Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan announced on Thursday, Sept. 22, the long-awaited news that Japan plans to fully reopen for foreign tourism on Oct. 11, Bloomberg reported. Japan is one of the last remaining nations with strict COVID-19 bans and restrictions on general tourism. While supervised group tours to Japan have been available for the past few months,…
The main cruise ship dock in Turks and Caicos suffered damage Tuesday as a strengthening Hurricane Fiona roared across the island destination, raising questions about whether and when cruise calls can resume. Videos of the 200-foot-long pier at the Grand Turk Cruise Center on the Turks and Caicos island of Grand Turk posted on social media sites show that…
There’s a lot happening with Marriott Bonvoy cobranded credit cards, so fasten your seatbelts and put your seats in the upright position. In addition to launching two brand-new credit cards, there are major updates to the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant™ American Express® Card, a more valuable free night award on the Ritz-Carlton™ Credit Card (no longer available to new applicants) and…
We’re just over 260 days into 2022, and a member of the Marriott Bonvoy Insiders Facebook group has already accrued 357 elite night credits. Impossible? Far from it. Improbable for most of us? Definitely. Marriott offers loads of easy ways to pick up bonus elite night credits each year. With a shrewd Marriott credit card strategy paired with some…
A key regional airline is trying something new to combat the pilot shortage and the high cost of earning the flight experience necessary to fly for an airline. Mesa Airlines, which operates as United Express and American Eagle, has purchased 29 training aircraft, and will use those planes to allow pilots to earn the 1,500 hours necessary to become…
Whether it’s due to an illness in the family or a work emergency, even the best-laid travel plans can go awry, resulting in you needing to make a last-minute flight change. The process for late-breaking changes varies by carrier and depends on whether you are attempting to change a refundable or nonrefundable ticket. Once you determine that, you must…
It’s official: The biggest cruise destination in Maine will limit the number of cruisers that can arrive in any given month. The town council of Bar Harbor, Maine, on Tuesday officially signed off on an agreement with the cruise industry that places caps during the tourist season on cruiser arrivals, capping them at anywhere from 30,000 to 65,000 a…
There’s splurging on a nice dinner, and then there’s splurging tens of thousands of dollars for anything from an over-the-top dessert to a gem-laden cocktail. For the world’s most dedicated gourmands, these extravagant menu items served at hotels and resorts around the world are some of the most expensive menu items you can buy. Some even cost as much…
Marriott’s premium credit card — the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card — is undergoing a major overhaul. Today’s update includes the previously-announced shift in the card’s $300 annual credit, but we’re also learning about an array of additional changes. And unfortunately, these new and enhanced perks come with a higher annual fee. That said, existing cardholders have a…
Thanks to being a loyal TSA PreCheck and Clear member, I usually experience little to no wait time at all to go through the U.S. Transportation and Security Administration line at airports where Clear and TSA PreCheck are available. Even when I have this peace of mind, derived from flying out of airports and with airlines offering both expedited…
