Fly first class for 40K, value from SkyMiles, upgrade strategies and a 5 year road trip

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It’s the weekend — welcome to our Frequent Miler week in review around the web, where we recap some good reads from around the ‘net. This week, we’ve got some great posts — from a first class redemption that is about to disappear to the anticipation of the ultimate cross-country road trip. Read on for more:

Top 8 Ways to Redeem Delta SkyMiles

a large airplane on the tarmac
Delta Out Of Paint

SkyMiles have long gotten a bad rap in the blogosphere. Jared at Thrifty Traveler shows us his top 8 ways to get strong value out of Delta’s currency. I’m not sure I’d book a flight at 1 cent per mile, but I’ll admit that I’ve been wanting to use some points to buy a bottle champagne in the Sky Club. My problem has been that I just haven’t flown Delta in ~30 years…thank goodness I booked through the Virgin Atlantic site recently :-). I’ll have to wait until next summer — somebody leave a bottle of Cristal for me at the Sky Club at JFK.


Last Week to Book This Amazing 40K Mile First Class Award!

a man and woman sitting in a chair

Charlie at Running with Miles points out a fantastic award redemption that’s going away. I’ve flown this one in business class and I’m disappointed that I can’t find a time to fit in a first class award at 40K before the price goes up, because the ground experience in business was great. Definitely one to book if you can fit it into your travel plans.


How to Get a Spectacular Hotel Room Upgrade for Free

a living room with a couch and a tv
A recent suite upgrade I got at the Park Hyatt Chicago

This past weekend at the Chicago Seminars, I talked about emailing the hotel ahead of stays and how it resulted in some nice upgrades and surprises at various hotels around the world. This week, Brian McAdam outlines his approach – and he’s got a couple of parts in there I hadn’t considered (particularly the picture — loved that idea!) and will try out the next time I’m hoping for an upgrade.


The IHG Point Breaks map and sortable table is updated (October 30 2017 – January 2018)

a screenshot of a website

We reported yesterday that the new IHG Point Breaks list is out. Dan at Points with a Crew took it a bit further and updated his map and sortable table. He’s been doing these for a long time and I find it super helpful — I’m a visual person, so the map works well for me and the sortable table is useful if you’re looking for a particular state/city/country/brand. If you’re looking to take advantage of this quarter’s PointBreaks or you just want to have it as a reference for your next road trip, this is a good page to bookmark.


Only One More Day Until I Quit My Job!

a van driving on a dirt road

Do you dream of the ultimate cross-country road trip? What would it look like?  How long would it take? If you’ve ever seen the articles about the most efficient path for driving through all 48 continental states, you might know that it can be done in a week or so. That’s not what Stephen and Shae Pepper are about to do. They are preparing to embark on a 5-year, 50-state road trip that sounds fascinating. Reading this post made me excited for the adventure and at the same time anxious at the thought of leaving it all behind — and that led me to read several more of Stephen Pepper’s posts. I look forward to following this adventure.


That’s it for this week in review. Check back soon for this week’s last chance deals.

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