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The not-so-secret travel hacking ‘game’ that allows you to travel the world for free

If you have friends who post drool-worthy photos of luxury resorts in beautiful, tropical places and you wonder how on Earth they can afford such amazing vacations, there are four main possibilities: 1) They’re rich; 2) They saved up for a long time and splurged; 3) They went into debt to make it happen; 4) They spent far less than you think—perhaps close to nothing—because your friends know how to play the travel hacking game.

If No. 4 intrigues you, buckle up, because I’m about to take you on a mindblowing trip through Travel Hacking Land.

Luxury travel is far more doable than you might think. Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

But before we embark, I want to make something clear: Everything I’m about to share with you is legitimate, legal and honest. I say that upfront because often people’s initial response when I describe how travel hacking works is, “That sounds sketchy.” They usually respond with 1) This is a scam, or 2) This is unethical. Neither is true. More on that shortly.

Okay, off we go!

Welcome to Travel Hacking Land, where if you learn to play the game well, you get to travel for free.

A few things to keep in mind as we take this tour:

1. Think of travel hacking as a game rather than a “hack.” Like any game, the more strategies you master, the better you get at playing.

2. The game is simple in concept, but complex in practice. Don’t expect to walk away from this article knowing exactly how to book a free trip to Europe. There’s a fairly steep learning curve, but speaking from experience, it’s 100% worth the time to learn it.

3. (Almost) anyone can play. If you have a good credit score, you can play this game. (That being said, people with more spending power will be able to play it faster. No way around that really.)

4. Be ready to unlearn some things. Most of us come into the game with major misconceptions about how credit card points and airline miles work.

5. It truly is as mindblowing as it sounds. Yes, the people who play this game really do travel the world regularly—often in luxury—for free or nearly free. No, it’s not an exaggeration. (I’m not selling anything here, by the way—I love to travel, I love saving money and I love strategy games, so this hobby just hits all my happy buttons.)

Also, I didn’t make any of this up or figure it out on my own. I learned it from Bryce Conway, founder of 10xTravel, a website where anyone can learn all the ins and outs of this game and see how other people are playing it. (10xTravel Insiders is also the largest and most active Facebook group dedicated to this game, with more than 113,000 members, so Conway definitely is the go-to expert in this space.)

As we take our tour through Travel Hacking Land, I’ll share what Conway says about how the game works and what anyone who’s interested in it needs to know.

The travel hacking game is played with three main pieces: credit card points, hotel points and airline miles.

On a basic level, the goal of the travel hacking game is to optimize credit card points, hotel loyalty points and airline miles and make the most of how those award systems work and interact with each other. You have to understand these pieces of the game to strategize using them.

The first thing to understand is that credit card points are the most powerful pieces in the game. Everything else stems from there.

Each credit card grouping (Chase, American Express, Citibank, Capital One, etc.) has its own points-earning system. You earn points by spending with a credit card (i.e., “earn 1% cash back on purchases”) or by signing up for new cards and qualifying for sign-up bonuses (“spend $4000 in the first three months and get 100,000 bonus points”). Most of us most likely have points-earning cards of some sort, because they’re so common.

Generally speaking, the cash value of a credit card point is one cent, so 100,000 points would have a cash value of $1,000. If I have 100,000 Chase points, for instance, I can trade those in for $1,000 cash back.

That’s exactly what I used to do—get cash back for the points I earned on my Chase cards—and I thought it was pretty awesome. Now I kick myself for it because those points are sooooo much more valuable when used in the points/miles game for travel.

Credit card points become more valuable when they are transferred to travel partners.

As I said, the game is complex, and there’s no way to explain it all in one article. But here’s one example of what it means to optimize the points and miles systems.

Recently I wanted to buy a one-way ticket on Southwest airlines. The cash price for the ticket was $88, but I could get the exact same ticket for 4,400 Southwest Rapid Rewards miles.

Southwest is a travel partner with Chase, which means I can transfer my Chase points to Southwest and they count as Rapid Reward miles. 4,400 Chase points would be worth $44 if I got cash back for them, but if I transfer them to Southwest to purchase that $88 ticket, I’ve just doubled the value of those points.

Double the value is pretty good, right? But that’s just scratching the surface. As another example, with 100,000 Chase points, I could get $1,000 cash back or I could transfer those points to Hyatt and get four nights at the Grand Hyatt resort in Kauai—which, on the dates I just looked up in August, would cost $900/night cash. So for $1,000 worth of points, I could get a $3,600 stay at a luxury resort. Almost quadrupled their value.

