Greetings from sunny and finally warm Southern California! You would think with all this home time that we would have our house in tip-top shape but unfortunately, that’s not the case. At times, our living room looks like the Tasmanian Devil came cruising through and in fact ... he kind of did since we have a rambunctious three-year-old. Ha!
Updated: My experience calling 5 different airlines for refunds My family and I were supposed to just be arriving home from a dream trip to Hawaii a few hours ago. Obviously, that didn’t happen. The good news is that I was able to get my money back from the three different airlines we were going to fly this past week: American, Southwest and Hawaiian.
Here’s what it was like dealing with them and two others including an update on Air Canada.
How to have a Hawaiian luau at home Because we and others can’t go to Hawaii, here's
how to have a Hawaiian luau at home.
Related: Bring the taste of Hawaii home with this beautiful Hawaiian cookbook DoubleTree's chocolate chip cookie recipe Speaking of cooking … Hilton Hotels has just
released the recipe for their famous DoubleTree chocolate chip cookie and now you can make them at home! My wife made them and they turned out great. Check out the recipe and video she created for step-by-step instructions.
10 Thai recipes to make when you can’t go to Thailand I don't know about you but we've been spending a lot more time in our kitchen. My wife is baking almost daily! (
Check out her Instagram for lots of inspiration!) This article offers up
10 Thai recipes to make when you can’t go to Thailand. So, if you're missing the tastes and flavors that come with travel, you can try to recreate them at home.
Would you go on a cruise in 2020? Last week, I shared this article:
Would You Go on a Cruise in 2020. Thanks for all your responses. It seems like the majority of people agree with me, that cruising needs to be put on hold for now. If you didn’t catch the story, check it out
here and leave a comment with your thoughts on cruising in 2020.
2020: The year of the staycation? If you're wondering why I’m including so many recipes it’s because I just don’t see people traveling much in 2020. If they do, it will be close to home, making this the year of the staycation, which is fine by me since we live in Los Angeles and there’s so much to see and do. I don’t think people are going to be getting on airplanes soon and United Airlines agrees. They sent out a press release yesterday stating: “To help you understand how few people are flying in this environment, less than 200,000 people flew with us during the first two weeks of April this year, compared to more than 6 million during the same time in 2019, a 97 percent drop. And we expect to fly fewer people during the entire month of May than we did on a single day in May 2019.”
American Airlines and others have extended elite status for 2020 Some good news for frequent fliers: This week, American Airlines followed Delta and United’s lead when they extended elite status for 2020.
Here’s the story and here are
airlines and hotel reward programs that have extended elite status.
Johnny Jet’s coronavirus resources We’ve been writing a lot of coronavirus-related travel stories (they can all be found
here and on our comprehensive
Coronavirus Resource Page for Travelers. If you find any of them helpful, please share with your family and friends and encourage them to sign up to our newsletter (
they can sign up on this page). Here are some of our latest stories:
I also just wrote my first piece for CNN.com. Here’s my story:
What coronavirus means for elite airplane passengers Hoping you all stay safe and healthy!
