A new hotel program to consider

My girlfriend and I were looking to stay in downtown Chicago in a few weeks but due to an event happening there, most of the hotels are either full or only have pricey rooms available. This left me in quite a predicament as I don’t like to use our precious Sapphire points to book hotels, but it appeared this was our only option. I had pretty much resigned myself to spending 80,000+ points for two nights downtown, until I happened upon this little gem of an award chart I’d never really considered before:

This award chart belongs to Hyatt. I’ve never stayed at a Hyatt because wherever they are there have always been Hiltons and Starwoods, two chains I’m loyal to. In this case though, I didn’t have enough Hilton points for their downtown hotels, and the only Starwood available was the brand new Aloft, which was just a bit too far towards downtown for us.

Enter the Hyatt Magnificent Mile, a 4-star hotel that normally costs $400 a night. It comes in on the award chart as a category 4, and there were award nights available. So instead of 80,000 Ultimate Rewards points, I ended up transferring 30,000 to Hyatt and booking that way. That was the lowest point cost for any hotel I saw downtown, by far.

It turns out 3 of their 4 downtown Chicago hotels cost 15,000 per night. That’s pretty darn cheap. So cheap, in fact, that I looked into their credit card.

Chase Hyatt Credit Card

Boy was I impressed! This card earns you two free nights at any Hyatt property worldwide after $1,000 spend. Two nights at the Park Hyatt Maldives would cost you $1,500 by comparison. That is one lucrative signup bonus! Plus you get their Platinum elite status just for having the card, and you earn 1 point per dollar on all spend. Given that the Chase Sapphire Preferred also earns 1 point per dollar and you can transfer points 1:1 to Hyatt, it doesn’t really make sense to spend on the card. But it’s definitely worth signing up for the bonus alone.

I’m very excited to start using this program more. Well done Hyatt!

Hyatt Credit Card

How to build points and use them almost immediately

Earning credit card points is great long-term for those who want to book travel a few months from now. But not all of us are on our game enough to plan that far in advance, and sometimes we find ourselves needing to book something relatively soon. The problem is that if you don’t have points, it’s not necessarily a quick process to earn them. Signup bonuses usually don’t show up on your account at least until your first statement comes, which is generally a month after you get your card. No good if you’re trying to book something ASAP.

Enter the Barclaycard Arrival.

The Arrival card earns you 40,000 points after you spend $1,000 within 90 days. Like other credit cards, if you meet the minimum spend, you’ll receive the points at the end of that statement cycle. But there’s a catch with this card that makes this card’s points basically available as soon as you receive the card.

Unlike most points, which are redeemed directly for travel via an airline or a credit card travel site, Arrival points are really “purchase erasers”. This means that you actually make the travel purchase on your credit card, and then you use your points to take that purchase off of your credit card bill. Barclaycard allows you to use your points for any travel purchase up to 90 days prior. That means if you book travel today, you have 3 statement cycles to earn the points to cover it. What a deal!

What this means for you is that if you’re trying to book travel within the next few days, you can apply for the Arrival card and make your travel purchase as soon as you receive it. If you earn enough points in the next 90 days, you can erase that purchase. So theoretically you could use points about five days from now if you applied today.

Here’s a link to the card: Barclaycard Arrival

Got other questions about credit cards? Head over to WenneTravel at www.wennecorp.com and we’d be happy to answer anything you’re wondering for free.

Hotel credit cards vs. general points credit cards: a guide for resort vacationers

Last week we saw that most hotel credit cards don't make sense to use for everyday spend, as general points cards tend to require less spend in order to pay for free nights. One glaring exception is the American Express SPG card, which earns free nights at Starwood hotels very quickly. 

To continue on my post from last week, today I will perform the same credit card spend calculations for resort vacations instead of city hotels. 

