Educational Posts on Loyalty Programs

When the U.S. eased travel restrictions to Cuba earlier this year, JetBlue was the first to introduce charter flights from New York to Havana. Now it has added a second flight a week to this hot destination.

United’s frequent flyer program, MileagePlus, puts Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America into one region. That means that you can fly from the U.S. to anywhere in the region for 35,000 miles in economy. United also lets you take one free stopover per roundtrip, so you can visit two destinations in this region for the same amount of miles.

Qatar Airways is reinstating its nonstop flights from Doha to Nagpur, an emerging trade and business hub in India, on December 1. With the expanded service, the airline’s total weekly flights to over a dozen destinations in India will increase from 95 to 102.

United’s frequent flyer program, MileagePlus, allows you to use one stopover and two open jaws for free on a round-trip award ticket. By taking advantage of this generous booking policy, you can see more places without paying more miles. For example, you could spend a few days in Hawaii on your way to Japan for the same cost as flying directly to Tokyo.

United Airlines’ company slogan invites passengers to “fly the friendly skies,” but makes no mention of how to do it with miles. Enter the airline’s excellent loyalty program, MileagePlus, which is currently offering three ways for members to earn anywhere from double to 2,500 miles a night at select hotels.

Alaska Airlines’ new route from Orange County to Puerto Vallarta has gone live, with year-round service to the popular resort town. More than just fantastic beaches, Puerto Vallarta has a thriving culinary scene, bustling nightlife, nearby jungle adventures and a historic downtown that’s ready for you to explore.

United allows MileagePlus members to use a stopover and two open jaws for free on a round-trip award flight. You can use this policy to your advantage and fly to more places for free. Sometimes you can even save miles by adding a stopover to your itinerary. In this post, we’ll see how to maximize the destinations on your itinerary and save miles at the same time.

A stopover is when you stop somewhere on your way to your final destination for more than four hours on a domestic flight, or for more than 24 hours on an international flight. On a United award ticket, you can visit two cities in Europe or two cities on different continents for the price of a round-trip flight.

American Airlines will be heading out to Mérida from Dallas starting on March 3, 2016. There will be five weekly nonstop flights to this vibrant and charming Mexican city, which offers a fascinating mix of Mayan heritage and European colonial influences.

We’re continuing our series on how to get the most out of United award tickets by looking at the airline’s free open jaw. With an open jaw, you can fly to one destination and return from another, or you can depart from one city and return to a different one. Either way, you can visit more places for the same price as a round-trip award ticket.

This winter, there’s a new way for Syracuse residents to escape the notoriously snowy and cold upstate New York winters. JetBlue is offering a new seasonal nonstop route between Syracuse and Fort Lauderdale. So get ready for some beaches and sunshine.

Using United’s free stopover, you can see more places for the same amount of miles. But did you know that you can save miles by adding a stopover to your itinerary?

Southwest Airlines—known for its no-frills, low-cost approach to flying—has opened a new international concourse in Houston’s Hobby Airport. Passengers using the Houston hub now have more options, as this previously domestic-only airport goes international with five new gates.

In our last post on stopovers, we talked about how to use United’s free stopovers to see two places in Europe for the same amount of miles as a roundtrip. In this post, we’ll discuss how to visit two destinations on two continents using United stopovers.

Last week we published the first part of our Plane Spotting series, covering the latest airlines to fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. So many airlines have added the aircraft to their fleets since we reported on this topic a year ago that we had to split our update into two parts.

Stopovers are an underutilized mechanism that can be used to see more places on an award ticket for the same amount of miles as a direct flight. While most people want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible, seasoned travelers know how to get the most for their miles.

Over the past few months, Icelandair has been rolling out new routes across the globe, including some strategic moves in the United States. As part of that push to expand, the carrier started flying out of Orlando International this month after a nine-year absence. The nonstop flights to Icelandair’s hub at Reykjavik, depart on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m.

Etihad Airways originally announced that it would start flying the first Airbus A380 between New York and Abu Dhabi on December 1. But that date has been moved up to November 23, which is just in time for Thanksgiving weekend and the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

There’s change in the air this fall, as Air China is expanding its reach with a new route between Newark and Beijing. The route will include four nonstop flights a week, starting on October 26. Air China is not new to the New York City area, and already flies twice a day from JFK to Beijing.

When we first reported on the Dreamliner last year, we featured eight airlines that were flying Boeing’s new 787-8 passenger aircraft. There are now 34 airlines that boast the plane in their fleets. So many that we’ve dedicated a two-part series to the carriers and their routes and service classes.

Flight delays are a part of the traveling experience, but wouldn’t it help if you knew ahead of time which airlines have the best track record when it comes to getting you to your destination on time, and which ones have the worst? With the release of the U.S Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report, we do – and Hawaiian Airlines took the top spot, with 90% of their flights being on time for take off and landing