Lot of folks would have heard about "hidden city ticketing".  In short the idea behind hidden city ticketing is to book a ticket to a final destination which is cheaper then your actual destination by using your actual destination as a stopover. So for example you want to fly from Dallas to Los Angeles but the flight to Las Vegas from Dallas via Los Angeles is cheaper and so you book this ticket with intention of getting down at Los Angeles (The hidden city).

So, how about extending this idea on international trip where your real destination is the "hidden city" but it is much cheaper to fly there as a stopover rather than a destination. This would allow you to not only visit your real destination cheaper but would also allow to visit additional city/country for less than the cost to your real destination.

For example you want to fly non-stop Singapore Airlines flight from San Francisco to Singapore (hidden city) but booking a non-stop flight would be expensive. Instead of that you buy a ticket to a destination which Singapore Airline serves via Singapore and is much cheaper. This way you not only visit your real destination but as a bonus you visit an additional city or country at no additional cost. Let's see a real example here:

San Francisco (SFO) to Toyko (NRT) roundtrip with Toyko as the real destination:
Let's say you want to visit Tokyo from San Francisco in Feb 2019. The cheapest ticket to the destination for few dates in Feb 2018 for 10 to 15 days is shown below. As you can see the cheapest for this trip is $726 and that flight has long layover.

How about changing few things here. Instead of flying to Tokyo as a destination how about flying there as a stopover. Let's look at an example by modifying the destination to be a cheaper place and using Tokyo as a stopover. Below is an example with search date used by few trial and error selections. 

As you can see from above the flight to Hong Kong (HKG) with return via Tokyo (NRT) is cheaper than the original flight. Although in the above case you need to spend 1 night in Hong Kong but you do get a non-stop flight from Tokyo (NRT) to San Francisco (SFO) during return journey from your trip and as a bonus you can visit Hong Kong for 1 night. In fact you can also extend the 1 night stay in Hong Kong to either 2 or 3 days and the cost would not change.

The above idea could be extended to any other destination you want to visit although it may not be available for all the dates. Also you would want to select an airline which has "hub" in your "real destination".

One of the biggest "Con" of this is that you need to be careful of the made up destination as some of them might require a visa to visit but other than that this is perfect travel trick you can use for your next trip.

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One of the task in mileage award redemption is to figure out which airlines serve the source and destination. Sometimes the routing may not be direct and would involve one or more connections. Paid tools like ExpertFlyer can provide you seat availability for given airlines but before you get there you need to know which airlines serves your source and destination which will also allow you to figure out which particular mileage currency might be useful.

FlightConnections:
FlightConnections is a useful website to find out what airlines services your source and destination airport. It has below set of features as of now:

• Enter source and destination airports.
• Select just a source or destination airport and you can view all other airports it gets connection from / to.
• Select option of direct, 1 stop or 2 stop flights.
• Select alliances or airlines.

Below image shows a sample search from San Francisco to Nairobi with 1 stop option. As you can see it lists 9 routes with one stop and list all the connecting cities. This could be useful to determine the award search source and destination and see the one available for your dates of travel. It also lists the potential airlines on the left pane which would be useful (although we are not looking to "check price" for the award).

There are few con's though of using the website.

• It has prominent display of advertisement which might obstruct the search view at times.
• If you change the filter from direct to 1 stop or 2 stop, or select the alliance, you will need to re-enter the source and destination airports.
• Although it is useful to see the connection airports for 1 stop or 2 stop flights it does not tell how long the layover would be.

They do have paid plans which might be useful for the one's who frequently uses miles and points which can be found here. ​

So, next time you are looking to get that mileage redemption award going you might want to check this website.

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It's shopping season again and some of the major airline affiliated shopping portals are offering tiered bonus miles for spending money at various advertised merchants. Below are the current mileage bonus promotions from various airlines shopping portals.

Delta Airlines:
Earn up to 1,000 bonus Delta Skymiles for shopping from 11/05/2018 to 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $300.

American Airlines:
Earn up to 4,000 American Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 2,000 bonus miles when you spend $600.
• Earn 4,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,200.