Hilton

Cards

Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve – 3 HHonors points per dollar ($95 annual fee)

Citi Hilton HHonors Visa – 2 HHonors points per dollar (no annual fee)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort & Spa

$595 ($119/night for 5 nights)

120,000 points per night (30,000 points/night for 4 nights + 5th night free)

Spend Required

Citi HHonors Reserve – $40,000

Citi HHonors Visa - $60,000

Barclaycard Arrival - $29,750

Winner: General Points Card

Marriott

Cards

Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa – 1 point per dollar ($85 annual fee, waived first year)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort

$1,145 (including taxes) per night

160,000 points

Spend Required

Marriott Visa – $160,000

Barclay Arrival - $57,250

Winner: General Points Card

Starwood

Cards

American Express SPG – 1 point per dollar ($65 annual fee, waived first year)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

Westin Siray Bay Resort & Spa, Phuket

$575

35,000 points

Spend Required

Amex SPG – $35,000

Barclay Arrival - $28,750

Winner: General Points Card

For resort stays, it appears that general points cards, at the right earn rate, are the best value for spend. Even the Starwood card, which shined for city stays, couldn't beat the Barclaycard Arrival for resorts. 

Hotel credit cards vs. general points credit cards: a guide for city vacationers

There have been a number of devaluations in the world of hotel points lately, meaning that many hotel chains have increased the points prices of their rooms. These devaluations mean that whatever number of hotel points you currently have are suddenly able to buy fewer nights at worse chains.

These points devaluations beg the question of whether you should ever use a credit card to earn them. Many of the hotel credit cards earn a good deal more than 1 point per dollar spent, so it feels like you’re getting a good deal. At the same time, though, the value of each point is significantly less than, say, an airline mile, because hotel nights cost far less than airfares. It is possible, therefore, that simply spending on a credit card that earns fixed-value points may be more worthwhile than spending on a hotel card.

With this in mind, I’ve laid out some calculations for a mid-to-nice hotel night at each of the major chains in a big city to see how much we have to spend on a hotel card or on a regular card to earn a free night:

Hilton

Cards

Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve – 3 HHonors points per dollar ($95 annual fee)

Citi Hilton HHonors Visa – 2 HHonors points per dollar (no annual fee)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

theWit Chicago - A DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel

$341 (including taxes) per night

70,000 points per night

Spend Required

Citi HHonors Reserve – $23,333

Citi HHonors Visa - $35,000

Barclaycard Arrival - $17,050

Winner: General Points Card

Marriott

Cards

Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa – 1 point per dollar ($85 annual fee, waived first year)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

Renaissance Chicago Downtown Hotel

$278 (including taxes) per night

35,000 points per night

Spend Required

Marriott Visa – $35,000

Barclay Arrival - $13,900

Winner: General Points Card

Starwood

Cards

American Express SPG – 1 point per dollar ($65 annual fee, waived first year)

Barclaycard Arrival – 2 cents per dollar towards travel ($89 annual fee, waived first year)

Hotel

Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers

$323 (including taxes) per night

10,000 points per night

Spend Required

Amex SPG – $10,000

Barclay Arrival - $16,150

Winner: Hotel Card

The basic takeaway for me is that you shouldn’t ever use an HHonors or Marriott credit card to rack up spend, and that the Starwood card is every bit as incredible as every blogger makes it out to be. If you are loyal to Marriott or Hilton, I recommend getting their credit cards for the benefits they come with, but keeping your spending on a general points card that gives you greater value from spend. The only time I recommend using either of those cards is when you’re actually staying at a Hilton or Marriott, where those cards earn at a significantly higher rate.

This post tends to stay true for city hotels. In the next few days I will get into the earnings ratios for resort destinations.

My favorite travel accessories

1. Second laptop battery

This might seem like a no-brainer, but I think people write off second batteries as too expensive a purchase. In reality a backup battery can cost as little as $20, including MacBook batteries. This is a must in case you are delayed or laying over in an airport with few plugs around.

2. Anker Astro Portable Battery

This thing is awesome. It charges via micro-USB cable and can connect to pretty much any USB-powered device. It holds at least two charges for my iPhone 5, and fits in the palm of your hand. Sometimes if my iPhone is out of juice I will plug it into this and carry them both in my pocket.

3. 4 or 5 Car Chargers and Wall Adapters

Also an item people assume is prohibitively expensive. I buy four or five chargers at a time for about $15…total. Here’s a look at a potential buy on eBay. $2 per piece for car chargers. The same can be had for wall adapters. I love having an abundance of both of these because it’s not the end of the world if I leave one in a hotel room. I also like having a few in my apartment, my office, and my bag so I never have to be moving them around.

