Lyft is finally paying out that $27M lawsuit settlement to California drivers

/ easyjourneys / 2 Comments

Almost two years after agreeing to pay $27M to California Lyft drivers in a class-action lawsuit settlement, and one year after a judge gave final approval of the settlement, Lyft is finally paying up.

I posted about this settlement previously trying to explain how drivers could know what kind of money they might make on the settlement, but basically: the more you drove during the applicable time period, the bigger your share of the settlement could be.

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Email from settlement administrators sent today.

How much did I make? Continue reading →

Skiplagged now lets you book Southwest flights?

/ easyjourneys / 4 Comments

I’m on Skiplagged constantly because these two tools make it my fave spot for tracking flight prices:

1. How early should you buy a flight? Skiplagged gives you an idea by showing how far out fares on your route start to skyrocket. Here I can see that fares on a sample route don’t start to rise drastically in price until you’re 8-12 days out from a given departure date:

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2. If you want to make an educated guess on whether your flight could drop in price, check out the data Skiplagged provides next to each flight in your search:

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Because of the price history I guessed that the flight above would drop in price, since it was more than a month out from the flight, and I snagged the flight when it dropped into one of its $197 valleys.

Get to the news plz.

So this week I noticed Southwest Airlines flights appearing in Skiplagged searches. I don’t know how long this has been active, but I just noticed it. Continue reading →

Hotel review: new TownePlace Suites is one of SF Bay Area’s most affordable points options

/ easyjourneys / 2 Comments

Finding affordable lodging in the SF Bay Area is a challenge, whether you’re looking for a hotel to stay in while visiting, or looking for a place to live.

For visitors with a stash of Marriott or SPG points (points from either program can be transferred to the other), there’s a relatively affordable new option.

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At 25k Marriott points per night, hotels on the peninsula side of the Bay don’t get much more affordable than the TownePlace Suites San Mateo Foster City. Continue reading →

3 Chase UR travel portal glitches & how to get around them

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In just a couple of hours of searching for flights last night using the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, I ran into three different glitches.

Here they are:

1. Want to do a search with results from all fare classes? Select the “All Classes” option in your search, and there’s a good chance you won’t in fact get all classes as results.

I was searching for a red-eye flight, and I wasn’t getting many options in the points-price range I was hoping for.

Fix: I tried searching under “Premium Economy,” and suddenly there were some Delta Comfort+ (premium economy) flights that were not there when I searched under “All Classes.” Continue reading →

After 10 flights, a review of United’s Silver elite status

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Using a status match that took only 15 minutes to complete, I received United’s lowest level elite status a few months ago.

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At SFO, on one of the 10.

Here are the benefits of the various levels of United elite status.

The benefit I cared about the most was getting free access to United’s Economy Plus seats, which have a few extra inches of leg room.

Even as a lowly Silver, each United flight I take I’m put on the list to be upgraded to First or Business class.

How’d I do on upgrades after 10 flights? Not well. 0/10. Continue reading →

3 essential features of Google Flights & how to use them

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Without a doubt my favorite travel tool, Google Flights is where I start researching any flight I want to take.

Though Google Flights has dozens of features, here are the three that any traveler can use:

1. Discover trips.

Know you want to take a trip but not sure where to go on your budget? Just put in your airport of origin and approximate dates, and Google Flights will make some suggestions for you.

Screen Shot 2017-11-28 at 3.54.08 PM Continue reading →

Dance floor legroom & Carolina lovebirds. Charlotte to SF in AA economy plus (A321)

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The mid-60s North Carolina couple next me were heading to San Francisco for the first time, celebrating their 25th anniversary, and their party had already started.

Vodka/Red Bull with Bud Light was their go-to for refreshment on the 5+ hour flight (die-hard Stoli loyalists, they settled for the Texas-made Tito’s vodka).

I knew I’d picked an exit row seat, but I had no idea there’d be a small dance floor in front of my row: Continue reading →