Educational Posts on Loyalty Programs

Bank of America periodically increases the sign-up bonus on its Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard®, and this year is no different with a possible total of 90K miles available on from this card. However, this is a multi-tiered bonus that has several requirements in order to earn the full amount. While the deal is being advertised as a 90K miles offer, it is really a 75K offer with a possible 15K anniversary bonus. We will detail the requirements to earn each increment of this bonus and then discuss some good uses of Virgin Atlantic miles.

Whether you enjoy lounging on the beach with bestselling fiction novels or want to fill hours of boring airline travel with engrossing nonfiction tales, buying reading materials can take a bite out of your entertainment budget. Why not save those hard-earned dollars for another daiquiri and borrow your next read instead? Thanks to OverDrive’s partnership with local libraries across North America and worldwide, checking out eBooks and audiobooks is simple, easy and—best of all—free.

Whether you’re searching for that gorgeous resort for a family trip to the Bahamas, need a budget friendly hotel in the suburbs of New York City for a last minute getaway, or seeking 5-star accommodations in Rome, trivago has you covered.

If you’re looking to maximize your hard-earned airline miles by booking trips to multiple cities, or even countries, United MileagePlus is one of the best programs to do just that. The program allows for a longer stop in a city on the way to your destination, dubbed the Excursionist Perk, which lets passengers book a free one-way flight within a round-trip. Essentially, you can book three flights for the price of two if you do it correctly. A stop can be as short as 24 hours and as long as the calendar allows you to book.

Las Vegas and the Southern Nevada region are popular destinations for domestic and international tourists alike. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, 42.9 million people visited Southern Nevada in 2016 and spent $35.5 billion in the process. While there’s certainly plenty to do and see at ground level, the folks at Maverick Helicopters want to show you the sights from a different perspective.

Say you’re planning a trip to a country for which you have a valid visa, but then you realize something: by the time you depart, your passport will have expired, but your visa will not have. What can you do?

The word cranky means given to fretful fussiness as well as full of twists and turns. Both describe the many of air travel experiences, so it’s easy to understand why Brett Snyder, author of The Cranky Flier, would use the term within the name of his award-winning blog as well as its sister travel service Cranky Concierge.

Los Angeles is one of the world’s biggest cities, so having one of the biggest and best zoos fits its personality. The Los Angeles Zoo and Botanical Gardens has been celebrating its 50th anniversary with a yearlong “ZooLAbration.” The zoo draws about 1.8 million visitors each year, is home to 1,100 animals representing 250 different species, and has more than 800 different plant species with approximately 7,000 individual plants.

If you’re not already using Air France and KLM’s Flying Blue rewards program, you should start thinking about getting familiar with it. Flying Blue is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points and Starwood Preferred Guest points and offers some incredible sweet spots. Let’s take a look at some of Flying Blue’s best sweet spots.

While keeping children entertained is certainly a challenge on long road trips, it’s not the biggest source of stress for American families traveling the country by car. In fact, a recent survey of more than 1,000 parents with kids under the age of 18 found that “where to stop along the way” is actually the largest cause of anxiety and family strife.

Are you traveling in Athens and want to learn about ancient Greek philosophers? Are you on business in Tokyo and need a quick refresher course on Japanese business etiquette? Then learning website Quizlet is the perfect tool to use, wherever you may be.

Citi recently implemented a massive wave of changes to its flagship Prestige card. Most of these were announced last year year but did not become effective until this week. Just ahead of the July 23rd implementation, Citi announced some meager positive changes to put a positive spin on things. While most of these recent developments are barely worth mentioning, there is one legitimate bit of good news: the sign-up bonus on the Citi Prestige card has gone up to 75k points.

Now that the year is half over it’s a good time for savvy travelers to reflect on the awesome and free trips they’ve taken, on the miles they’ve flown, and on the status they’ve achieved or hope to.

When you’re traveling in style, you have to live in style. But you don’t have to conform to a run-of-the-mill hotel. That’s why Yotel offers luxury hotels designed around today’s modern traveler. Affordable rooms, which are referred to as cabins, come with the essential elements of luxury hotels — albeit with smaller, smarter spaces. They are available in top global destinations.

There are quite a few different hotel credit cards out there all offering lucrative sign-up bonuses. Some offer a number of free nights while others offer a certain number of points. It’s pretty clear how many nights you can stay for free with the first type of sign-up bonus, but the cards that offer points are a bit more tricky. Here are the main hotel credit cards currently available and the number of free nights you can get — plus the total number of nights you could live out of hotels if you got all of these cards at the same time (which I totally don’t recommend)!

Anyone can fly coach, but when you want to get somewhere and do it in style, look no further than PrivateFly.

United Airlines is one of the biggest airlines in the world, and therefore it’s no surprise that their loyalty program, MileagePlus, is also one of the most popular airline loyalty programs. It allows you to earn miles by flying on United Airlines flights, and redeeming those miles for free flights on United. But did you know that you can also earn United miles from your everyday shopping, through the MileagePlus X app?

In June 2016, Citi announced a massive list of downgrades to the Citi Prestige® Card that really eviscerated this card’s value proposition. However, existing cardholders were given over a year of lead time to absorb the changes and cancel their cards if they felt the remaining benefits no longer justified the $450 annual fee.

According to data from Packaged Facts, a consumer research company, American consumers spent $30 billion on gift cards last year. Chances are good that you were among them. Gift Card Granny, the Internet’s biggest gift card discount website, reports that nearly 93 percent of American consumers have either given or sent a gift card.

In the last year several banks have come out with new premium cards, and there are more to come. With an onslaught of ultra-expensive credit cards tempting us with huge sign-up bonuses, deciding which card to keep becomes a real dilemma. As of now, there are seven premium credit cards that you might want to hold due to their bonuses and other perks: