Earn Triple AirMiles Just for Paying Your Bills!

By now, hopefully you've opened your new Chase account, as we suggested last week, for an easy 25,000 Continental OnePass miles. Well now you can start putting that account to work for you for even more miles. Chase is offering, for the second time this year, the chance to earn 3 miles per dollar for bills you pay with your OnePass Chase debit card. We earned over 5000 miles the last time this offer was available. Just click here to find out more details and register, then pay your grocery, utility, and other bills with your Onepass Chase debit card between August 10 and October 31, and your bonus miles will be awarded in November, 2009. Finally, something to make you feel good about paying all those bills!

Book Your Next Trip on BezLu and You Could Save $100!

You can now book flight, hotel, and car rental deals directly on the BezLu site using the Orbitz booking widget available in the right column on every page! We use Orbitz frequently ourselves and have used it to find and book excellent travel deals. In addition to great deals, we also find that Orbitz is the only major online travel booking service that displays the total, real price on the first page of results, including all fees. The competitors often tease you with just the base price of the airfare or hotel and only reveal the fees involved later in the process. It also doesn't hurt that Orbitz does not charge any booking fees on flights either... forever. So, please keep this widget in mind and make BezLu the first place you go when you are planning your trip.

As an added bonus, use the code "PRIDE2009" and get $100 off your trip! Book a qualifying hotel or flight + hotel package between by September 7, 2009, for 5 or more nights for travel between May 1, 2009, and November 15, 2009, via Orbitz and instantly receive $100 off your booking.

Photo of the Week: Reach Falls in Jamaica

Reach Falls is one of the most beautiful and natural waterfalls in Jamaica. About 30 minutes outside of Port Antonio, Reach Falls is located in a peaceful mountain setting surrounded by virgin rain forest. Though not particularly tall or powerful, it is certainly visually stunning, with a series of limestone shelves cascading from one crystal clear, jade green pool to another. It is an easy climb, as you go from pool to pool, discovering hidden nooks and crannies along the way. About a half-mile back you will find a natural whirlpool that you can enjoy nestled inside a natural rock formation.

Our Exclusive On All-Inclusive

What is an All-Inclusive resort? Basically they are hotels that provide lodging and unlimited meals, alcohol, and activities in the daily rate. They are usually gated, protected communities... so that there is not much reason to leave, however, included activities often extend to off site locations, such as tour visits to local attractions and adventure packages such as rafting or swimming with dolphins. The types of resorts available vary from inexpensive to luxurious, but they are almost all concentrated in warm locations. They are ideal for the kind of vacation where you just want to kick back and relax and are usually not ideal for folks who really want to explore a country and culture. They are also not a wise economic choice if you are not planning to take advantage of the meals and activities.

Generally, staying in one location on our trip is not how we prefer to travel, however we do enjoy a change of pace every now and then and the break from having an itinerary. We also sometimes like to balance out our long trips by spending a few days at an all-inclusive and the other days exploring.

Recently, we found that the Sun Palace in Cancun, New Mexico (pictured above) lived up to all the positive hype. We highly recommend it. For you trivia buffs out there, although Club Med is generally credited with inventing the all-inclusive resort, Frenchman's Cove in Port Antonio, Jamaica actually holds the title.... also highly recommended, though no longer all-inclusive.

Drink Deals in New York City

If you are in NYC and you'd like to make sure the drinks flow without wrecking your cashflow, then check out DrinkDeal.com. This site is a gem for both NYC residents and visitors as it provides a searchable list of NYC watering holes. We are not sure how up to date the data it is, but it definitely provides plenty of options. We particularly like that you can search for Happy Hour deals by day of the week and by family of beverage.

A Travelers View of New York City

We often find ourselves getting excited about something in our jaunts around NYC that we think visitors, tourists, and travelers to New York can benefit from. With this in mind, we plan to post restaurant recommendations, especially places that are not tourist traps and will give you a good local experience; provide insider travel deals and tips; even review some of the must see tourist attractions; and expose what we believe are undiscovered parts of the city, the hidden gems, that don't get a lot of tourist traffic, but are certainly deserving of a bit more attention. Between the two of us, we have over 50 years of experience living in New York City in 4 boroughs (sorry Staten Island), and we think we have amassed quite a few good finds. So, stay tuned!