NowBoarding!  Your travel news in 7 minutes or less:

Don’t forget to check out the Miles To Go Podcast where we bring you the latest travel news, tips and tricks each week to help you save money and travel better.

Full Transcript

NowBoarding, your daily travel news in 7 minutes or less. This is your host, Ed Pizza, bringing you the latest travel deals and travel news 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!

We’ve got 6 stories to cover in today’s news, so let’s get started.

First up is an easy $10 in free Starbucks. Miles to Memories reports on an easy sale. Buy a $10 Starbucks gift card and get a free $10 Starbucks gift card. This one isn’t bound to last long, so all of you caffeine drinkers should jump on this.

Next up is a disturbing story of hidden cameras at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. Honestly, this is one of the fears I have with Airbnb and similar home sharing services. It’s not something I expect to find in a mainstream hotel chain. There’s little information so far about how many devices were found. I’ll be curious to see if there are updates on the story.

The hotel will definitely want to do everything to quell the story. More important here is understanding that this is not a random occurrence in hotels. Bad actors will continue to do things like this and reputable hotels will have an action plan on how to combat it.

There are huge changes to the Korean Air SkyPass program. It’s not a program I would normally follow, but it does have some uses. I’m including the note today in case you do have some points left over from a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer. You have a bit over a year to figure out what to do with them, which is really the only positive news here.

American Airlines is the latest program to crack down on folksthey believe are abusing their loyally program. Reports are that the airline is shutting down the accounts of folks who have been playing fast and loose with the rules. As with previous reports about American Express and Chase doing the same thing, it’s unclear just how fast and how loose these folks were playing it. There are some pretty benign reports about folks applying for a card when they received an offer in the mail targeted to them. I’ll be a keeping an eye on this, along with all the other shutdown announcements recently.

In the end, the best thing you can do is play by the rules. The credit card companies, along with the airlines and hotels, don’t have to let you participate in their loyalty programs. And, if they cancel your account, your points or miles are usually gone with no way to appeal for them to be reinstated.

We’ve got a twin pack of articles from God Save the Points to close out the news today. First up is a piece on whether you should visit Barcelona or Madrid. Gilbert’s answer is the same as mine, both! These are two great cities, for some of the same as well as different reasons. If you’re thinking about going to Spain, this article should be on your radar to help inform your decisions.

We finish up today with Gilbert’s breakdown of Google Hotels. I haven’t spent a ton of time playing with Google Hotels yet, but he’s really bullish on the functionality. Google Flights is a great resource for folks looking to plan travel, especially if you’re not 100% sure what you want to do. Google is applying the same methodology to hotel bookings. You can target wide geographic areas, price ranges and quality ranking of hotels individually or as a group of criteria. After reading this article, I definitely want to play around with the alert functionality. There are some great places I’d consider visiting if the price was right. Google Hotels may be just what the doctor ordered for that.

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, Facebookand Instagram. And, you can find me blogging daily at pizzainmotion.com.

Lastly, I need your help, for just a minute. Reviews and ratings are a huge part of what helps us reach a larger audience. So take a minute and help us out, leaving us a review and a rating wherever you get your podcasts. And, please tell a friend. That’s your travel news in 7 minutes or less. I hope you’ll join us again on a future flight!