeling as the beloved Peruvian-style eatery announced the closure of all its locations in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The chain, known for its delicious food and strong community values, posted a heartfelt note on its doors, informing customers of the devastating news.

Favorite Chicken Chain Suddenly Closes All Stores, Heartfelt Message Found on Doors

Alaska State

Evidently, they’re still a little sore about the whole Independence Day thing on the other side of the pond. Overnight, British Airways seems to have completely destroyed its award chart for flights on AA and Alaska Airlines within the US, in some cases raising prices by almost 50%. BA already took a mallet to those awards in late-2023, so domestic US flights under 3,000 miles now cost between 50-100% more than they did last Summer.

British Airways kills redemptions on AA and Alaska (again for the very first time)

(01:25) – How do I know how much my points and miles are worth (and are all points and miles worth the same?) (06:04) – I switched an upcoming trip to take a better flight the next day, which means I have to change Hilton/Hertz reservations. Both of them will re-price to higher costs than before. Any way to avoid?

How do you travel with young kids? | Ask Us Anything Ep68 | 7-3-24

Upgraded Points has discovered a ton of standard award availability at the Conrad Bora Bora Nui during the Summer/early-Fall of 2024. Rooms are available between June and October, including multiple 5-night blocks(meaning it will work for 5th-night free stays). When there was wide open standard award availability a few months...

Conrad Bora Bora: Great availability July-September 2024

Hilton integrated hundreds more Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) properties today. We covered that here, but there’s a particularly notable development if you’re interested in staying in an overwater villa in the Maldives. Up until now, there were very few Maldives hotels where you could use...

3 more Maldives overwater villas now bookable with Hilton points & free night certificates

Save up to 50% when booking award flights using Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles to the following destinations:. Global escapes pricing is offered on flights in Economy & Premium Economy class only. Travel has to originate in the US. Promo is valid on bookings July 10, 2024–July 31, 2024 for...

Alaska Airlines award sale: Save up to 50% on flights to Athens, Taipei, Rome, Delhi & more

What are Sonesta points worth?

Hertz has repeatedly earned itself negative publicity over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, they are at it again. After previously reducing the expiration timeline for points from needing activity once every 18 months to once every 12 months, Miles Talk reports on a new restriction that came from Hertz via email today: now points expire 5 years after they are earned, regardless of activity. That’s a huge bummer that is no doubt tough to track and designed to create even more breakage in a system that’s already of marginal value at best.

Hertz expiration policy now hurts even more

Wells Fargo has re-launched a decent promotion for new checking account customers. This offer is available in-branch and online and gives a $325 bonus when opening a new Everyday Checking account and doing a total of $1,000 in direct deposits within 90 days. See Doctor of Credit’s list of what Wells Fargo considers a direct deposit here.

Easy $325 Bonus with a new Wells Fargo Checking Account

JetBlue has a travel portal called Paisly which is currently offering triple JetBlue TrueBlue points on hotel bookings. While that might sound good, it’s not really. As a result, it’s likely only people who are seeking JetBlue status who might get some value from this promotion and even then it’s questionable.

JetBlue offering 3x points on hotel bookings using Paisly (but not worth it for most)

Virginia State

Mercurochrome and Merthiolate were in medicine cabinets in many Virginia homes decades ago. They were in bottles with droppers that gallons the red liquid. Looking at that old bottle in the above image brings back many memories.

Mercurochrome and Merthiolate once were in many Virginia homes

NewsBreak

Best ways to get to South America using points and miles (2024)

Looking for the cheapest ways to get to South America? This post outlines the best options available to get there in using frequent flyer rewards programs...

Best ways to get to South America using points and miles (2024)

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