NowBoarding, your daily travel news in 7 minutes or less. This is your host, Ed Pizza, bringing you the latest travel news and deals you need to know Monday through Friday. Tune in daily so you don’t miss any of the best deals!

Look for links to all of today’s stories in the show notes on whatever podcast platform you’re listening. And, please share the show with a friend!

First up is a great deal to Hawaii starting at around $250 round-trip. This one is for West Coast folks departing from cities like San Francisco, LAX, Portland and Las Vegas. Some of these fares are Basic Economy, which could be painful on a long flight to Hawaii if you get stuck in a middle seat, and you might end up paying for a bag, etc. However, Southwest is participating in the sale from many of these cities to a number of destinations in Hawaii.

This fare is live now, so I’d jump on it if you’re thinking about it. There are apparently dates available through all 12 months of 2020. Remember that if you book a flight that originates or lands in the US you have 24 hours to cancel the booking after you purchase. So, if you’re on the fence grab one of these now and spend the rest of your 24 hours trying to figure out how to coordinate hotels. Fares like this are why I’m a big fan of flexible loyalty currency like Chase Ultimate Rewards. If you take advantage of cheap flights like this, you can transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to hotel chains like Hyatt or Marriott to make a trip to Hawaii super cheap. Check out the link in the show notes for more information on this deal.

Next up, Alaska Airlines has a new shopping portal bonus where you can earn up to 1,000 Mileage Plan miles. I don’t normally see shopping portal bonuses this close after the Christmas shopping season, so this is a pleasant surprise. If you have $150 or $300 you were already planning to spend in January, make sure to check out the Alaska Airlines shopping portal and score a few extra miles.

Sticking with Alaska Airlines, they’re currently offering up to 50% off Fiji Airways awards using your Alaska Airlines miles. This is for economy and business class travel over the next couple of months. A business class ticket that would normally cost 55,000 Mileage Plan miles is 40,000 miles during this sale. Economy tickets that are normally 40,000 miles one-way are 20,000. Smart travelers can set up these awards to give yourself a stopover in Fiji and also fold in someplace like Australia or New Zealand all on one ticket. That’s a crazy price for two awesome destinations. Economy class availability looks great, where business class availability is more scarce. As always, links in the show notes.

Hyatt appears to be getting a new luxury property in the Maldives. The Maldives are one of the most beautiful places in the world, which I still haven’t gotten to visit. Part of that is it’s a long trip, one that can take over 24 hours of combined flying and boats to get to your hotel room. Hyatt acquired a hotel brand called Alila recently. Alila has started construction on a new property in Maldives that should be open by the end of 2020.

Finally, Frequent Miler has details on a new benefit for many Chase cardholders. Chase is teaming up with DoorDash, the popular food delivery service. DoorDash charges a fee to the customer in many cases to deliver your meal. As part of this new partnership, Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cardholders will get up to 2 years of free DashPass membership. Freedom and Slate cardholders will get 3 months of free membership.

DashPass waives the delivery fee for many, but not all restaurants on the DoorDash platform. For existing DoorDash customers, this is a great way to justify part or all of your annual fee for Chase credit card. It’s important to note that there are some rumors floating around about increases in the annual fees of some Chase credit cards, so you might need some extra savings to justify a higher fee in 2020. I’m sure we’ll have more news on that soon. And, as always, you can find out about it here on NowBoarding.

That’s a full wrap on today’s travel news. If you’ve got a piece of travel news that you think I should feature on NowBoarding, you can e-mail me at ed@pizzainmotion.com, or find me on social media, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. And, you can find me blogging daily at pizzainmotion.com.

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