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After decades of fielding questions about travel points, loyalty programs, and rewards credit cards, youd think that Brian Kellythe founder of The Points Guywould tire of the subject. Instead, hes more energized than ever, a passion he channeled into his new book, How to Win at Travel. In 300-plus pages, Kelly delivers more than just strategies for maximizing credit cards and points. Hes created a travel bible of sorts, one that makes planning and logistics as rewarding as the trip itself. Brian Kelly [Photo: Brandon Launerts/courtesy Simon & Schuster] Its a book built for every kind of traveler, from those working towards their first bucket-list trip to people trying to stretch points for a family of five. Think of it as a choose-your-own-adventure book, Kelly says. Here, he tackles some of the peskiest travel dilemmas: what to do when your flight goes sideways, when to cash in your points, how to stay on the right side of locals, and more. In your book, you note that we’re in the “platinum age” of travel, a departure from what people considered the Golden Age of travel. What do you mean by that? People are wistful for aviation in the 1960s, a time when people dressed up to fly. They were served meals on china with silver cutleryweve all seen the pictures. But the truth is travel at that time was less convenient overall, and inaccessible except for the very rich. And everyone was smoking! Today, travel is safer, much less expensive, and we have tons of options. On top of that we have this points ecosystem, open to everyday people, that can unlock elite travel status. In your book, you write, “Loyalty is less about travel and more about personal finance and harnessing the power of your spending. Can you explain? Points and travel can be an entry point into better finances, by paying your cards every month, bringing up your credit score, and so on. Youre starting with a reward thats positive reinforcement for being smart about your financial health. What are three of your top tips for redeeming points and miles today? The first is to use technology to your advantage. The company Point.Me searches for flights based on your points across 33 loyalty programs on more than 150 airlines. [Brian Kelly is an investor in Point.Me.] Also, let the deals determine where you go. Even if youre not flexible on your dates, you dont have to travel where everyone else is going. In fact, its often better not to. Third, dont hoard your points. They become less valuable over time. When you rack up these huge balances, youre just losing money to inflation. When it comes to booking award travel with an airline, you know a lot of next-level tricks. Can you tell us about zone-based and distance-based airline rewards, and how you can use them to your advantage? These are the two types of rewards airlines use. For distance-based rewards, the math is pretty simple. The longer distance you fly, the more miles you pay, though distances are grouped together, so you can maximize these rewards when the price doesnt exactly correlate to the distance of the flight. Zone-based rewards often have something that I call sweet spots. Turkish Airlines, for example, includes Hawaii in the same zone as the Continental U.S. So even though its much farther to, say, fly New York to Honolulu, so you can often fly there for the same number of miles as you would traveling a much shorter distance, like New York to Boston. What are “awards holds,” and when do you use them? Awards tickets can come and go in an instant, and its frustrating when you miss a deal. Some airlines, like Air France, American, and Lufthansa, allow you to hold your ticket for a certain number of days. It costs anywhere from $0 to $35. This permits you to make your other travel reservations and get your life in order before you book. In the past, we’ve seen credit cards offer travelers big points bonuses, which help you along the path to free travel. Are there ways to anticipate great offerings? In general, the industry is moving toward more personalized offers. So dont ignore snail mail and promotional emails from credit card companies. Some might think it’s tedious to go through all that mail. I think of it as a treasure hunt. You also advise people to sign up for memberships to organizations that have travel benefits. What are some that people might not know about? AARP memberships, which start at $15 a year, offer great travel deals, and most people dont know that you dont need to be over 55 to join. I also love the American Bar Association, from $129 a year. Its also open to a wider range of professionslike paralegals, law students, policymakersthan you might think, and the membership means steep discounts on loads of luxury hotels. When it comes to booking travel, you dont love online travel agencies, like Expedia or Priceline, which are known as OTAs. Why not? How should travelers use them? OTAs revolutionized the travel industry 20 years ago, and I still use them to compare travel deals before I book. But when you book with an OTA, you are their customer. They own you. They dont even pass your email along to airlines or hotels. So when things go wrong, youve inflicted a world of pain on yourself because you cant go to the hotel or airline for help. Youve agreed to the OTAs terms, and often their customer service is lacking, if it exists at all. What are your top tips for what you call turning off the friction of travel? Book through the right travel channeldirectly or with a travel agent that has deep relationships with the hotels youre staying in and the destination youre visiting. Also make sure your contacts are up to date, so your airline or hotel can contact you easily if something goes wrong. If you fly with certain airlines often, read their contract of carriage. Having a basic understanding of your rights can o a long way when youre working with an agent in person or over the phone. What kinds of information can you find in the contract of carriage? Theres the flat tire rulea grace period if youre delayed or late for a flightand airlines will book you free of charge on the next available flight. Its also good to know which partner airlines are available to you, so you can search options from those airlines before speaking with a gate agent about rebooking. I always pull up specific flights and have all of the information ready before speaking with an agent. As of October of last year, the Department of Transportation also finally required airlines to automatically refund passengers if their flights are canceled. Theyre still not required to compensate you, though. European and Canadian airlines are. For that reason, its worth flying on a European or Canadian airline when flying from the U.S. When flying back into the U.S., our airlines are beholden to European rules so compensation is on the table. Any advice for avoiding long lines at the airport? Definitely get Global Entry. Many rewards credit cards offer it as a travel perk, and now kids under 18 can get it for free. Clear can also be worth it, but not always. It depends on the airports you frequent. And if your flight plans go sideways, consider calling the foreign-language customer service line while waiting to speak to a gate agent. Its the same service but often has a much shorter wait time.