But keep in mind, I’m not actually even paying that $1,000 out of pocket. These are points I earned for free, just by signing up for and using my credit card (on things I’m spending money on anyway) to earn points.

When people say they’re traveling for free, this is what they mean.

If you want to play the points/miles travel hacking game, you can learn how for free.

I had a vague understanding of airline miles and credit card points before taking Conway’s 10xTravel course. I’d used frequent flyer miles before and my husband and I have used credit cards for everything (paying them off every month—that’s vitally important) to earn points for cash.

I don’t even remember now what made me click on the course, but I’m so glad I did. There are multiple travel hacking websites and courses out there, but I appreciated the way Conway laid the whole thing out and that he was totally upfront about how he makes his money with a free course. (Basically, he asks that course participants use his credit card referral links if/when they start getting into the game, which is beyond fair for the amount of knowledge the course provides.)

Conway started puzzling out the game himself when he was in college, when there were only a handful of online forums and Reddit discussions about how to optimize points and miles. His friends would see him traveling all the time and ask him how he was doing it, so he’d explain it. Eventually, he got tired of having to go through the whole game with new people over and over again at parties, so he wrote it all down in an email that he could just forward to whoever asked.

Finally, a friend told him he should turn it into an ebook. That ebook eventually morphed into the course and the 10xTravel website and a full-fledged win-win business. We win by getting free knowledge about how to game points and miles to travel for practically nothing. He wins by earning credit card affiliate income each time people use his referral links to start playing.

The biggest travel hacking hurdle to get over is our misconceptions about credit cards.

One big key strategy in this game is regularly signing up for new credit cards to take advantage of sign-up bonuses, as that’s the quickest way to accumulate a lot of points. But most people think that’s nuts.

“When I tell people that I generally open 10 or more credit cards a year, almost every single person … their eyes get bigger and they kind of freak out,” says Conway. “And the next question is always, doesn’t that destroy your credit score?”

No, it doesn’t.

“It’s very straightforward how that works, but of course, people have a bad association of credit cards with debt and bad credit,” he says. “So you have to kind of get past that.”

But won’t credit card companies get wind of people doing this and shut it down? Conway says nope.

“They know that this exists. In some ways, they kind of encourage it because most people aren’t able to make points work or are not willing to put in the effort to make points work in a way that is really advantageous to them,” he says. “So it’s kinda like the banks are making a bet like, ‘Hey, we have this cool point system. You probably won’t figure it out. It’s profitable for us anyway.'”

“Credit card companies make a lot of money when people use their product, both on interest charges and fees—kind of the negative side of credit cards—but also just on swipe transaction fees,” says Conway. “People forget that credit card companies make a large portion of their money on people who don’t even ever pay interest or have credit card debt.”

Credit cards are profitable for banks, so they incentivize people opening them. And banks compete to get you to open their cards, so all we’re doing here is making the most of that competition and the incentives that come with it. No one is getting swindled. You have to spend on the cards to earn the points—even the sign-up bonuses—so banks are still making their money.

The key is to use your credit card for every transaction possible, pay off the balance each month before any interest posts and keep getting new cards for the sign-up bonuses.

Here are some examples of people who have learned how to play the travel hacking game and won big.

One of the things you start seeing after you take the 10xTravel course and join the group on Facebook is people sharing the amazing trips they’ve taken for free or close to free. Some of those stories get posted on the 10xTravel site, too.

For example, one couple took a two-week, five-country, $17,000 trip to Europe for just over $1,500 out of pocket. Another family detailed how they saved $14,000 in travel costs on trips to Puerto Rico, Europe, Costa Rica and Canada—not to mention getting a ton of free travel domestically—over a two-year period.

Some people in the Facebook group have shared trips where they’ve gotten redemption values of 10 or 20 cents per credit card point or more (essentially turning what would be $1,000 cashback into $10,000 or $20,000 in travel value). Those are exceptionally amazing, but it’s not unusual at all to see 3x, 4x or 5x point values being redeemed by travelers in the group.

Often the only cash people have to shell out on their trips is for food and a modicum of taxes on flights, which don’t get covered by points. At all-inclusive resorts, food is covered, so all they pay for are any extra activities.

And we’re not talking cheap places or terrible traveling conditions. You know those over-the-water bungalows you see in the Maldives? I’ve seen people fly first-class there and stay in those places, all on points and miles. It’s bonkers what people can do if they play this game well.

Why don’t more people play the travel hacking game if it’s really so great?

