During our first trip to Hawaii, we spent three nights at the Ritz-Carlton O‘ahu, Turtle Bay, one of the most expensive and luxurious resorts on Oahu’s North Shore. The total cost of our three-night stay was $3,446.21, including taxes and fees. After stacking Chase points, Points Boost, a $500 travel promotion, and the Chase Sapphire […]

When planning our first trip to Hawaii, we decided to split our seven-night stay on Oahu between two very different experiences. We spent our first four nights in Waikiki, enjoying the convenience, restaurants, and energy of Honolulu. For the final three nights, we wanted something quieter and more scenic, so we headed to Oahu’s famous […]

Two travel cards. Same $95 annual fee. Same 75,000-point welcome bonus. Genuinely different philosophies behind them. The Chase Sapphire Preferred has been the default “first real travel card” for over a decade — protection-heavy, bonus-category-driven, and quietly anchored by World of Hyatt. The Capital One Venture took a different path: flat 2x on everything, fewer […]

Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve® worth the $795 annual fee? Anyone telling you the Chase Sapphire Reserve® is automatically worth that — without knowing how you travel, what you eat, where you live, or how you actually redeem points — is selling you something. So let me try a different approach. The card is currently […]

If you’ve spent any time in this hobby, you already know the headline: a Hilton Free Night Certificate (FNC) is one of the best fixed-value perks in points and miles. Unlike its peers at Marriott, IHG, and Hyatt — all of which cap their certificates at a category or a points value — a Hilton […]

Trip Overview Our journey home to Toronto started at Colombo’s Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) on March 25, where we boarded Emirates retrofitted 777 business class flight EK 651 — the first of two flights back, with a 15-hour layover in Dubai before the onward leg to YYZ. We were traveling as a family of four: […]

On June 1, 2026, Aeroplan rolls out a new flight reward chart. The headline most blogs will run is “massive partner devaluation.” That’s lazy and, in several places, wrong. The reality is sharper, more useful, and more actionable: Aeroplan surgically devalued specific partner business class sweet spots — mostly Europe-to-Asia and US-to-deep-Asia — while leaving […]

Both premium cards just got a lot more expensive. The Chase Sapphire Reserve now carries a $795 annual fee. The Amex Platinum sits at $895. For most people weighing the two, the single biggest question is the same: how much of that fee do the hotel credits actually claw back? The face-value math makes CSR […]

Fly Etihad A380 business class from Toronto to Abu Dhabi. In this review, we cover the Business Studio seat, dine-anytime experience, lounge access, and how we booked it using Flying Blue miles.

One of the biggest credit card updates of 2025 was the refresh of the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which increased the annual fee to $795 but also introduced a long list of new credits. While many of the smaller $5–$10 monthly credits add unnecessary complexity, the hotel and travel credits on this card are where the […]