United Airlines:
Earn up to 5,000 United miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 2,500 bonus miles when you spend $750.
• Earn 5,000 bonus miles when you spend $1500.​

Southwest Airlines:
Earn up to 3,000 Southwest Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• ​Earn 500 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $500.
• Earn 3,000 bonus miles when you spend $1,000.

Alaska Airlines:
Earn up to 1,500 Alaska Airlines miles for shopping till 11/18/2018.

• Earn 300 bonus miles when you spend $150.
• Earn 750 bonus miles when you spend $300.
• ​Earn 1,500 bonus miles when you spend $500.

Each one of you would values miles from specific airlines differently. So, based on your preference as well as amount you are looking to spend you might want to lean towards specific airlines shopping portal. Enjoy the bonus miles on items which might be discounted earlier then the Thanksgiving!

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All of mileage programs have various mileage expiration policies with few exception programs where your miles never expire. Some of the programs expire your miles after a certain period of time (usually 3 years) regardless of earning or redeeming miles activity while certain others have expiration from ranging from 1 to 3 years with extension of miles possible with earning or redeeming miles.

What if you have miles in programs which allow for extensions with either earn or redeem option and you have no plans of flying them or redeeming their miles? Few of popular ways of saving your big chunk of miles balance is either by transferring from either American Express membership rewards or Citi ThankYou rewards or Chase Ultimate rewards. You will need a Membership Points earning American Express card or the premium version of Citi and Chase  cards to allow for mileage transfer. Other options include hotel points to miles transfer or for the least cost you can use shopping portals for various airlines to make a small purchase at any popular merchants through them. 

MILESLIFE as a free miles earning option?
MILESLIFE is an Android / Apple Iphone app which is primarily targeted for folks staying in Singapore and Mainland China. It allows for earning miles by spending money on the linked card at dining and other partners. It also has a unique feature for earning "up to 100 miles" for checking in consecutively for 7 days in their app. You can link your airline mileage account number in the app and select the airline with which you want to earn the miles. Below are the listed airline partners at the time of publishing this post:

 As you can see from the list their are few of the mileage programs which have 1 to 3 years of mileage expiration policy and which can be extended to another 1 to 3 years by earning and/or redeeming the miles. I have listed few of them below:

• British Airways Avios - Miles expire after 36 months of inactivity, can be extended by earning / redeeming miles.
• Avianca Lifemiles - Miles expire either after 12 months or 24 months (For credit card holders and platinum members).  The one for which it expires after 12 months the existing miles expiration can only be extended by "earning" miles.
• United MileagePlus - Miles expire after 18 months. Can be extended by earning / redeeming miles.

​As you can see from above you can easily extend the life of your miles by doing check-in on the MILESLIFE app. Since you can specify the airlines you want to earn the miles with you can easily change the airlines after 7 days of check-in to extend the life of your expiring miles. The miles are usually deposited to your mileage account within 2 weeks.

So the next time you have your miles expiring with one of the participating airlines above you can bank on MILESLIFE.

Having multiple mileage currency has its own advantage. You have flexibility of using the one which gives you the best value while keeping the one's which gives you "high" on award redemption. Recently Delta Airlines has been on the roll with weekly flash sales. They have been dolling out award sales on domestic and international routes. Here is look at one such redemption which maximizes the value of award using multiple mileage programs which otherwise might not be possible.

​Delta Flash Sale for USA to Hong Kong round trip in Economy for 30k Delta Skymiles.. Or One Way for 15k Skymiles:
In early September, Delta had flash sale to Hong Kong from most of the U.S. cities with prices from West Coast (SFO, LAX etc) starting at 30,000 Delta Skymiles. The main leg of this trip was SEA-HKG route which Delta is exiting starting October 4th, 2018. The great thing about this sale was that it was available for redemption for September 2018 and you could also book it as one-way from Hong Kong-USA or USA-Hong Kong for just 15,000 Skymiles. The downside though was that the mileage price was limited for Hong Kong only. 