4. 4 or 5 USB Cables

There is no reason everyone shouldn’t have a bunch of these. Even iPhone 5 cables are cheap as heck on eBay. Here’s 5 for $10 on eBay.

5. Amazon Kindle

For $69 plus the cost of a cover, it is worth not carrying a really heavy book around. Or just a book that takes up space. My travel bag is bulky enough as it is with a laptop, there’s no need to make it even thicker. At the $69 price point, no reason to not have one.

6. SoundMAGIC Earphones

These are great headphones that wrap up easily, don’t get messy, and block most of the sound around me.

7. Neck Pillow and Eye Shades

The links above are to the two that I use. Both very comfortable. To give you some idea of how comfortable exactly, my girlfriend made fun of me for using them on our way to Mexico, and then ended up using them the entire flight back. Okay maybe she was just tired. Either way, these are great products.

8. FreedomPop Wifi Hotspot

The link above is my referral link that gets us both some extra data each month. This is a free wifi service that uses 4G cell signal to beam internet to your computer. All you have to do is buy the $39 hotspot device and then you can use up to 500MB a month for free. This is really key in airports where you have to pay for wifi. I’ve only had the device a little while, but it’s going to pay for itself in my next couple visits to Reagan where the wifi is horrible. The device itself easily fits in your hand, or you can get a little USB stick that plugs right into your computer.

Best ways to manufacture minimum spend

As an incredibly well-known blogger with a huge following, I often get stopped in the street and asked questions.

Okay fine, I get Facebook messages from my friends. But a kid can dream, right? The message I get most often is "I love the idea of getting all these miles but I can't meet the minimum spend on all these credit cards to get the signup bonuses." With that in mind, hopefully this post will be helpful to those of you looking to meet minimum spends but don't have the significant expenses required to do so.

"Manufacturing" or "churning" spend is the process of spending money to get money. Many points and miles do this because have a lot of minimum spends to meet in a very short timeframe, and they simply don't spend the kind of money required to meet these spends on their own. Here are the best and cheapest (you can actually make a little money doing some of these) ways that I know of to meet minimum spend.

1. Amazon Payments

Required: Bank account

This is probably the easiest one. You go to payments.amazon.com, make an account (it will work with an existing Amazon account) and send money to someone. You can send up to $1000 a month on your credit card with no fees. That means if you send someone $950, they will receive $950. All they need to do is write you a check or transfer you the money back in some way. Find a friend, send each other payments.

Steps

1. Credit card payment to friend's Amazon Payments Account
2. Friend sends you the money back (not on Amazon Payments)
3. Pay off credit card

2. Vanilla Reload to Bluebird

Required: Bluebird account (free at www.bluebird.com), store that sells Vanilla Reload cards

This is slightly more difficult than Amazon Payments in that you need to find a store near you that sells Vanilla Reload cards. These are essentially Visa gift cards that you can purchase for $3.95 apiece. You can add up to $500 onto it at the store. Once the card is activated at the store, you can go online to the website on the back of the card and load the funds onto your Bluebird account. The funds appear immediately, and once they are there you can send them from your Bluebird to a credit card to pay it off. For a more detailed tutorial, check out Million Mile Secrets' post

Steps

1. Purchase Vanilla Reload at store
2. Load Vanilla Reload onto Bluebird online
3. Pay credit card with Bluebird

3. Visa Gift Card to Bluebird and/or GoBank

Required: Bluebird account (free at www.bluebird.com) and/or GoBank account (free at www.gobank.com), TopCashBack account (free at www.topcashback.com), nearby Wal-Mart

This is the most difficult in terms of steps but is my favorite because it is very replicable and has the least risk of account closure involved. First you'll need to buy Visa gift cards. These are available on GiftCardMall. But don't go directly to GiftCardMall, first go to TopCashBack and then click through to GiftCardMall. This enables you to receive cash back when you purchase the gift cards. If you purchase enough cards, the cash back actually outweighs the per-card fee, so you'll end up better than even. Once you receive the cards, activate them and set a PIN for each of them on the GiftCardMall site. Then you can bring them to Wal-Mart and load your Bluebird or GoBank with them. Once Bluebird/GoBank is loaded, you can pay off your credit card with it. For a more detailed tutorial, check out Million Mile Secrets' post (note that his post says there are $1,000 gift cards, but there are only $500 ones now). This post details steps for Bluebird. For GoBank, you do the same thing except choose "GreenDot" instead of "Wal-Mart Money Card" at the Wal-Mart Money Center.

