Norwegian Air sale: $59 one-way US to Caribbean

Norwegian is having a 48-hour sale on flights from Fort Lauderdale or New York to the Caribbean (Guadeloupe and Martinique). A friend of mine just visited and they certainly seem lovely. Really photogenic beaches! Buy early; buy often: https://www.norwegian.com/us/flights/french-caribbean

How to live in Cambridge, England on the cheap

Heya Blogopals, sorry for the radio silence. I have been a very busy beaver as of late, moving from Thailand to America to England and starting a master's degree here in Cambridge. This guide is designed primarily for my friends who are also living in Cambridge, but much of it is relevant for the rest of the UK, too.

I went to this place one time and they could not answer my question but they did have nice ivy

Groceries on the cheap

Copenhagen to Thailand for under 171 quid

The excellent Secretflying has brought this sale to my attention, and I just couldn't let it pass by without informing YOU, dear reader. For only 193 euros (171 pounds), you can fly from Copenhagen to beautiful Krabi, Thailand ROUND TRIP with the full-service Thomson/TUI air! You have to be able to go on the specific dates they have available (Dec. 8-23 and whatever else you can find on the TUI site), but for that price, you can't really argue. Booking on a foreign-language site is annoying (assuming you don't read Danish), but that is why God created auto-translate.

Boat boat boat I hope you like boats because Railay Beach is so magical and secluded that you can only reach it by boat

Must-see: If you do make it to Krabi, you can't miss Railay Beach.

US to New Delhi: $199 one-way

WowAir has just released tickets from the US (many cities) to New Delhi for only $199 one-way! If you want the flexibility of a one-way ticket, this is an amazing deal. However, that’s a looong flight to do with a low-cost carrier without frills, meals, or luggage. If you don’t want the flexibility, I’d search Google Flights for cheap round-trip deals and see if you can get a cushier experience for the same price. WowAir deal here.

BA sale: fly direct from London to Bangkok for $475 roundtrip

British Airways is currently offering DIRECT flights to Bangkok from London for only 350 pounds ($475 USD) round trip! This is awesome because usually direct flights are twice that, and we lowly peasants are forced to do a long stopover in the Middle East, making the 11-hour flight into more like an 18-hour flight. Even better, the timing of the sale aligns with many folks' Christmas breaks. Go go go! (Thanks to Fly4Free for the tip!)

Massive WowAir sale: US to Iceland for $69

WowAir, the ultra-low-cost Icelandic airline I love to hate (or hate to love) is currently running a sale from loads of US cities to Iceland for $69 one way, flying as soon as THIS WEEK or as late as this coming fall. This is awesome because super cheap flights like this usually only cover a few cities, but this one flies from too many US cities to count. Buy ASAP!

Bangkok's top-rated restaurants for 50% off: the ultimate guide

All right, y'all, for basically the entire time I've been in Thailand, I've been trying to find a guide to the best fine-dining (and regular-dining) restaurants in Bangkok that are on Eatigo. What's Eatigo? It's a Groupon-like website (and app) where restaurants offer 10-50% off all food if you make a reservation for an off time. So if you can grab an early dinner at 5 PM or an early breakfast at 9 AM, you can get 50% off everything you order (except drinks). This is really awesome and because it gets the restaurants filled at times they normally wouldn't (unlike Groupon, when you can come any time), it's good for the restaurants, and it means that some of the best fine-dining restaurants in the country are 50% off if you're flexible. There are so many food-related blogs and magazines here in Bangkok, I just couldn't believe that there's no "Best of Eatigo" list, but there isn't, so I made one. This is made from cross-referencing the reputable BK Magazine's "Top Tables" lists of 2016 and 2017 and the current Eatigo offerings.

