For non-business travelers, airline elite status presents a conundrum. It’s desirable to improve your travel, but airlines only tend to bestow it to those that fly (and suffer) a ton without it. But what if you could shortcut your way to elite status without paying your dues first? In this post, we’ll show you how.

Flight delays and cancellations can be expensive and stressful. Fortunately, there are some strong consumer protections in place to make sure you don’t get stuck with the bill when irregular operations force you to change your plans. If you know your rights, you can avoid worrying about covering extra costs out of pocket and make sure you extract the full compensation to which you’re entitled.

Stopovers and open-jaws enhance the value of any frequent flyer program by allowing you to add destinations to your travel; in many cases with no additional miles required! Here’s our beginners guide to how you can apply them to your next trip.

On August 13th, Google Flights launched a price guarantee on selected flights booked on its platform. In a nutshell, if Google is confident that they’re offering the cheapest tickets, they’ll pay you the difference if they’re wrong.

A widely known cornerstone in the travel community is that babies under the age of two can travel domestically for free as a lap infant. However, it’s not as simple with lap infants and international award tickets. One would assume that a parent could book an international award ticket and merely add their lap infant to the reservation. However, there are various forms of airline-dependent fees involved. Knowing the pricing structure before you book could save you a pretty penny, or pile of points.

Searching and finding cheap flights is more than an art than science. It can take hours and hours if you really want to do your due diligence. With time at a premium, consider using services like Dollar Flight Club when you’re looking to book flights; just don’t forget to add the appropriate frequent flier account to the ticket and then leverage AwardWallet to manage the points you accrue.

Due to award availability, it’s often necessary to book award flights months in advance to secure your seat, particularly for business and first-class awards. With such a long period between the date you book and the date you fly, it’s easy for a change of plans to require alterations to an award, or worse, for you to cancel your flight and request your miles be returned to your account. In case you need to make a change, here’s a list of fees you can expect to pay.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) requires US airlines to allow travelers the opportunity to hold, change, or cancel an airline ticket during the 24-hour period immediately following the booking of a flight without penalty. Kristina covers the major US airlines and a couple of our favorite OTAs on their policies.

Most airline loyalty programs now charge award change or cancellation fees, with costs ranging from a reasonable $20/25 for select changes on KrisFlyer, Emirates, or Etihad, to a slap-in-the-face $150 per ticket for close-in changes or redeposits through Delta’s SkyMiles program. That’s cold hard cash you’ve paid to the airline for the privilege of not flying with them. But thanks to travel credits provided on some of our favorite travel rewards cards, that cash doesn’t have to come from your wallet. Instead, you can pay the award change or cancellation fee using your credit card, and have the charge wiped as a statement credit.

Companion pass, companion certificate, companion fare, or companion ticket. While the terms are much alike, they all carry different definitions as to what constitutes a companion pass or ticket. Some airlines have designed their companion pass as a well thought out feature of their rewards program, worthy of attention and pursuit, while others have turned it into a lazy half-benefit, slipped into the backend of a credit card’s benefits as an afterthought, and offering only marginal value.