The Program That Promised to Fix Airports For a decade and a half, CLEAR sold a simple dream: skip the ID check, sail to the front, get on with your life. You scan your eyes or your face, a cheerful agent escorts you past the masses, and you’re through. No fumbling for a driver’s license….
One Program to Rule Them Both Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have been circling each other for years. Now they’ve merged their loyalty programs into a single entity called Atmos Rewards, which launched in August 2025. Think of it as a soft reboot — same bones as Alaska’s old Mileage Plan, but with new earning…
Two Hours Is the Floor, Not the Goal The airlines will tell you two hours for domestic, three for international. Write those numbers down — then immediately understand they are minimums, not targets. They assume a frictionless version of travel that does not exist: no traffic, no shuttle wait, no line at the check-in counter,…
Airport Lines Have Become Genuinely Brutal Three hours. That’s how long some travelers have been standing in standard security lines at major U.S. airports since the partial government shutdown started throttling TSA operations. Three hours before you even reach your gate, before a delayed flight, before the middle seat. There are three programs designed to…
Why Some Cities Actually Get It Right Most travel guides will tell you anywhere is welcoming these days. Most travel guides are wrong. There’s a difference between a city that tolerates queer visitors and one that was shaped by them — where the bars are women-owned, the neighborhoods have history, and you can hold your…
East Village, Where Hotels Feel Like Home Finding a hotel in the East Village is already a minor miracle. Finding a good one feels like winning something. The East Village Hotel operates less like a traditional property and more like a well-designed apartment you borrowed from a friend with better taste than you. No front…
The Raffle Ticket That Hooked Me When I joined The Points Guy in 2021, I was a status nobody. No elite tier, no cobranded credit card, no loyalty to any particular airline. My colleagues were the road warriors — some flying weekly, racking up miles like frequent flyer frequent flyers. I was the person in…
Why Rio Pulls Backpackers Like Nowhere Else Christ the Redeemer stands 700 meters above sea level, arms wide, watching over a city that never quite calms down. Below: Copacabana, Ipanema, Sugarloaf Mountain, the thumping nightlife of Lapa, and favelas draped in color on the hillsides. Founded by the Portuguese in the 16th century — though…
The Carry-On Rules Nobody Reads Until Too Late Every United passenger gets a personal item — no debate. Backpack, purse, laptop bag, approved pet carrier. Keep it under 9 by 17 by 10 inches and shove it under the seat in front of you. That part is simple. The full-size carry-on is where things get…
The Camping Problem Nobody Had Solved Rooftop tents have existed in some form since the mid-20th century, popular with overlanders in Africa and Europe long before they caught on in North America. But for decades, the core problem remained: they were heavy, slow to deploy, and required two people minimum to set up properly. Ground…
The City That Ran the Catholic Church For nearly seven decades in the 14th century, the center of Western Christianity was not Rome — it was a walled city on the banks of the Rhône River in southern France. Between 1309 and 1376, seven successive popes made Avignon their home, turning this Provençal city into…
Ko Kradan — Where Roads Don’t Exist Ko Kradan sits in Trang province and the Thai tourist board has named it one of the country’s most beautiful islands. What makes it stand apart is the complete absence of roads or villages. The island is essentially a string of beach resorts on one side, with Hat…