Steps

1. Purchase Visa gift cards on GiftCardMall through TopCashBack
2. Load Visa gift cards onto Bluebird or GoBank at Wal-Mart
3. Pay credit card with Bluebird or GoBank

Flights to Spain for exactly $0

Reader Barnabus is interested in taking a trip to the land of my second-favorite painter, Mr. Salvador Dali. Enter WenneTravel. While Barnabus is a seasoned vet in the miles and points game, unfortunately his current balances in British Airways and American Airlines are not incredibly useful to us, given that he doesn’t have enough AA miles and his Avios points will come with hefty fuel surcharges. Luckily, there are a number of ways to get to Europe on one single credit card. In this case, though, to cut on costs, we’re gonna get two credit cards.

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

50,000 Membership Rewards points after $5,000 spend in 3 months

No annual fee first year

Barclaycard Arrival

40,000 points after $1,000 spend in 3 months

2 points earned per dollar spent

No annual fee first year

Total General Points: 97,000

Total Cost: $0

Flights

In the interest of variety, I have taken it upon myself to avoid both Chase cards and United miles for this trip. United is by far the best and easiest-to-use mileage program, in my opinion, so usually I find flights using their miles. However, not everyone has the credit to get Chase credit cards, so today we will focus on two other issuers: Amex and Barclays.

Amex Membership Rewards points transfer to a number of airline partners. One in particular, Air France, is interesting because they have some pretty good redemption options for long-haul flights. A lot of Europe is only 50,000 miles roundtrip. Air France lets you use their www.airfrance.us site to search for award space even if you don’t have enough miles in your account. Since Membership Rewards should transfer instantly to your Air France account, you can search for the award space and know what you want to purchase before having to transfer miles.

For September there is a ton of space going to Madrid and out of Barcelona.

DC to Madrid

There is a significant amount of availability:

The return is looking pretty darn good as well:

Barcelona to DC

So for 50,000 miles and $279, we can go to Barcelona and come back from Madrid. But wait, there’s more!

Let’s put the $279 in taxes and fees on our Barclaycard Arrival. Now, for 27,900 points, we can “erase” that purchase. Our Arrival card allows us to erase travel purchases at a rate of 1 cent per point.

Finally, we must get between Madrid and Barcelona. We’re in luck once again. Take a look at these fares:

We have about 20,000 Arrival points remaining, 4,000 of which will be needed to cover one of the first two flights.

Total Points Used: 81,900

Total Cost: $0

Here’s a look at the actual price for flights on the same days:

Flights

Total Savings: $1,369

Need help thinking about the right credit cards for you, or how to book this kind of trip? Head over to WenneTravel at www.wennecorp.com and we’d be happy to chat with you.

Credit Card Links

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

Barclaycard Arrival

Trip Review: Louisville and Cincinnati

This past weekend my girlfriend and I took a trip to the northernmost southern city, Louisville, Kentucky, for a quick getaway as well as a chance to add a MLB stadium to our growing list (Cincinnati is only 90 minutes away). Unfortunately the Reds-Cardinals game we were planning to attend on Sunday afternoon was moved to Sunday evening recently, which conflicted with our flights, so we ended up staying an extra night in Louisville.

Louisville

Fun fact about Louisville’s airport: the baggage claim plays the Churchill Downs horse-racing trumpet song whenever bags start coming out. I asked the Hertz desk attendant if this got annoying. She claimed it was cute.

We stayed at the Hampton inn Louisville Downtown, probably the best Hampton I have stayed in. The staff was attentive and very friendly, and went out of their way to meet our needs and make sure we were comfortable and happy. It is also conveniently located walking distance from many of Louisville’s major attractions. I highly recommend this hotel.

