Flying for Fitness

The Chase Luxury Hotel Collection  (LHC) is a hotel booking portal available to all Chase credit cardholders.  The search engine has access to over 1,000 upscale hotels worldwide, and while the rates are typically the same as booking directly with the hotel, Chase adds on valuable benefits on all bookings including free daily breakfast for 2, free WiFi, a room upgrade, early check-in, late checkout, and a special benefit unique to each property.  These benefits can really add up and more than compensate for the actual booking cost, especially in Las Vegas where the upscale resorts are cheap as they rely heavily on gambling revenue. The unique property benefit at most Vegas resorts is typically a $100 food and beverage or spa credit.  And seeing how mid-scale resorts like the MGM Grand, Delano, and Mandalay Bay regularly offer weekday rates of <$100, the unique property benefit alone more than covers for the cost of the room rate. And if that's not sweet e...

The Citi Premier card has long been my go-to travel card as it earns 3x on all travel including gas.  As a no foreign exchange transaction fee World Elite MasterCard, it also has the best exchange rates coupled with great travel protection benefits.  I recently filed a claim for Citi's Worldwide Car Rental Insurance, and the process was simple and I got the full refund for damages to my rental cars.  But after Citi's recent benefit cuts , including the loss of trip cancellation/interruption, trip delay, car rental insurance, and lost baggage protection, keeping the card was now hard to justify for the $95 annual fee.  Even no-annual fee cards like the Chase Freedom carry many of these benefits, and Amex will soon be adding trip cancellation/interruption and trip delay protection to a number of their cards.  As my annual fee for the Citi Premier card was up, I called Citi to see if they had any retention offers.  The agent transferred me to their card "...

When you're on vacation in [insert here], you'll likely have the opportunity to book a vast array of unique tours to hotspots, ranging from Hobbiton to the Tower of London.  Aside from the convenience of having a preset itinerary and the knowledge of a guide, tours can also present themselves as fitness activities.  If you're in Hawaii, swimming with the dolphins for hours on end can burn a significant number of calories as you attempt to keep up with one of the most agile marine mammals on the planet.  And a hiking tour of Mt. Cook in New Zealand would be the equivalent of a week's full of stairmaster workouts. Now this will be quite the workout.... Nature tours Nature tours are a sure way to ensure that your legs are always moving.  You'll be sure to trek through forests and mountains as you explore the best that Mother Nature has to offer.  A full day of walking is a definitely a good workout, and you'll have the added benefit of witnessing natural ...

No joke, you can currently get FREE flights with JetSuiteX through the Blackbird Air app .  Blackbird is a start-up that matches your chosen flight routes with various private operators, including JetSuiteX.  They're currently running a $150 referral offer, which comes out to three $50 credits for your next 3 flight bookings.  JetSuiteX is a private charter airline that operates out of a number of West Coast cities in their own private terminals.  Currently, fares are as low as $49 each way between Phoenix and Las Vegas and $59 between Oakland and Las Vegas: Getting the $150 credit is actually pretty easy: Download the Blackbird iOS or Android app After signing up, click “Add a referral code” and input my code W1ZIK The $50 credit will be automatically applied to your next 3 flight bookings through their app. There have been various legit reviews for JetSuiteX, most of which have been overwhelmingly positive.  They operate Embraer E135s...

Amex has been long behind in their travel protection benefits, which don't include trip interruption/cancellation, trip delay, and baggage insurance, the last which is standard among other credit card companies.  However, Amex just announced that starting January 1, 2020, they will be adding trip interruption/cancellation and delay coverage to their premium and mid-tier cards. New trip interruption/cancellation benefit Trip interruption/cancellation is valid for the following: Roundtrip tickets paid for entirely with your eligible Amex card, including paying taxes/fees on an award ticket with your card or Amex Pay With Points tickets.  One-way tickets are not eligible. Covered reasons include inclement weather, illness, strike, terrorist attack, hijacking, etc. You can be reimbursed for up to $10,000 in non-refundable travel expenses per trip, up to $20,000 per year This new benefit only applies to Amex's premium cards: Amex Platinum Amex Business Pla...

United Airlines has long issued Regional Premier Upgrade (RPU) and Global Premier Upgrade (GPU) instruments to their Premier Platinum, 1K, and Global Services members on top of their complimentary Premier upgrades.  RPUs can be used on all domestic and limited int'l flights without fare restrictions, whereas GPUs can be used on all flights, with fare restrictions on United's longer haul int'l flights.  The earnings rates for the upgrade instruments are as follows: Premier Platinum: 2 RPUs upon qualification 1K: 6 GPUs upon qualification, plus 2 for every additional 50,000 PQMs earned Meet the new PointsPlus system United just announced that starting December 4, 2019, all RPUs and GPUs will be replaced with their new PlusPoints system .  Under the new system, PlusPoints will be issued to the following elites: Premier Platinum: 40 upon qualification 1K: 280 upon qualification for a total of 320 For unused upgrade instruments, RPUs will be converted to 20 and...

