February 23rd, 2010
You know it’s funny, the traveling world is filled with secrets and hacks that you can use to your benefit. I’d say one of the masters of travel hacking is Chris Guillbeau, this guy travels all over the world (around 120 countries) and really understands the ins and out of traveling. But I digress…
I’m sure everyone is already familiar with the various statuses one can achieve by flying i.e. gold, silver, platinum, etc; depending on how often you fly. The various status levels qualify you for various things such as lounge access and free flight upgrades. What most people don’t know though is that there are ways to get “status” on airlines such as American, without flying thousands of miles every month (side note, read this post by Chris on status matching). There are shortcuts.
American Airlines for example offers challenges that can instantly upgrade you to gold status if you complete them. These challenges aren’t really made public and are not even posted on the website, but if you call and ask about them American will tell you all you need to know. Here’s actually a great breakdown of what the challenges are all about (hat tip to Chris again).
I called American Airlines and here’s what you need to do:
Travel with American Airlines in a 90 day period enough to accumulate 5,000 points. Here’s a breakdown from American on what the miles/points are worth but essentially it’s one point/mile. Essentially if you take any long distance flight with around 5,000 miles round trip (for example across the United States), you are eligible to be upgraded to at least Gold Status. The tricky thing to remember is that you actually need to call American Airlines before you travel and tell them that you are going to complete a challenge so that they can monitor your activity. You will also need to join the American Airlines frequent flyer program.
I haven’t completed the challenge yet but I’m definitely going to the next I fly across the country or perhaps overseas.
What about you, do you have status on any airlines? What do you get and what it take for you to earn that status?
TAGS: american airlines, american airlines challenges, frequent flyer programs, status upgrade
January 18th, 2010
If you love traveling like I do then you also realize that traveling can get to be pretty expensive. Round trip tickets to many parts of the world can cost over $1,000 which can leave a pretty big hole in the wallet. Cruises cost several thousands of dollars and hotels can be up to a few hundred dollars a night. So what’s a traveler to do that just wants to find a good deal and get away? I’ve been playing around with a site called skyauction.com which I wanted to share with you. I haven’t actually booked any of my flights or travel through skyauction (yet), but I definitely will in the future.
This site is basically like an eBay for travel. When airlines, hotels, and cruises can’t sell enough of what they offer, they work with skyauction to get the best possible price on what they have available. They do this via an auction system. You can find some really awesome deals on pretty much any type of travel you are looking for (especially if you are flexible). Check out the screen shot below for a deal that I just found.
You can tell based on the screen shot how most of skyauction works. Notice that the bid price is around $164 and the auction ends in just 2 days. One of the things you need to be careful of when using skyauction though are the extra taxes and fees that are added on to your purchase. In the above example there is a fee of around $300 added per person which brings the total cost to around $500 per person. Still a killer deal for a 7 night cruise to Bermuda, but again, something you need to pay attention to. Just make sure you read all the details before you purchase anything and you should be fine.
If you are reasonably flexible with your travel time, I would recommend clicking on the “auctions closing soon” tab where you can get some really killer deals for all the auctions that are closing in a relatively short period of time. Take a look at the screen shot below to see what I mean.
The site isn’t the easiest to navigate and sometimes it can get a bit frustrating clicking around all over the place but if you end up getting a $800 round trip flight for $500 then it’s worth it right? Check out the site and let me know what you think. It’s not perfect but again, if you spend some time on there you will find some killer deals. Do you have any travel sites you would recommend for getting good deals? Let me know in the comments!
TAGS: cheap travel deals, how to travel cheap, sky auction, skyauction, skyauction.com, travel deals, traveling cheap
December 14th, 2009
I had the opportunity to write a guest post for Jetsetlife on the importance of getting lost while traveling. I’ve always believed that getting lost is absolutely crucial while traveling. Here’s a snippet of the post that I wrote. If you like it, please click through to read the whole thing.
“When most people travel they [...]
TAGS: get lost, getting lost, importance of getting lost, sight seeing, travel ideas, travel suggestions, Travel Tips, traveling
December 4th, 2009
I thought I would break up my China posts for a day and talk about something else. One of the reasons why I love traveling so much is because I get to experience the world in a different way. I get to experience new customs and new cultures which I feel makes me a better [...]
TAGS: foregin culture, foreign customs, foreign travel, respecting culture, respecting customs, travel culture, travel customs
November 24th, 2009
The holidays are here and we all know what that means; the busiest traveling time of the year! I myself just flew from San Francisco to Los Angeles to spend Thanksgiving with my family and the airport was quite busy, in fact I had to wait in a line to wait in a line (if [...]
TAGS: cheap airlines, cheap travel, flight deals, flight travel tips, holiday flights, holiday travel tips, saving money on flights