Again, the game is simple in concept but complex in practice. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn at first, and how the various points and miles systems intertwine and interact can make your brain hurt until it all starts to click. But a lot of what stops people from even starting to learn is simply not believing that it is what it is.

“I think it doesn’t really make sense to most rational minds,” Conway admits. “Because things don’t just kind of come for free in life. There’s always gonna be some sort of catch down the road. So when you can show them how easy it is to book a meaningful amount of travel—and good travel—using simple tactics with points and miles, it seems too unbelievable.”

This is especially true with business or first-class airline travel. The redemption values for points on those seats can be simply astounding.

“People assume that I’m gonna do a bunch of work just to be able to get a three-stop red-eye flight to Vegas—is that even worth it? And that’s just not the case,” says Conway. “My wife and I have flown first-class all over the world and can do so pretty much whenever and wherever we want, thanks to this.”

Travel hacking (a term Conway bristles at because it makes the whole thing sound sketchy) is a long game—and more chess than checkers for sure—but for those who wish they could afford to travel more, it’s definitely a game worth learning how to play.

Thanks for coming along on the tour of Travel Hacking Land! And hey, if you see your friends sunning themselves in Fiji or exploring Machu Picchu or galavanting around Europe, don’t assume they have gobs of excess wealth. They may have just learned to game the points and miles systems in a way that lets them travel for ridiculously little money.

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Enjoy the world’s best specialty coffees without the guilt

They say that even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all. And maybe that’s true. But we do not recommend testing this theory for yourself. Life is too short for bad coffee, especially when coffee subscription services make it easy to enjoy great coffee every day.

Want to take your coffee game to the next level? The best coffee subscriptions offer a wide selection of premium coffees, fast shipping, expert recommendations, customizable options, and easy cancellation or hold options.


Of course, there are a few different services that meet these criteria. But our favorite—and one you’ll find on just about every “best of” list out there—is Trade.

Image via Trade

Whether you’re new to specialty coffee or you’re a certified coffee nerd who enjoys cupping in your spare time, Trade has everything you could possibly want. Their team of experienced coffee industry experts tasted and handpicked a selection of over 450 different coffees, with every flavor profile imaginable, from 52 of the best artisanal roasters in the country.

If you already know what kind of coffee you’re into, you can use Trade’s plethora of filter options to create a customized subscription right from the get-go. However, if you want a little help from the pros, Trade has a really cool coffee quiz to help you get started. This quiz will ask you how you make your coffee, how you take it, what types of flavors and roasts you enjoy, and a few other pertinent questions. Then Taste will run your answers through its database to generate personalized coffee recommendations.

Once you’ve got your first recommendation and are ready to go, all you have to do is choose your shipment frequency, grind setting, and how many bags you’d like to receive. And that’s it. Unlike the stale stuff you buy at the grocery store, Trade won’t roast your coffee until you confirm your order, and it’s always promptly delivered to ensure optimal freshness.

Making A Difference One Cup At A Time

Image via Trade

The best part about Trade is that they don’t just sell amazing coffee. They also have an unrivaled commitment to ethical and sustainable business practices.

Trade only partners with small-batch roasters who are willing to take their “Roaster Pledge,” which prioritizes seasonality, quality control, variety, sustainability, and equity. When you buy your coffee from Trade, you are making a choice to support human connections over profits. You’re not supporting giant corporations, but small farms and businesses owned by and employ real people.

The impact of this choice is significant. In 2021 alone, Trade helped create or sustain over 100 local jobs, while their decision to switch to compostable shipping materials saved 85 tons of waste. On top of all that, Trade’s wide selection of fair trade, organic, and rainforest alliance coffees is helping the coffee industry become more sustainable.

At Trade, they’re on a mission to turn coffee drinkers into coffee lovers while also doing their part to make the world a better place. If that sounds like something you’d be into, click here to start your Trade coffee subscription today.

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Amy Schumer Wanted To Invite Ukrainian President Zelensky To The Oscars (But Producers Shot The Idea Down)

Amy Schumer is getting ready to host this year’s Oscars alongside Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall, but there’s one bit that’s already been vetoed by the show’s producers.

During an appearance on an upcoming episode of The Drew Barrymore Show, Schumer revealed she was hoping to find some way of having Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attend the awards show. “I actually pitched, I wanted to find a way to have Zelensky satellite in or make a tape or something just because there are so many eyes on the Oscars,” Schumer said, explaining she wanted to highlight the “current condition” of the world.