If God-forbid you ever get into a serious accident that would require emergency medical transport, you would probably look to your health or auto insurance provider for financial coverage.  But what if you're traveling abroad, where your auto insurance is pretty much out of the question and your health insurance coverage is limited?  Unknown to many, there are several credit cards that would cover your emergency medical transport costs if you got into a serious accident or illness: the Amex Platinum and the Chase Reserve and Chase Ritz-Carlton Rewards cards. Now let's take a look at the actual benefits and terms and conditions with these premium cards that come with emergency evacuation insurance at no additional charge. What's perhaps the most intriguing with the Amex Platinum is that you get emergency medical transport coverage just by virtue of having the card.  In other words, you could be on a hiking trip 100 miles away from your home and if ...

It has already been more difficult to find good value out of United MileagePlus miles with all the devaluations over the past few years.  And United miles are about to kick the bucket again come November 15th when they move towards dynamic award pricing , which is what Delta "Skypesos" currently uses.  However, there are still some good values to be found on their award chart, and they continue to be one of the only carriers that imposes zero fuel surcharges period on all award redemptions. One of the lesser known gems on their current chart is domestic flights in Japan with Star Alliance partner ANA.  For as little as 5k miles each way, you can book an array of ANA domestic flights up to 800 miles in distance, which covers almost all destinations out of Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Narita.  Flights over 800 miles in distance, like a 4-hour flight from Okinawa to Sapporo, come in at a measly 8k United miles.  To put that into perspective, United charges 10k award m...

If you work in an office building or stay at a hotel, you're bound by fire escape regulatory requirements to have the option of using the stairs to make it up to your room or office on the 22nd floor.  But stairs aren't just for emergencies, as they can often be faster than waiting for a crowded elevator if you're just going up or down a couple of flights.  A little known fact about ditching the elevator for the stairs is that the additional calories burned can really add up over time.  According to verywellfit.com, a 160-lb person burns the following amount of calories on average by using the stairs: 2 calories for one flight of 12 steps, about 0.17 calories per step climbed. 5 calories per minute walking slowly upstairs. These are calories they wouldn't burn standing on an escalator or taking an elevator. 11 calories per minute climbing stairs at a fast speed. 11 calories per minute on a stairclimber or stair-treadmill 19 calories per minute running up stairs. ...

We all need to use those cramped lavatories at some point during our long-haul flights, but ever wonder if the water coming out of those faucets is clean?  A new study by the Hunter College’s New York City Food Policy Center and the not-for-profit organization Diet Detective may get you to think twice before washing your hands and much less drinking anything that comes out of those lavatory faucets.  The study analysed water samples collected between 2012 and 2019 from 11 major and 12 regional airlines, issuing each airline a “Water Health Score” from zero to five, based on criteria such as fleet size and the presence of E. coli and coliform. Here are the rankings for major airlines: #1: Alaska Airlines: 3.3 #2: Allegiant Air: 3.3 #3: Hawaiian Airlines: 3.1 #4: Frontier Airlines: 2.6 #5: Southwest Airlines: 2.4 #6: Delta Air Lines: 1.6 #7: American Airlines: 1.5 #8: United Airlines: 1.2 #9: JetBlue: 1 #10: Spirit Airlines: 1 Guess most of us aren't sur...

With several international trips a year, I can attest to how great it is to have Google Fi , which is a no-contract wireless carrier that comes with int'l high-speed data and texts at no additional charge.  The fact that you never have to worry about int'l data, WiFi hotspot locations, and renting pocket WiFi devices and int'l SIM cards is huge.  Google Fi's flexible plan is $20 per month, which includes unlimited domestic talk and unlimited domestic and int'l texting.  The required high-speed data add-on, which includes domestic and int'l data in 200+ countries is simply $10 per GB, pro-rated down to the MB, which come down to a penny each.  Any data after 6 GB is free, so the most you'll ever pay is $60 for data domestically and internationally. Yesterday, Google just announced a few new options to their already outstanding flexible plan.  Group flexible plans are now cheaper, at $20 for the first user and $15 for each additional user all with unlimit...

As the city of Hong Kong is in the midst of a social makeover, carriers such as Cathay Pacific and Hong Kong Airlines have suffered from low ridership.  United and American have also cut frequencies from their hubs to HKG, citing decreased demands.  Perhaps as a result, Hong Kong Airlines is running some amazing deals for SFO-HKG for only $148 each way in economy . . . if you fly out within the next 2 weeks.  But at the same price as a 3-hour flight in the continental U.S., this is an insanely good deal that definitely won't last. You can use Skyscanner to search for the cheap flights, and most available dates fall at the end of September and first week of October.  I flew on Hong Kong Airlines last year in business class and both the hard product and service were stellar.  To me, they are definitely an underrated airline with perennial 5-star Cathay Pacific as their main competitor. Hong Kong Airlines A350 business class; sorry, these aren't $148 ...