9:30 AM: Scalini (Italian; Phrom Pong)
11:30 AM: Indus (Indian; Phrom Pong)
1 PM: Joushitsu Sushi (Sushi; Ekkamai. Sometimes it's only 30%, so check in advance and try to book a couple days early.)
1:30 PM: Indus again
2 PM: Madison (Ultra-lux steakhouse; Siam). Scalini again
3 PM, 3:30 PM: 1881 by Water Library (Chit Lom; The flagship is recommended, but this is by the same people, so it makes the list.)
4 PM, 4:30 PM, 5 PM, 5:30 PM: Uno Mas (Tapas; Chit Lom)
5 PM, 5:30 PM: Lady Brett (International; Chong Nonsi)
6 PM, 6:30 PM: Marcel (French; Sathorn)
9-10 PM: Joushitsu Sushi again, Prime (Ultra-lux steakhouse; Thon Buri), L'appart (French; Nana), Madison again, Uno Mas again.

I've listed out the times that the restaurants are 50% off; if you can't make it at those times, you can go at other times of day and still get 10-40% off. (Note that restaurants do come and go from Eatigo, so you should book as soon as possible to avoid losing the deal.)

I'm trying to make my way through all of these places, but so far I've only been to Madison. It was crazy luxurious and very good, which makes me excited to try the rest! 

New discount transatlantic European airline: Primera

I just stumbled across this while I was browsing Google Flights, as you do. It looks like there's another no-frills low-cost carrier from Europe that will fly between Europe and the US/Canada for crazy low one-way prices.

I have to buy tickets ASAP! What card should I get?

"I need to fly in three weeks, and you always know the best travel deals! What can I do???"
If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I would have like at least $3.

When your date isn't flexible and your location isn't flexible and you can't wrangle with weird stopovers and you have checked bags, the only thing left to do is book with points. But if you don't have any points yet, the #1 card I would recommend applying for is the Barclaycard Arrival Plus Mastercard. It currently has a 40,000 point signup bonus, worth $400 cashback on travel purchases (fine print: you can only use them on a purchase of $100+, so it won't cover your Uber ride, but is perfect for large travel expenditures like flights). As with most cards of this caliber, you need to spend $3,000 within the first 90 days to get the signup bonus. It has an $89 annual fee, but this is waived the first year automatically, and you can easily cancel after 11 months if you want to avoid the fee.

The reason why this is my #1 recommended card for last-minute purchases (despite it not having any referral credit for me :( ) is that unlike most high-bonus travel rewards cards, the Barclaycard allows you to buy first and get cashback later. This means that as soon as you get your card in the mail (maybe 1-3 weeks after applying, depending) you can book your flight. (Most rewards cards require you to earn the points over the course of three months, so you can get more points over all, but you can't use points you haven't earned yet, so it only works if you plan ahead and order the card months before you need the points.)

Another feature that makes the Barclaycard Arrival Plus my go-to recommendation for last-minute purchases is that it allows you to get cashback on ANY travel purchase; it doesn't matter if you're booking from Expedia, Priceline, or the airline itself. This is really useful because there are often flight sales that you have to book through a third-party. Their website says that "travel" includes: airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites, trains, buses, taxis, limousines and ferries, as long as it costs $100+. Most rewards cards aren't flexible like this. (Caveat: Do not book through a weird third-party site that most Americans haven't heard of, because Barclaycard may not recognize it as a travel site. I got screwed by this when I booked a flight deal on the Asian Via.com.) You can use the travel credit on hotels, too, but I generally don't make hotel purchases that cost $100+, so I only really use it for flights. I believe you could buy Airbnb or hotel gift cards of $100 with it, and then write that off with the travel credit.

The last feature of the Arrival Plus (and any other Barclaycard) is actually so totally awesome and unique that I didn't even believe it at first. In a nutshell, any Barclaycard user can post paid blog posts reviewing your travels on Barclaycard's own Tripadvisor-like website. Each blog post of 100+ words earns you $1.50 in travel cashback, plus 10 cents more for each "like/kudo" you receive, plus 10 cents more for each location detail you add (like what else is around the place you're reviewing). So you're basically looking at $2ish per 100-word post, and you're allowed to post 100 per month. I maxed it out last month, earning over $200 in travel credits, which I can use to wipe out the flights I booked a couple months ago. How crazy awesome is that? You can live the dream as a paid blogger!