As has already been plastered all over the travel blogosphere, US Airways is running their share miles promo, which is effectively one of the best ways to buy airlines miles out there. While US Airways normally runs buy miles promos where you can buy US Airways miles for roughly 1.8 cents per mile, with the…
This is probably less relevant for people who have the pleasure to fly business or first class exclusively, but for the rest of us frequent travelers who are sometimes (or often (or always)) in the back of the plane, I highly recommend reading/watching “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace. Actually, scratch that, this should…
I’ve successfully converted a number of friends to points and miles earning credit cards, but I sometimes worry about what I’ve done. In general, the credit cards I recommend to my friends have minimum spending requirements (like $3,000 in the first three months for the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which is the card I normally recommend…
One of my friends is headed to Budapest, and he asked me for some advice about navigating Budapest, given that I lived there for a time during college. And my biggest recommendation is to learn these three magical phrases: 1) Jó napot kívánok 2) Beszél angolul 3) Köszönöm szépen These mean “hello”, “do you speak English”, and…
In a previous post, I talked about why travel is a good use of money, which is largely because people tend to underinvest in experiences and overinvest in material goods even though experiential purchases tend to make people happier than material purchases. Taking this another step, I’ve realized that it doesn’t really make sense for me…
(I realize that this post is mostly just preaching to the choir, but I have a future point in mind) Most of us are lucky enough to have at least some discretionary income to spend on whatever we choose. One question this leads to is what’s the best use of this discretionary spending. Should we…
Warning: #firstworldproblems (or maybe #firstclassproblems?) Nothing feels better than lounging around at home in airline pajamas and browsing Flyertalk. But one common problem people find with airline pajamas is that they’re liable to shrink. One way to avoid shrinkage is to not wash the pajamas at all, which is not particularly hygienic. Instead, I’m going…
The big dirty non-secret amongst popular travel blogs is that many of these bloggers make their money off of credit card affiliate links. So when you click on one of their credit card links, apply for the credit card, and get approved, the blogger makes money. I have no idea how much, but I’m guessing…
Assuming we’re not talking about fixed-value points currencies like those of Virgin America or Southwest, the marginal value or incremental value of a point can vary wildly. This is due to the fact that most loyalty programs have redemption levels, and if your points haven’t reached a given redemption level, they’re not really worth that…
When I write about efficiency, I often use the term “utility“, which can be thought of as a representation of your preferences or what makes you happier. And a large part of using miles and points wisely or conducting your life efficiently requires that you understand your utility function, which means that you understand what…