Our first stop after checkin was a relatively large bar built into the basement of an old building in a back alley off the main road. We ordered pretzels with “beer cheese”, a cheesy sauce made with multiple types of cheese, milk, and some other ingredients. Pretty darn tasty. I also had a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, which I can only describe as a very sweet, thin beer. It’s made by placing beer in an emptied-out bourbon keg. Oh, it’s also very alcoholic.

For dinner I was recommended the “hot brown”, basically an open-faced turkey sandwich with lots of melted cheese on top. Delicious. Due to our intense calorie intake, the waitress was unable to convince us to try dessert.

Troll Pub Under the Bridge

150 W Washington St

Louisville, KY 40202

Food: 9

Speed: 10

Price: 7.5

Parking: Street

Louisville Slugger Museum

On Saturday morning, after a necessary stop at Dunkin Donuts of course, we made our way over to the Louisville Slugger Museum. As lovers of the game, it was hard not to be enthralled with the walkthrough of the factory where the bats are made. You even get a minibat souvenir at the end, which, had you been willing to purchase it anyway, would have more than made up for the $11 tour ticket. There were also a number of exhibits, including scientific ones explaining how bats work and how they’re made. The highlight was using Dustin Pedroia’s bat model in the batting cages they have.

Fun fact: Louisville Slugger is the bat brand used by 60% of baseball players in MLB.

Post-museum it was lunchtime. Unfortunately downtown Louisville shuts down on weekends, and as far as Louisville restaurant hours go, Google Maps is not well-updated. We ended up walking about 10-12 blocks by a number of restaurants that were allegedly open, only to discover they were closed.

Luckily, right next to the museum is a coffee shop called Mrs. Potter’s that resembles an unfinished basement. Fortunately the food doesn’t. We were delighted with our chicken and fig-and-prosciutto sandwiches.

Mrs. Potter’s Coffee Lounge

718 W Main St

Louisville, KY 40202

Food: 9

Speed: 7

Price: 8.5

Parking: Street

Muhammad Ali Museum

Little did I know that one of the hidden gems (hidden to me at least) of Louisville is this expansive museum on the life and career of Muhammad Ali. What I found most interesting about the museum is that it did not, as most museums do, paint its subject as a perfect person. It showed both Ali’s strengths and weaknesses as a human being. The museum is very interactive, with multiple boxing exhibits, and also is full of videos, making it lighter on the reading and easier on the visuals.

Louisville Slugger Field

My personal highlight of the day was our front-row section on top of the home dugout for just $11 per ticket. This field is home to the Cincinnati Reds’ AAA affiliate, the Louisville Bats. It is a fan-friendly and open-air stadium that was both easy to get around and comfortable to sit in. Plus Louisville seems to always have perfect baseball weather. Despite what I’m sure was a devastating loss to the Durham Bulls, the crowd was still able to maintain high spirits thanks to Buddy the Bat (the purple animal mascot) and the dancing bat boy.

Postgame froyo was of course a must for this health-conscious but sweets-loving couple (or maybe I’m just referring to myself). Louisville has a trendy area southeast of downtown called Germantown. Bardstown Road, the main drag in this area, is home to many boutique shops and fun nightlife. Lula’s, the place we stopped, is home to the most expensive frozen yogurt I’ve ever seen. $7 for my normally $4-$5 froyo. I couldn’t complain though, as it was also some of the best froyo I’ve had.

Churchill Downs

No trip to Louisville would be complete without a visit to the world-famous home of the Kentucky Derby. Well, ours would have been complete without it except that the Reds game was moved so we had some extra time. The Hampton has box tickets they sell for $9 apiece. While I was not dressed for the occasion (I did not have my Sunday best packed in my suicase) this didn’t take away from our enjoyment of this beautiful arena. Surely a must-see for any lover of the South. One note: research parking options beforehand, as we were fooled into paying $10 for parking significantly further away than the $5 parking right next to the entrance.

Cincinnati

After a few races we had some time to kill before our flights, which were out of Cincinnati. Just as in Louisville, Google Maps restaurant hours failed us again! We attempted to visit 3 Skyline Chilis before finally arriving at an open one in Clifton. For those unfamiliar, Skyline is Cincinnati’s world-renowned chili chain. For $6, a chili-covered hot dog and a chili sandwich could be had, and they did not disappoint. One recommendation, however: do not order the chili by itself, as it is a bit thin for individual consumption. The whole meal took about 15 minutes. Incredibly fast service.

