Over the past 6 years I have flown out of IAD (Washington Dulles Airport) a lot. I have been a guest at many of the hotels around the airport. There is a good deal of choices and at times over the weekend at some good rates. When a promotion with some other brand is not running; I tend to stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Dulles North. This hotel is only a few years old.

I would start off with this, it is not a full service hotel but it gets the job done and treats ...

The number of daily deals sites have exploded, leading to some interesting opportunities for travelers wanting to get a good deal to experience luxury. The only downside is that they are usually destination or extremely time sensitive.  However OpenSkies is offering a deal on Rue La La for a $499 travel voucher for only $99.  Based on current prices, it comes out to half off on the cost of a business class flight.  Here are the terms of the offer

Within 24 hours you ...

I was a guest at the Hyatt at Dulles airport a few weeks back, I checked in around 930pm and had a king bed room booked. When I walked to the desk I was informed that the hotel was sold out and there was no room with a King bed left.. I really did not care; I just wanted to sleep after a flight from Frankfurt, Germany. The very nice agent then said, Oh, I found one, we have to make sure our Diamond members get their bed types, I will put you in the Presidential suite. This was my second stay ...

A quick hello from LAX. I’m back state side for a week or so and had time to squeeze in a quick mileage run. Wednesday I did IAD-DEN-LAX in UNITED first and the return was the same routing for the next day. I booked this trip back in March and put some regional upgrade certs on the booking that cleared at that point. I did not want to do this run in Y, and most all of my flights are international so the regional certs just expire or I give them away.

Wednesday was an easy day, ...

Looks like some of the changes they hope we are going to like are coming soon. United and Continental will be starting some European Cross-Fleeting. In June 2011 the cross-fleeting on European operation will begin, where some CO routes replaced by UNITED aircraft and vice versa.

Here are the first routes to get upgrades and downgrades:

Newark – Brussels eff 29SEP11 UNITED 777 replace Continental 767-400ER
(Going from 2 ...

This is the first of a six-part recount of my recent trip to Central America.

Washington Dulles to San Salvador on TACAMy Adventure in San SalvadorAborted Landing on TACA: SAL-PTY24 Hours in Panama CityShort-Haul Flying on LACSA: PTY-SJO-SALAccused of Being a Terrorist: SAL to IAD on TACA-----------------------------

Last April I took a weekend jaunt down to Panama City on a $170 r/t fare from IAD on TACA. I had heard some bad ...