Virgin Atlantic for partner redemption (Getting beyond Hong Kong?):
Virgin Atlantic has various partners and has separate redemption chart for those partners. One such partner is Jet Airways which flies to India and has non-stop service from Hong Kong (HKG) to Mumbai (BOM). Virgin Atlantic allows one-way awards at half the price of round trip and has a distance based chart for Jet Airways. For HKG-BOM which is distance of ~2658 miles Virgin Atlantic charges 41,000 miles round trip or 20,500 miles one-way in Economy class. The taxes for this route is ~$50 USD. You can easily search for Jet Airways award availability using our very own Delta Airlines website as Delta recently forged partnership with Jet Airways and allows redemption on Jet Airways albeit at inflated prices. For the HKG-BOM route Delta likes to charge 40,000 Skymiles for one-way trip in Economy class.

As you can see from above you can travel from USA to India for just 35,500 miles one way in Economy class by using miles from two different programs. In addition you could have stopover in Hong Kong and enjoy the city visit without any additional cost.

So, do keep an eye out for flash sales from Delta Airlines and use it with other mileage program to get best value for your redemption!!

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Delta SkyMiles are known as pesos with very low value in miles world. But there are few things which set them apart:

1. Delta SkyMiles never expire.
2. You can redeem them at 1 cent / per point value for cash ticket if you hold their co-branded American Express cards.
3. Delta flash sales which happen at regular interval these days where you can get great value for redemption (greater than 1 cent value which SkyMiles is famous for).

It's the flash sales which Delta seems to be doing on regular interval making them one of the go-to currency if you are flexible with your travel plans. for e.g. at the time of this writing below is one of the sale going on:

As you can see delta is charging 8000 miles + taxes for each way between ATL-CHS which otherwise is higher than the advertised cost in miles. Although you will need to check for available dates this is a better value than 1 cent/point.
​
Another such flash sale going at the moment is for Caribbean and Australia. For e.g. you can fly to Caribbean for 14,000 miles + taxes round trip or to down under for just 50,000 miles + taxes round trip.

So, take advantage of this deals while they keep coming and get good value out of your so called SkyPesos.

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Citi Prestige is the high end travel card from Citi with host of benefits and carry an hefty $450 annual fees. Although some of the benefits are on average side they are few outstanding one's and "Free Roadside Assistance" is one of them. Here is the link to the benefits guide for Citi Prestige credit card.
American Express provides several great features in it's version of "Free Roadside Assistance" on the American Express Gold and Platinum cards, but there are few features where Citi Prestige card outshines American Express cards. Below are these key features:

• Unlimited Service requests per year.
• Roadside assistance available for Rental Cars as well.
• Available even if you are away from your home but still within 50 United States, District of Columbia, US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

The other benefits of this free coverage are listed below:

• Towing and winching up to 10 miles free of cost (You are responsible for anything beyond 10 miles).
• Jump starts.
• Flat tire changes provided you have spare available.
• Lock out service when key is in the vehicle.
• Delivery of up to 2 gallons of fuel.

As you can see from the key features that this card carries unlimited service requests and covers rental cars as well. Only Chase Sapphire Reserve is another card which provides road side assistance in rental cars but even then it does not provide unlimited service requests and only reimburses for up to $50 in roadside assistance fees.

How it Works:
Call "1-866-506-5222" when you need roadside assistance and a representative with direct help towards you. Be mindful of certain exclusions such as RV, trailers etc which are not covered by this service.

So next time you hit the road do carry your Citi Prestige Card (if you hold that card), and remember to use its roadside assistance service when in need as the coverage provided is hard to beat.

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American Express Premium cards such as Amex Premier Rewards Gold, Amex Platinum Card etc has lot of features built in that are valuable at times. One such feature is "Premium Roadside Assistance". So what exactly is the premium roadside assistance and what are the benefits?

Premium Roadside Assistance:
This is a service provided for holding Premium American Express cards such as Amex Premier Rewards Card, Amex Platinum Card and other premium cards. It provides assistance for emergency car services. The few useful features are below:

• Towing up-to 10 miles of service, changing a flat, jump starting a battery or car lockout service without any additional fees or charges.
• Up to 2 gallons of fuel delivery if you run out of fuel for free.
• Available up to 4 times a year.
• Service can be availed once every 7 days.

For comparison AAA classic starts at $56 per year in California with only 5 miles of towing and on the other end a single tow service when not having any roadside assistance could set you back by minimum of $35 depending on the kind of service.

