Category: Travel Hacking

1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt Bonus Journeys Q2, 2021. There’s lots of meaningless fluff content out there about this one, but just register for it and be done. Don’t let it sway your hotel stay patterns because it’s not that valuable, but it runs through June 15th so you’ve got time to hit it if you were already staying in Hyatts:

  • 2,000 points per two nights, or 2,500 for World of Hyatt card holders
  • Category 1-4 certificate after staying ten nights

2. Southwest’s book the cheapest fare and change to any other flights at no charge between the same city-pairs is back for, let’s say “smarch” through “Mapril”. The exact dates aren’t known, but it looks like the current iteration doesn’t have the usual ±30 day restrictions. So a cheap flight booked in late Smarch can be switched to an early fall flight this time around. For a bit more on the procedure, see Spring Break, Southwest Style. April 21 is a known working date, by the way.

3.Watch for fee-free Staples Visa gift cards Sunday February 28 – Saturday March 6. Use an ink for 5x, and have a backup liquidation other than Walmart in store money orders. Hint: There are still a few ways to liquidate these with Walmart.

An image of the continental US with a temperature gradient ranging in temperatures from -10 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, it sucks to spell fahrenheit.
Lousy Smarch weather.

This isn’t exactly a secret, but it’s not well socialized either. Thanks initially to the 737-MAX grounding and now due to COVID waivers, periodically Southwest Airlines lets you change to any flight ± 30 days when you book within certain windows. (I’m not sure they want to do this, but they run an archaic computer system and it’s what they can do without breaking it.)

The play is to find the cheapest award or cash booking on a ticket you want to fly, book it, then change to the actual itinerary you want within 30 days for no additional points or cash. (Book SLC-SAN at 4:30 AM on a Saturday for 4,008 points, then change it to Monday at 5:00 PM.) You can do this online, no need to talk to an agent.

Currently, the booking window for free ± 30 days changes is February 11 through March 5, 2021, so you can fly cheap between January 11 and April 7. Yes, Southwest flies to Florida too, sorry.

Vintage NEC computer from the 1960s with relays, knobs, a printer, and tape spools.
Southwest Airlines’ Amadeus Computer Reservation System (circa 2020).