Skyline Chili

290 Ludlow Ave

Cincinnati, OH 45220

Food: 8

Speed: 10

Price: 10

Parking: Lot (free)

Cincinnati’s other famous food chain is Graeter’s, which serves up homemade and hand-packed ice cream that is simply divine. The line, even during the downpour we had to walk through to get to it, was all the way to the door. Certainly worth it for some coconut chip ice cream. And not those square chocolate chips you see in most ice cream. Real bits of soft chocolate.

Wenneker Stamps of Approval?

Louisville - YES

Louisville is a cute town to visit. It’s got a decent number of things to do, and in general the people are nice and the weather is warm. It is a very small town, even by my standards of loving small towns, and so may not be for everyone in terms of nightlife. Still, a weekend there is very enjoyable and I would recommend it if you like southern charm and easy movement around town.

Cincinnati – NO NOT YET (edit)

I wanted to come back to Cincinnati to give it a second chance since last time I came through I found the downtown area to be grimy and not very attractive. Unfortunately nothing changed. As much as I love the small and/or forgotten cities (Cleveland is one of my favorite places), I just couldn’t learn to love Cincinnati. I will say though, that I did like the Clifton area by the University of Cincinnati and recommend going up there if you decide to visit.

Edit: A native Cincinnatian posted a comment on my wall after reading my review here and she outlined a number of things that I missed out on in the city. The few hours I gave Cincinnati are not a fair shake, I agree. So I'm withholding judgment until I'm able to explore more of the city.

My favorite travel apps

Every frequent traveler has their own set of apps that they use to stay in the know on the go. For me, I like having as much information as possible about each of my travel plans, so I use a relatively large number of apps to keep me informed. Below is a list and description of each of the apps that I use, in order of frequency of use:

1. FlightTrack Pro (free version also available)

FligthTrack Pro gives me information about each of my flights. As soon as the airline gives any info about a flight, it goes into FlightTrack, and I’m able to see gate changes, delays, and the amount of time I have for a layover. The difference between Free and Pro is that Pro syncs with TripIt, an online travel organizer. I use TripIt for all my travel plans, so I bought the $4.99 Pro version to have TripIt automatically populate my flights in FlightTrack.

2. Waze

Waze is Google Maps on crack. It gives you turn-by-turn voice navigation and also routes you around traffic using real-time information from other drivers using the app. If a traffic jam arises further ahead on your route, it will re-route mid-drive. It will also alert you to police that other “Wazers” have spotted as well as other hazards on the road. A recent update now includes gas stations, sorted by distance or price, along your route. I don’t go anywhere without this amazing app.

3. TripIt

TripIt is just awesome. The free version is pretty much all you’ll need. Whenever you book travel, whether it’s a hotel, rental car, or flight, you can forward the confirmation email to TripIt and it will automatically create a trip profile for you. Forward it a bunch of confirmations from one trip and it organizes them together. For Gmail and a bunch of other domains, you can set up TripIt to just scan your email every so often so you don’t even have to forward it your travel information.

4. TaxiMagic

This is by far the best app for taxis in my opinion. Yes Uber is great, but their fares tend to be much higher than the services that are on TaxiMagic. The app is user-friendly and allows you to pay for your cab (for a small fee) on the app itself instead of having to do so in the vehicle. This is especially helpful for some taxi services that don’t have credit card readers installed. With TaxiMagic you can see a map of where your cab is and how far it is from you. It will also tell you the cab number so you know what to look for when you go outside to catch it. Most major cities I’ve been in have TaxiMagic (notably excepting San Francisco).

5. FlightAware

One thing that most airline and flight tracking apps and websites fail badly at is showing your incoming flight. Sometimes I’m about to leave for the airport and my flight shows on-time on the airline website, but I get there and discover it’s delayed. Oftentimes you can know this will happen before the airline updates flight times by checking on where the incoming flight is. FlightAware allows you to do this. On the app you can type in your flight number and then click “Track Inbound Flight”. With reasonable reliability it can produce the flight your aircraft is currently flying and tell you how far away it is

.