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Whenever we have a free afternoon, my nine-year-old and I visit our favorite bookshop. By now, we have a routine. Ella makes a beeline to the graphic novels. Her favorite bookssuch as Smile, Roller Girl, and The New Girlare part of a new genre of graphic novels that has emerged over the past decade-and-a-half specifically targeted at eight-12-year-olds. The books’ illustrations are colorful and fun, but the stories tackle serious issues: Mending broken relationships; confronting social anxiety; dealing with siblings and parents. Unlike prose, which takes her days to read, Ella will binge these graphic novels in less than an hour. But she’ll come back again and again to the ones she loves, as if they’re guidebooks for navigating life’s tricky situations. Still, at this pace, we need a constant stream of them. Fortunately for her, we’re in a golden age of graphic novels. Publishers are now churning out thousands of new titles every year for readers of all ages, from the youngest readers to adults. Graphic novelists are pushing the boundaries of the art form, telling a wide range of stories in varied illustration styles. And more people than ever are reading these books. Since 2019, sales of graphic novels in the U.S. have doubled to 35 million books a year, a number behind only general fiction and romance. [Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan] Graphic novelsa term interchangeably used with comic booksare particularly popular among young children still building their literacy skills. Surveys show that in recent years, graphic novels have increased in popularity by 69% among elementary school children. Several publishers now have specific children’s imprints devoted to graphic novels, including Macmillan’s First Second and Hachette’s Little, Brown Ink. My husband and I have observed Ella’s love of graphic novels with curiosity and, if we’re honest, a little skepticism. We’re not alone. More than half of school librarians report that parents and teachers oppose the genre and don’t think it’s a legitimate form of literature. This hesitation makes sense. Most millennial parents didn’t grow up with graphic novels and they now have questions about how these books will shape their child’s lifelong relationship to reading. Will kids ever make the leap to more traditional prose? And ultimately, does it matter? A Los Angeles city councilman holding horror and crime comics, purchased ca. 1954 [Photo: Los Angeles Daily News/Wiki Commons] How Comics got a bad name Comics first emerged in the early 1900s, when newspapers published humorous serialized comic strips. (Think: Peanuts, Beetle Bailey.) In the 1940s, the comics industry exploded, as creators told stories across many genres including horror, crime, and perhaps most famously, superheroes. By the ’50s, Superman comics were selling at a rate of 1.5 million copies a month. Then came a backlash. Comics of this era were often written for adults, depicting violence, drugs, and sex. In 1954, the psychologist Fredric Wertham wrote the book, Seduction of the Innocent: The Influence of Comic Books on Todays Youth, which asserted that comics had a negative impact on children, pushing deviant sexual practices on them. (His examples now seem far-fetched and prudish, including the bondage subtext of Wonder Woman’s lasso, and homosexual undertones of Batman and Robin’s relationship.) [Image: Comics Code Authority] The U.S. government began to worry about how comics were influencing American youth. At a Senate hearing in 1954 about comics’s deleterious impact on society, mainstream publishers agreed to censor themselves, self-imposing a restrictive Comics Code, which ensured that all comics would be safe for children to read. Meanwhile, creators of comics with more adult themes went underground, selling their work on the black market. Comics as an art form regressed, says Eva Volin, supervising children’s librarian at the AlamedaFree Library in California. Many comics publishers went out of business. By the time I was growing up in the ’80s and ’90s, comics as a genre had largely petered out. The series that remained were formulaic and tamelike Dilbert or Garfieldrather than the rich, exciting stories from previous decades. There was still a community of superhero fans reading DC and Marvel comics, but they didn’t have the same kind of widespread appeal. The attacks on comics had a chilling effect that persisted for decades, Volin says. Some people continue to see comics as something base and potentially harmful. But in the midst of this dearth, small communities of comics-lovers persisted, says Robin Brenner, head of reference and programming at the Woburn Public Library outside Boston. Some scratched the itch by turning to Manga, a comics style from Japan that spanned a wide range of genres and ages. By the early 2000s, Japanese publishers were translating and exporting these books around the world. There was also a new subculture bubbling online around webcomics, where creators published serialized stories on the internet that dropped once a week. American publishers took note. “[Publishers] suddenly realized there could be an enormous market for comics that told different kinds of stories, for different audiences, says Brenner. [Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan] The New Genre of Tween Graphic Novels Tori Sharp, a 30-year-old graphic novelist, has always loved comics. I found that so much voice could come through the artwork, Sharp says. There’s something that feels like you are a step closer to the creator than you can get with prose. It feels so intimate. Tori Sharp [Image: Sabreen Lakhani/courtesy Little, Brown Ink] Throughout her childhood, though, she struggled to find books in the genre. Even a decade ago, when she was in art school at SCAD, the library had only a handful of well-known titles, such as Maus and Persepolis. But as she was training to be an artist, the plate tectonics in the children’s graphic novel market was shifting. One breakthrough moment happened in 2010 when Scholastic published Raina Telgemeier’s book Smile, a graphic novel about a sixth grader who injures her two front teeth and must wear embarrassing headgear. The relatable story, with its colorful illustrations, was an instant hit among early readers and middle