Copa, the Panama-based Star Alliance airline, released details of their new loyalty program as they are discontinuing their partnership with United’s MileagePlus. And sadly, they missed a big opportunity. The frequent flyer community response was “meh, it’s basically the same as United - nothing to see here”, which is unfortunate because so much could have been […]
15 Spots Remain for the Third Monthly SF Travel Hacking Meetup!
As some of you know, I’ve recently moved back to San Francisco after spending a good portion of the past two years nomadic. Since then, as much as I spend time online on communities like Flyertalk, Milepoint and the Travel Codex forums, it’s still a fairly slow way to share information, swap stories and get the […]
How to Outsmart Your Favorite Travel Search Engines
Although a plethora of travel search engines try to dazzle you with options, planning your next trip could take far longer than you expect. Here are some common truths about search engines that are often overlooked. Nearly All Will “Time out” and Overlook Some Options The number of possible ways to get from point A to point B using modern […]
Harsh Truths in the Travel Industry
This is an article on setting expectations. Many articles you’ll read across the points and miles community — and in travel publications in general — will describe everything with rose-colored glasses, either glossing over negative experiences or explaining them away. Instead of that, here are some harsh truths you should always keep in the back of your mind so […]
What’s the Upper Limit of Travel Spending? Back of the Envelope Analysis
I’m on a plane right now and considering a hypothetical question: Given the physical constraints of reality, how much could the most loyal, most lucrative customers possibly spend with the airlines and hotel chains? As an aside, we’ll ignore meeting planning budgets since they can be all over the map and hotels have started segmenting those off to […]