6. SeatGuru

Ever pick a seat on your flight and get on the airplane to discover it’s a lot worse than it looked on the airline website? SeatGuru can stop that from ever happening. Type in your flight number on the app and it will produce your plane’s seat map and tell you which seats are good, which seats are bad, and why. I’ve avoided numerous tight bulkheads that looked great online by reading SeatGuru.

7. GateGuru

GateGuru tells you what’s around you in your airport. It will give restaurants, shops, pretty much anything that’s in the airport, you can find on this app. This is helpful especially in larger airports because stores and restaurants are tucked away in different areas of the airport you might not have walked through otherwise.

…

There are other apps out there that I like. Delta and American have the best airline apps, in my opinion, followed by United. You might as well download all the airline apps available because they can be helpful in providing you information about your flight.

Trip Review: US Airways Shuttle

US Airways runs a service between Boston, New York - La Guardia, and DC - Reagan, called the "Shuttle". I'm not convinced of the name because personally it makes me think of a bus. But hey, I've heard these are some of their most profitable routes, so they must be doing something right.

Shuttle provides hourly flights from 6am and 9pm between each of these city pairs. This might seem like a lot of flying, but to give you some idea, even the 9pm flight from DCA-BOS on Tuesday night, one of the slowest days for travel, was mostly full. 

Shuttle is designed for business travelers, but it is for this reason that the Shuttle is actually great for leisure flyers. In Boston, Shuttle has its own gates that always have really short security lines. Same with Reagan. The last time I flew the Shuttle from LGA was 7 years ago, so I don't remember if they have their own gates there, but I would assume so. Each airport also has its own Shuttle check-in desks.

Another nice thing about Shuttle is how efficient it is. Gate agents are relentless about getting people onto the plane, and flight attendants are in the aisles making sure people get their bags overhead quickly and don't block other passengers. It is actually pretty impressive how quick this plane boards, even when full. I wish all flights operated like this.

Until recently, Shuttle boarded back to front, which was efficient, but I think the airline realized that this was detrimental to their elite flyers who picked seats at the front but couldn't fit their bag overhead by the time they got on board. Recently they changed back to zone boarding like a regular flight, which might take a minute or two longer but is more pleasing to the travelers who butter US Air's bread.

US Airways

Booking

Website Speed: B+

Website Useability: B

US Air's site is reasonably fast and is also reasonable from a user perspective. I don't really ever search on the site itself because whenever I'm looking for flights I go on Kayak first. It's really hard to make changes to tickets on their site, but for just choosing seats and changing your frequent flyer number the site does its job.

One thing to note is that Shuttle flights don't allow you to choose your seats until 24 hours in advance, so make sure you check in right at the 24 hour mark to have the best shot at good seats. It's a free-for-all.

Pre-Flight

Gate Agent Friendliness: A

Gate Agent Announcements: A

Boarding Process: A

The gate agent thanked me by name when I boarded, and even though the incoming flight was a bit delayed they got the boarding started quickly and made multiple announcements about when it would begin. As a Star Alliance Gold I appreciate the new zone boarding instead of the row-by-row boarding.

Flight

Pilot Friendliness: A

Pilot Announcements: A

Flight Attendant Friendliness: A

Coach Legroom: B

Coach Seat: B

Coach Food: N/A

In-Flight Entertainment: N/A

In-Flight Wifi: Did not use

The flight attendants got passengers' bags up in a hurry and we were on our way in under 25 minutes from when the plane got to the gate. The pilots came on a few times and told us about what to expect for the flight. They continued to provide updates in the air.

The seats on the A319s are a little cramped, but who cares for an hour flight? Comfort-wise it was average.

Flight attendants managed to do a full-plane beverage service in-flight despite the short duration. I was impressed.

There was wifi onboard but I had no need for it.

Wenneker Stamps of Approval? Yes

I'm a huge fan of the Shuttle service. I can leave my house in DC at 745 and be at my house in Boston by 1045. And with the wide range of the schedule, I'm able to leave after work and also arrive back in time for work in the morning. No complaints here.