Due to the compact distances on the East Coast, there are a number of options for traveling between cities ranging from car rental to buses to trains to planes.

Boston/NYC

• Bus
  • Chinatown bus. Fung Wah or Lucky Star. $15 each way. I've never had a problem, but they've had a number of well-publicized incidents in recent years. South Station in Boston to Chinatown in NYC. Basically hourly service.
  • Greyhound. Price varies. As low as $15 one-way for advance purchase. Seats less comfortable than Chinatown bus, also seems to take a bit longer due to slower drivers. South Station in Boston to Port Authority in NYC.
    

There are three main commercial airports in the NYC area: LaGuardia (LGA) the closest to midtown Manhattan, Kennedy (JFK) is the major international hub, and Newark (EWR). In general LGA is the hardest to get to by public transit, but is reasonably cost-effective to get to by cab, especially with 2 or more people. JFK and EWR can both be a bit of a pain with traffic but offer reasonably fast/convenient routes via trains.

Lumiere. It's a bit out of the city, but it's worth it. French bistro-like menu. Everything was well-prepared (I was in the mood for comfort food so I just got the steak frites), nice elegant interior, pleasant staff.

Central Kitchen. Best restaurant in Central Square. I believe they classify the cuisine as Mediterranean or one of those other terms that doesn't really mean anything these days. Call it pan-European. Location is a little bit dark and cramped, but food is excellent.

Oleana

Petit Robert ($$$) Run by the son of the founder of the now-defunct Maison Robert. Supposed to be well-prepared French food at a moderate price point. Overall was good, but not spectacular and prices were OK, but nothing special.

11 Madison Park NYT 3* Danny Meyer restaurant. Went for lunch. Not too hungry so just had a fish of some sort. Very well done overall.

Le Bernadin

Excellent Pork Chop House
Taiwanese food in Manhattan. Including excellent pork.
3 Doyers St (off Bowery), 212-791-7007

Pukk
Thai food. Vegetarian. Time Out recommends son-in-law tofu.
71 First Ave (btwn 4th and 5th St), 212-253-2741

Tsampa
Tibetan food. Recommended by Time Out.

Tab Tos, chef used to work at Nobu. Excellent prices.

Tomoe, 172 Thompson St. Very good sushi at reasonable prices. Lines can be a bit long.

Honmura An, soba place, now closed apparently. The soba was good, but definitely not cheap.

Sushi of Gari, 402 E 78th St. Very good sushi overall. Waiter was a bit rude. A bit pricey.

Blue Ribbon Sushi, 119 Sullivan St. So-so quality overall. Prices pretty reasonable.

Sushi Yasuda, 204 E 43rd St. OK, but nothing special.

Soba

Jewel Bako, 239 E 5th St, 212-979-1012. Consistently good reviews.

Japonica, 100 University Pl, 212-243-7752, expensive.

Sushi Hana, 1501 2nd Ave (77th St), 212-327-0582. Possibly been before?

For Star Alliance RTWs, there are 10 varieties available. For nine of them, you can mix and match between economy/business/first class travel and 29k/34k/39k miles. The tenth is something called the Star Special (aka the Star Lite). This allows for 26k miles in economy only and with only 5 stopovers (with some other restrictions I'll cover below). Regular Star RTWs allow up to 15 stopovers. Note that Star counts actual miles flown (with no minimum mileage per segment) and any overland (or open-jaw) segments you may have. So for BOS-IAD-LAX, even if you are simply connecting in IAD, it is added up as 413 for BOS-IAD and 2288 for IAD-LAX (for a total of 2701 miles) compared with 2611 miles for BOS-LAX nonstop.

Lots of moving parts to the Citi PremierPass card, so let's break it down. First, there are two versions of this card: the PremierPass (which I'll call the regular card) and the PremierPass Elite card. Note, Citi also offers an upmarket version called the Chairman card which is largely similar to the Elite card in terms of points earning and comes with additional travel benefits that are supposed to compete with the Amex Platinum card.

The big thing that differentiates PremierPass from other points-based credit cards is that you earn points for spending and from flying. There are a few more benefits with the Elite card, but the biggest difference in practical terms is that the regular card earns 1 ThankYou (TY) flight point every three miles flown (when the ticket is charged to your PremierPass card) whereas the Elite card earns 1 TY flight point every mile flown. Citi can track the number of miles you fly because most airlines post a flight itinerary to your statement when they make the charge. For those that don't, there are manual ways to get the points to post (see below). Note that these flight points are in addition to any miles you might earn on an airline.

Transfer points
New points for travel
Gift cards
Merchandise

Holder.

Citibank's ThankYou Rewards program is their attempt to strike back against Amex's Membership Rewards (MR). ThankYou (TY) points are not as flexible as MR points because currently Citi does not have partnerships with any airline or hotel programs to allow transferring of points.

Like to try:
Mare Organic: Slick organic Italian seafood restaurant in the North End
Seiyo: South End sushi restaurant with former Fugakyu chef. 1721C Washington Street, Boston, 617-447-2183.
Petit Robert Bistro: Run by the son of the chef at Maison Robert, supposedly reasonably priced but excellent quality classic French food. 468 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, 617-375-0699.