Travel Minute — There’s No Need to Fly to Collect Miles

If you don’t think that you can accumulate free airline tickets because you rarely fly, consider this statistic: In 2010, 65% of the 185 billion—that’s BILLION—frequent flyer miles issued by American Airlines went to customers using credit cards.  Not passengers in airplanes.

There are so many ways to accumulate frequent flyer miles that I often joke we should begin using them as everyday currency.  Want a latte at Starbucks?  Just hand the person behind the counter 500 miles. 

Involved in a fender bender that’s your fault?  Give the aggrieved party 25,000 miles. 

Your wife spots you have a romantic dinner with your old girlfriend?  Grovel, hand over 100,000 miles, and hope for the best.

The moral of this Travel Minute is: If you’re looking for a free flight someday, put everything you buy on a credit card.  Apply for cards that give you at least 40,000 bonus miles for signing up.  If you can pay for your kids’ school tuition with a credit card, do it.  When you’ve accumulated enough miles for a ticket, you may graduate to the next step: Trying to find a fee seat in increasingly crowded skies.

Travel Minute — Will This Be America’s First High-Speed Train?

Asia and Europe have had high-speed trains for years, whooshing passengers between cities—the photo here is of Japan’s “bullet” train.  Will our first one be in the middle of nowhere?

I mean no disrespect to Victorville, CA, or Las Vegas, NV.  But conventional thinking has it that high-speed, or bullet, trains will only be cost-effective if they link big-population centers that have light rail connections that feed the fast train.

Like between New York and Boston or DC.  Or LA and San Francisco.  But Victorville and Vegas?

If a group of investors who have already spent tens of millions of dollars and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada get their way, those two American towns will be the first to be linked by high-speed rail.  Now, Victorville is 90 miles north of Los Angeles.  Will people be willing to drive to that distance to catch a train?

The mayor of Victorville thinks so.  He says people will want to save a couple of hours driving and avoid weekend backups on the interstate.  He’s also counting on the train linking with an LA-San Francisco high-speed train.  But that project remains in doubt.  And I have to say, I think taxpayers will wind up heavily subsidizing the Victorville-Vegas train if it happens.

I hope I’m wrong.

Travel Minute — ‘Don’t Feed the Animals’ Is Just the Beginning!

We’ve all seen warning signs in national parks asking us not to feed the animals.  But that’s just the beginning. 

Yesterday I talked about the dangers of the Grand Canyon.  But let’s talk generally about our wonderful national parks and the wild animals that live there.

And I want to emphasize the world “wild.”  Tim Harrison is a retired public safety officer from Ohio who is one of the country’s foremost expert on the safe handling of exotic animals.  And he says Americans are much too blasé about animals they encounter in the wild.  Blame it on cartoons that depict wild animals as soft and cuddly.  Blame it on expert animal handlers who appear on TV shows with pliant animals who have been slightly sedated, though viewers aren’t told that.

Harrison says a bison is not a large cow; it’s a wild animal, and approach one in Yellowstone, and you won’t like what happens next.  Bears are not teddy bears.  The Everglades have become a dumping ground for people wishing to get rid of their pet snakes, many of them poisonous.

Harrison says pay attention to the warnings about animals that are posted in the visitor centers are national parks.  And I second that emotion.

Travel Minute — The Dangers of the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is one of America’s most iconic national parks, and it’s a terrific family destination.  But danger lurks there, as well.  Here’s what you need to know to enjoy a safe visit.

Michael Ghiglieri just updated his book titled Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon. He’s an Arizona river guide, a Vietnam vet, and an emergency medical technician.  He joined me on my weekend radio show and said one of the dark secrets of the Grand Canyon is how many people die there.

There are folks who are so intent on taking pictures they accidentally step over the edge of the canyon to their deaths.  There are hikers who may find it easy to hike to the bottom of the canyon but overestimate their ability to hike back out.  They die of dehydration or simply because they’re not physically able to complete the climb.

Hundreds of visitors have died in crashes of flightseeing planes due to the unpredictable winds and turbulence caused by the gash in the earth—especially on hot days in the summer.

If you’re visiting this summer, make sure you don’t try to tackle a hike you can’t handle.  Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.  And watch that edge.

Travel Minute — Wild & Wacky Frequent Flyer Awards

We all know we can trade frequent flyer miles for airline tickets. But there are some other, more unusual options out there.

A Wisconsin-based airline consulting group called Idea Works Company surveyed 150 airlines to take a look at some of the creative awards airlines offer members of their frequent flyer programs.

Lufthansa, for example, offers German members a “sockscription,” the right to have a company send you two pairs of new socks each month.

Delta offered passengers the right to bid on tickets, accommodations and meals for two to join Delta employees in Thailand at their Habitat for Humanity project.  The winning bid was 400,001 miles.

For 25 million points, Virgin Atlantic will provide a ticket to ride on a future Virgin Galactic Sub-Orbital space flight.  That ticket would normally cost you $200,000.

Southwest will put you in a fighter jet for about 214,000 points for a one-hour ride of your life.

Bangkok Airways offered a physical at a Bangkok hospital for 400 points.

Etihad, the airline of the United Arab Emirates, had the most expensive offer: a 68-foot, $3.5 million yacht—yours for nearly 386 million frequent flyer miles.

Dream on, my friends, dream on!