schoolers. It sold tens of thousands of copies the year it was released, and a decade later it was selling hundreds of thousands of copies annually. Telgemeier went on to create many other bestsellers, including a graphic novel version of The Baby-Sitters Club. [Image: Scholastic] Andrea Colvin, the editorial director of graphic publishing at Little, Brown Ink, says that Telgemeier ushered in a new genre of comics targeted at tweens. Soon, all children’s publishers were eager to acquire books by talented graphic novelists focused on the topics that middle-grade readers cared about. It was such an exciting moment, says Colvin. There was this new medium for children to process stories. In her role at Little, Brown Ink, Colvin brought Sharp on to create graphic novels for middle-grade readers. For Sharp, this was an opportunity to create the kinds of books she had craved as a child. Her first graphic novel, published in 2021, is a memoir that explains how Sharp dealt with her parents’ divorce by living in her imagination. I had thought about writing the story as fiction, with a little dragon whose parents got divorced, she says. But I felt that telling a story that kids would know was true could be really helpful if they were dealing with this particular issue. Many parents are turned off by the fact that kids go through graphic novels quickly, taking it as sign that these books aren’t as substantial as prose. But Sharp doesn’t see it that way. One of the most beautiful things about graphic novels is how quick they are to read, she says. “It allows kids to cycle through different stories, find one they connect with, and spend a lot of time with that particular story. Kids often read books with characters a few years older than they are, dealing with issues they’re curious about. Today, graphic novels are often the first books that elementary-school students will seek out for themselves and read on their own. And this is likely to shape a child’s lifelong relationship to reading. This is a formative period in a child’s life, says Namrata Tripathi, founder and publisher of Kokila, a children’s book imprint at Penguin Young Readers. Their experiences with reading in these years will shape how they feel about literature as adults. [Cover Images: Little Brown Ink, First Second/Macmillan] Graphic Novels and Parents’ Angst When publishers first started making graphic novels for young children in the 2010s, there was a lot of opposition. This resistance persists. According to the School Library Journal’s most recent survey, 55% of librarians said teachers opposed them because they were not real books, while 48% said parents felt this way. Their concern comes at a time when there’s been a steep decline in children’s reading. Scholastic has found that as children go from elementary to high school, there’s a dramatic decline in their reading enjoyment (from 70% to 46%) as well as in reading frequency (46% to 15%). Scholastic says that one reason for this is that children are increasingly spending time on screens, particularly in their tween and teen years. To many parents and educators, it’s unclear whether graphic novels are making the problem better or worse. With their bold illustrations and shorter word counts, the genre seems tailored to kids immersed in the deeply visual, high-velocity world of TV and video games. But these caregivers worry that kids will never make the transition to reading prose, that they’ll end up in college without having read an entire book. But new data suggests that graphic novels actually do help cultivate lifelong readers of prose. A 2023 survey from the National Literacy Trust found that children who read graphic novels in their free time were twice as likely to enjoy reading more overall and rated themselves good readers as compared to those that did not read graphic novels. To Tripathi, this makes sense. As parents, we can feel a certain pressure to make reading very metrics-oriented, wanting them to read books of a certain length or with a certain number of words, she says. “We forget that the kid who is going to stay a reader is one who loves reading, who associates it with a kind of pleasure, joy, curiosity, and fulfillment. [Cover Image: First Second/Macmillan] Publishers have had to fight to show the world that graphic novels are a legitimate form of literature. The graphic novel imprint First Second, for instance, has been instrumental in this effort. Macmillan launched it in 2006, when graphic novels had only a small, niche audience. But from the start, it focused on acquiring books for children that pushed the boundaries of art and storytelling; many of its books have received prestigious awards. One of the first books it ever published, American Born Chinese, was a finalist for the National Book award. I can’t stress enough how important the destigmatization process was, says Jon Yaged, CEO of Macmillan. Nobody can deny the literary merit of graphic novels anymore. With parents so fixated on making sure our kids are hitting literacy milestones, many haven’t noticed that children are developing an entirely new form of literacy that we don’t have. Many adults find graphic novels foreign and intimidating because it takes time to learn how to read them. Kids are now fluent in a kind of visual literacy that their parents don’t even recognize as a skillset, says Tripathi. They have a nuanced understanding of symbols. They’re able to understand what is happening in the blank spaces between the panels. As I see Ella’s well-worn piles of graphic novels around the house, I think about how my daughter has access to an entire universe of storytelling that I didn’t have. And as the graphic-novel industry keeps growing, publishers are now working to create books for adults who grew up loving the format. The First Second team is now launching an entirely new imprint called 23rd Street Books that is devoted to adults. Ella will benefit from this explosion of literature in graphic novel form. We used to be the lone kooks in the wilderness, says Calista Brill, editorial director at First Second, who will serve the same role at 23rd Street. But comics aren’t niche anymore. For people like me, who love comics, a new world is opening up. Phenomenal creators are creating books that touch on every topic you can imagine, and the possibilities are endless.