For American Express Premium Roadside Assistance you do not need separate enrollment. All you need is to call 1-855-431-1156 and give them your credit card details and road side emergency details and they will dispatch the service. They do charge for additional miles of towing but the rates are quite reasonable and you can get the details before the tow happens. Below are the few other details of this service.

How it Works

1. Call 1-800-333-AMEX when you need help arranging towing, winching, jump starts, flat tire change when you have a workable spare, lockout service or delivery of up to two gallons of fuel.
2. A representative will contact a third-party service, such as a tow truck or locksmith, and arrange for help to be sent your way.
3. We will pay for eligible third-party charges up to four times a year, so you can get back on the road sooner.

Good to Know

1. Premium Roadside Assistance is only available to U.S. Card Members traveling in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
2. The Card Member must be present with an eligible vehicle to use Premium Roadside Assistance.
3. American Express will pay for eligible services up to four times a year.
4. You will be charged for the cost of towing in excess of ten miles and for any additional services not eligible for coverage by American Express.
5. Please read terms for vehicle exclusions and other important restrictions

The interesting aspect of this service is if you have spouse who also holds premium american express card then you can avail the service 8 times a year. Also there is no out of pocket expense as long as you are within the covered service terms.

So next time you are in need of roadside assistance you can rely on your American Express Premium card to cover it up for you.

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When travelling, hotel stays can be tricky for big families. This is because most hotels limit stay to 4 for most of the rooms. This could be because of room size, or to make sure they limit the expense on the room utilities such as water, shampoo etc. Some hotels do allow for more then 4+ people to stay in a room but the room cost may increase with each additional person.

So what do you do if you need room for 5 or 6 people? Lets say you are a couple with 4 kids and so you do need one hotel room only? Although limited, if you have hotel points you might not be completely out of luck. There are two property chains which are liberal in terms of how many people stay in a room (Although they might restrict certain hotels, or all inclusive locations). Without much suspense these are Choice Hotels and Hyatt Hotels. Let;s go by couple of examples. 

Choice Hotels:
Choice Hotels runs regular promotion where you can earn 8,000 choice points after 2 stays. Apart from that they do participate in selling points through Daily Getaways (which happens once a year in April). The reason you might want to accumulate Choice Hotels points is because they have many mid range hotels around the USA and lot of them allow more than 4 person to stay in a room without any increase in cost when paying with points. 

Below is an example of the stay which it allows to book on points provided the hotel room has capacity of 4+ folks.

Hyatt Hotels:
Hyatt Hotels is another hotel brand which allows more than 4+ persons in their hotel rooms when booked using points. Although Hyatt does not have a wide footprint across the globe, it does have hotel at most tourist destinations. This allows to not only book a room for a big family but cut down on cost on expensive tourist destinations when you have bigger group of people travelling together. Below is an example of New York / New Jersey city which is an expensive place to stay on vacation.

The same hotel when booked with cash rate would be $200+ but with points not only you save bunch of $$ but you can also fit your big family in just one room. 

So the next time you travel do remember that there are hotels which would allow big family to stay in one room with no additional cost provided you can find them. Also having points currency to spend on these hotels can save you big $$.

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American Express (Amex) recently sent out new set of Amex Offers where you get $200 or 20,000 Membership Reward Points for spending $1k+ directly with KLM or Air France. There were two separate offers for both the airlines but they were widely available to Amex Card holders.

The 20,000 Membership Rewards Points offers were as below.

The offer expires on 07/31/2018 but you can book flights far out till the airline schedule allows. Also note that you can have more than 1 passenger on the itinerary as long as the total price is more than $1000. Also booking through Air France can have other operating carriers such as Delta, KLM, Jet Airways etc and the same is true for booking through KLM. As long as the marketing and ticketing carrier is the one for which you have the Amex Offer (KLM or Air France) you will receive the Amex Offer credit.

Again, there are great fares loaded for both Air France and KLM to various European destinations which are just above $500 and if you are more than one person travelling you can easily maximize this amex offer.

So, before you book your next destination flight do remember to see if there are comparable fares on Air France / KLM which would make your tickets further cheaper.

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