Waikiki Beach in Hawaii Before a Tsunami: Must-See Pictures + Video!

Posted by Kevin Hanson | Posted in Marriott, Travel | Posted on 04-03-2010-05-2008

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My girlfriend and I did a long weekend in Hawaii: 2 nights at the JW Ihilani and 2 nights at the Marriott Waikiki Beach. On top of it being a great weekend, we were fortunate enough to be there for the tsunami scare. I won’t recap the whole story for you. Check out here, here, and here if you need background. So while the tsunami (or lack thereof) kept us confined to our 24th floor hotel room and resulted in no result whatsoever, we got some pretty cool footage of what Waikiki Beach, one of the ten most popular beaches in the world, looks like without a a single person on the beach. That’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to see.

I put together some video footage above, and I have a few full-size images below to download or view. Enjoy!

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Virgin America Keeps their Frequent Flier Program Relevant: 18 Month Expiration After Last Activity

Posted by Kevin Hanson | Posted in Travel | Posted on 04-03-2010-05-2008

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I really like flying Virgin America. I think it’s a great in-flight experience. Frequent fliers can do much better with traditional legacy carriers, but if you don’t fly that often, I think Virgin America is a GREAT way to travel. They had one thing that really annoyed me, though. Elevate (their frequent flier) points would expire 18 months after they were given to you. That means even if you flew Virgin America like a madman for 18 months, you might still not get enough points for a single first class award ticket cross country, and the earlier points you earned would expire the next month. Once I figured that out, I stopped flying them. As of today, they’re changing their ways! I just got an e-mail from Virgin America, letting me know that my points will now expire 18 months after the last activity (just like United’s). So now every time I fly, my expiration date gets pushed out another 18 months. Nice job, Virgin America. This was a much needed change to your frequent flier program.

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