Subject: Re: LBYM travel
What are your LBYM travel hacks?
No comparison to your great general list, just a few specific ones:

1. If regularly flying Lufthansa but not often enough to collect enough air points for an award flight before those points expire it might make sense to get their credit card as then their air points do not expire any more.

2. Rental apartment instead of hotel for longer stays: An alternative to private apartments are chains offering 'Serviced Apartments' worldwide.
Example: 'The Ascott Ltd.' (700 properties in 200 cities under different brands: 'Somerset', 'Citadines' etc). High-class and for my taste mostly too expensive but many offer longterm rates and then they become interesting. For example I stayed several times one month each at their cheapest Bangkok property which still consists of highly tasteful and luxurious 60-80sqm apartments (with kitchen, washing machine, gym, pool etc.) for the price of a tiny hotel room.

3. Regarding 'Never check bags': Especially not now, with many Airports worldwide having released their experienced ground staff during the Pandemic. There can be unusually long waits for your luggage now (in August I waited 1h in Frankfurt) plus more cases of lost luggage.

4. Using search engines for flights but then booking directly with the airline --- without using the search engines' link to it, as this sometimes is a little cheaper (not nice to the search engine, I know). And always booking the flight directly with the airline and not one of the million internet agents with very differing reputation if the spread is not too high.

5. 'Onward Ticket': Entering most countries by plane requires that you already have a flight out of that country booked too. You might not be aware of that because with the usual return ticket from X to Y and back to X this automatically is the case. But if your travel plans are not fixed yet and you just buy a one-way-ticket to X you need an Onward Ticket. Instead of buying an expensive ticket to somewhere only to be allowed into a country google 'Onward Ticket' and you'll find companies which supply you for $/'5-10 with a ticket from X to another country. Such ticket is valid for only a few days, so you buy it shortly before your flight. Those tickets are no fake! They are real. The companies simply buy a fully refundable ticket for you, cancel the flight after the 1-3 days they give you, and receive their money back. I used that often and up to now it always worked.