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Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is ripping apart the federal government at the seams. Theyve decimated the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), strong-armed their way into troves of sensitive personal data, and pushed federal employees as close to quitting as possible. The people running the show, it seems, are a group of 20-somethings. Because of their youth, these staffers have received an unexpected level of protection. Wired initially left their names out an initial report “because of their ages.” (These young employees are all above 18). When JD Vance defended a 25-year-old staffer who resigned over racist tweets, he called him a kid. But these arent kids, and theyre not worth protecting. We shouldnt feel bad judging Musks far-too-young team. The ‘kids’ tearing down the government Back in January, Wired published a report on the nascent groups operations. DOGE had effectively taken over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), filling it with former X employees and Musk devotees. Two of these DOGE staffers were young, just 19 and 24, with résumés that consisted mostly of internship experiences. Wired declined to name the duo, citing their ages. The move was lambasted on X; why were these two men withheld from public scrutiny? Why is WIRED not naming government officialswho collect taxpayer dollars!just because theyre 21 and and probably 18 years old? pic.twitter.com/paZtnZjIjv— Jarod Facundo (@dorajfacundo) January 29, 2025 Wired has since changed course, publishing the two staffers names (Akash Bobba and Edward Coristine) along with four others. The magazine’s reporting has spun out a whole new media cycle, with many online media sites scoffing at the young employees. The Daily Beast calls the six Musks Goon Squad. (People seem especially tickled by Coristines online nickname, Big Balls.) But that coverage has resulted to equal and opposite reaction. Tech heads have been coming out of the woodwork on X to tell defensive stories about the six. After the Democrats of the House Foreign Affairs Committee posted about “broligarchs” taking control of sensitive information, one X user responded by naming these Zoomers. Musk’s response: “You have committed a crime.” The respondent’s account has since been suspended U.S. attorney Ed Martin (who was present at the January 6 insurrection) penned a public letter to Musk, saying he would pursue legal action against anyone who “targeted” DOGE staffers publicly. Martin claimed that anyone whose actions may have “impacted” these employees’ work “may break numerous laws.” Even President Donald Trump himself came in to defend these staffers, saying that they were smart people. The general premise: These six staffers were unimpeachable because of their youth. Many called the naming of these six a doxing. The drama spun out even further after Marko Elez, yet another young staffer working under Musk, resigned after The Wall Street Journal inquired about Elez’s connection to a since-deleted account’s racist tweets. Among scores of posts, the account posted things like Normalize Indian hate and You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity. But then the MAGA-verse rallied to bring him back. Sure enough, JD Vance posted on X that he didnt think stupid social media activity should ruin a kids life. (Mind you, Elez was 25. Are you still a kid if you can rent a car?) How do we hold these ‘boys’ accountable? The point of calling out these staffers agesostensibly, to demonstrate how little experience they havehas backfired. These boys are now being protected by the right, largely because of their ages. Any attempt to name them is doxxing. Anything they posted online is fair game, because theyre too young to know its wrong. But now theyre slashing through the government; if they can wield that level of power, they deserve the same level of judgment. Dont let the smokescreen of childishness fool you: They do have power. Coristine just gained a new role in the State Department; now, 19-year-old Big Balls is a senior advisor. Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old also named in the Wired report, has full access to USAID systems. 25-year-old Gavin Kliger sent the email that put USAID workers on leave. These arent boystheyre government officials. They deserve public scrutiny all the same.
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