11 Travel Hacking Tips, Stories, and Ideas Combined into One Post

This post is a “greatest hits” mashup of travel hacking tips, travel stories and features. Take a look and see if anything might be helpful to you.

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Round-the-World Tickets, Revisited
  Round-the-World tickets are highly flexible—and I should know, since I regularly make changes even on the same day of departure. Here’s how you can book up to 16 segments on a single ticket.

• 70,000 Points (+ One Free Annual Night) with IHG
  Anyone who likes to stay in hotels for free has an all-new option: the IHG® Rewards Club Select card. Here’s a strong limited-time offer of 70,000 points after completing a low $1,000 minimum spend in three months. You’ll also get free Platinum status and an additional free night valid at over 4,700 hotels throughout the network for every year you remain a cardmember. (Note: This offer was supposed to end recently, but was extended at the last-minute.)

• The 2015 Dining Dash: Victory!
  My travel hacking colleagues and I visited 12 restaurants throughout the city with the goal of reaching VIP status with Rewards Network in a single day. Mission Accomplished! More importantly: here’s how you can earn miles for restaurants you already frequent.

• The Single Best Credit Card for Travelers
  A great place to start if you’re new to miles and points or you don’t want to bother researching ALL the cards. With double miles on all travel and dining spend, combined with no foreign transaction fees, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is by far my #1 recommendation for most people.

• AmEx Centurion Lounge Continues to Be the Best Domestic Lounge
  A couple of years ago, American Express made an unexpected move: they decided to create their own series of domestic airline lounges that are a huge improvement over the typical domestic spots. A visit normally costs $50, but if you have The Platinum Card from American Express, unlimited visits are complimentary.

GENERAL FEATURES

These posts don’t contain a ton of actionable tips, but they may be interesting to some:

• My Favorite Part of the Qatar Airways A380 Flight Was the First Class Lavatories
  With hundreds of flights and, well, every country visited, I can be a bit of a jaded traveler. When I stepped onboard the new Qatar Airways A380, however, I was impressed.

• Watch This Pan Am 747 Take to the Skies (Or At Least the Ground) in the Ultimate 1970s Recreation
  Take a trip down memory lane (or for some of us, a trip down a previous generation) with this detailed recreation of a PAN AM 747 from the 1970s. It’s crazy to see how much travel has changed in the last 40-50 years.

• Traveler 1, Jet Lag 0 (For Once)
  How do you handle jet lag? Sometimes you fly ten hours, changing six or more time zones, and you feel great the next day. Other times you fly six hours, changing three time zones between West and East coast, and your body clock is off for nearly a week.

• Why I Keep Returning to My Least Favorite Hotel in London
  A photo tour of my favorite “worst hotel” and a testament to the power of familiarity. If you want an adventure in mediocrity, check into the Sheraton Heathrow.

• Travel Disasters and Misadventures Are Good for Us
  A commissioned illustration from Mike Rohde commemorating a few of my more spectacular travel disasters and misadventures. All of these experiences, even the negative ones, were helpful in building confidence to continue the journey to every country in the world.

• Sleeping in Hong Kong on My 100th Visit
  I’m always jet-lagged in Hong Kong. Always. Inevitably I’m arriving from Europe or the U.S., or once in a while South Africa—all destinations that are many time zones away. Accordingly, I have some nighttime rituals, including a sleepwalk through Kowloon.

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I hope this compilation is helpful! As always, thanks for reading. 🙂

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Images: Jacques, Slack12, U.N.