Expert Travel Tips tips

For many travelers, flying on an airplane is a stressful and uncomfortable experience. Airline seats seem to get smaller and smaller, with less and less legroom. For plus-sized passengers, the airline-provided seat belts might not comfortably buckle, presenting a safety issue. If your seatbelt won’t close, you’ll need to request an airplane seatbelt extender. This guide covers everything you need to know about airplane seatbelt extenders so you can fly confidently.

The average temperature in St. Lucia from January through March hovers around 84 degrees. Wouldn’t you rather be surrounded by sunshine and white sand rather than snow this winter? If the Caribbean is calling, read on to find out how to win a free vacation to paradise.

Amazon Prime has partnered with StudentUniverse to offer students $25 flights this holiday season. New and current Prime Student members who sign up for a StudentUniverse account can search for flights at 12AM PST on December 7 to book at this unbelievable price for the holiday season. The catch? If you aren’t one of the lucky ones who snagged one on December 5th and 6th, there are only 1,000 available to book on December 7. Students must be at their computers, ready to book when the flights become available at midnight EST.

If you fly often enough, you have at least one airport on your list of places to avoid at all costs. A good airport can make your trip a breeze by making it easy to get to your connection, offering tasty restaurant options, and giving you a clean and comfortable place to rest before your flight. A bad airport can stress you out with crowds, dirty facilities, and poor dining options.

Accidentally leaving your phone behind is a traveler’s worst nightmare. But what if you purposely left it behind? Would you have a better trip if you weren’t glued to your phone, snapping selfies and choosing where to eat based on Yelp reviews?

Cheaper Amtrak tickets and more time to explore your destination—Amtrak’s Night Owl fares are a win-win. Amtrak recently expanded these ultra-cheap fares (priced as low as $5) to more times and routes, making it even more convenient to travel for less.

Thirsty travelers flying through Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) will no longer be able to buy water in plastic bottles. Airport officials announced a ban on single-use plastic water bottles effective immediately in a Facebook post stating, “With ample water bottle refill stations across our terminals, we encourage guests to bring reusable water bottles to avoid waste.”

We knew it was coming some time this year, but not exactly when. Now we know.

With no published award-price charts to refer to, members of Delta’s SkyMiles program don’t know when award prices are higher or lower than normal. That’s because there is no baseline to use as a reference point; there is no normal. Or rather, normal is whatever Delta chooses to publish as the price for an award ticket on a particular flight.

To the list of hotels that offer discounted rates to members of their loyalty programs—Starwood, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, InterContinental, Choice—can now be added the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group (Quorvus Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn, Country Inns & Suites).

Planning a road trip this summer? For the sake of safety and peace of mind, your own and others’, add this to the pre-departure to-do list: a review of your driving habits. After all, while there’s nothing you can do to change other drivers’ bad habits, you are at least in control of your own.

It’s a fact of loyalty-program life: Airline and hotel programs periodically adjust their award prices. Of course, those adjustments amount to price hikes more often than not. And, all things being equal, higher award prices amount to an overall devaluation of the program.

While the Marriott acquisition of Starwood closed in September, the two companies’ integration is far from complete. In particular, Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest continue to operate independently, although members may now link their accounts, transfer points, and have their status matched.

Bad news for the airlines often translates as good news for travel consumers.

Beginning on June 1, Spirit will become the third airline to pull out of the Cuba market altogether, joining Frontier and Silver Airways. Two other airlines, American and JetBlue, have cut capacity on their Cuba flights, either by reducing frequency or downgrading to smaller planes.

Over the past decade, language apps like Google Translate have unsurprisingly failed to make language learning obsolete. Unfortunately for monolinguals, (which make up about three-quarters of the United States) speaking another language isn’t quite as simple as typing a sentence into your smartphone.

Hilton’s durable HHonors program has a new name: Honors. The second “H,” which stood for Hilton, was deemed unnecessary and apparently caused confusion when it came to pronouncing the program’s name.

One of the oldest cities in Italy, Naples has many amazing museums and a wonderful local food culture. It is, after all, where pizza was invented. But while Naples has been a tourist attraction for centuries, it has also gained a reputation as a slightly seedy and possibly dangerous place. Here’s what to watch out for. [viator_tour destination

Starwood’s systemwide “Triple Up” bonus-points offer ends on July 31, and to date there’s been no word of a successor campaign for late summer and early fall stays.

There are many things to do in Colombo because of its diversity, nice beaches, and its history. In the past, it was ruled by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and then the British who all left their mark on the city, which now combines with the vibrant independence of the Sri Lankan people. Beaches Mount Lav

“Hey Siri, I’m going to bed. Turn up the air conditioning, close the blinds, and turn off the lights.”