Now, whether Zelensky would want to, or even have the time to make something happen is anyone’s guess. He’s currently fighting off a Russian invasion led by a power-hungry tyrant who’s happy to sacrifice thousands of lives for *checks notes* more land? We really don’t know. Still, Zelensky’s been saved from answering Schumer’s DM by the show’s producers, who apparently gave a hard pass on the idea.

“I am not afraid to go there, but it’s not me producing the Oscars,” Schumer told Barrymore (via CNN). “I think there is definitely pressure in one way to be like, ‘This is a vacation, let people forget, we just want to have this night.’ But it is, like, ‘well, we have so many eyes and ears on this show.’”

(Via CNN)

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Christina Ricci Will Be In Netflix’s New ‘Addams Family’ Series, Although Not As Wednesday

On Yellowjackets, Christina Ricci plays the adult version of her 1990s teenage self. She’ll return to the 1990s in a different way on Netflix’s Wednesday.

The Tim Burton-directed series stars Scream and X standout Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, the same wonderfully morbid character Ricci played in 1991’s The Addams Family and 1993’s even-better sequel Addams Family Values. Deadline reports that Ricci will be a series regular on the show; details are “being kept under wraps to protect the surprise for fans,” but it has been confirmed that she’s playing a new character, not an older Wednesday (“An older Wednesday, or as I like to call it, Friday” is the kind of joke that would have been on the black-and-white Addams Family show).

Ricci has been quietly working on Wednesday for months; filming on the MGM-produced series is slated to wrap in Romania at the end of the month… The coming-of-age comedy, written by Smallville creators Al Gough and Miles Millar and directed by Burton, stars Ortega as Wednesday Addams during her years at Nevermore Academy. It’s described as a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery.

The cast also includes Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams and Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams. It’s not too late to get Christopher Lloyd in there, too.

Iconic performances, both of them.

(Via Deadline)

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Trump Went To Absolutely Absurd Lengths To Avoid Saying How He Would Support Ukraine And Even The Fox News Anchor Looked Flabbergasted

As Donald Trump attempts to distance himself from Vladimir Putin after previously praising his invasion of Ukraine as “genius and “savvy,” he stopped by Fox Business on Monday to criticize President Joe Biden’s handling of the situation. However, when pressed by host Stuart Varney over what he’d do differently to support Ukraine, Trump repeatedly side-stepped the question and instead made vague statements about America’s “tremendous military capability.” When Trump did make a suggestion about how to help Ukraine, such as MiG jets, Javelin rocket launchers, or drones, well, these were all items that Biden is already providing.

The whole exchange got so bad that Varney became visibly exasperated with Trump’s clear inability to offer a concrete solution. By the end, he was rambling about using nukes, which has always been a concerning obsession of Trump’s going all the way back to his presidential campaign. Once again, though, Trump was light on specifics. Via Mediaite:

“Stuart, when [Putin] goes in and he kills thousands of people, are we going to just sit by and watch?” Trump asked. “This country will be in 100 years from now they will be talking about what a travesty, what a horrible thing this is.”

The former president proceeded to tout the nuclear weapons capabilities of the United States but did not say whether those weapons should be used.

Obviously, Trump’s final answer is alarming considering the one specific thing everyone is trying to avoid in this situation is nuclear war. The United States, as well as NATO allies, have to be careful how it responds to Russia despite its actions in Ukraine because the wrong move could trigger Putin to launch a nuclear strike, as he’s already threatened to do. So the last thing you want to hear is a former president touting nukes while we’re on the precipice of World War III. You’d think that would be a no-brainer, but this is Trump we’re talking about.

(Via Mediaite)

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The Trail Blazers Announced Damian Lillard Will Miss The Rest Of The Season

After undergoing abdominal surgery in January, Damian Lillard has been sidelined for the Portland Trail Blazers’ last 35 games. On Monday afternoon, the team announced in a press release that “Lillard will miss the remainder of the 2021-22 season.”

“Lillard has progressed well through the reconditioning phase of his rehab protocol following his January abdominal surgery,” the press release reads. “He has met several key performance benchmarks to date and will continue end-stage rehab over the next few weeks.”

Whether it was a shooting slump or effects of this abdominal injury, Lillard struggled in his 29 games this season — at least compared to the level he’s established for himself. Hopefully, an entire summer to get right sees him return to the All-NBA-caliber stardom of the past half-decade.

In the meantime, Portland will seemingly continue to emphasize youth development with players like Trendon Watford, Greg Brown III and Brandon Williams. Anfernee Simons has, of course, enjoyed a breakout year, yet hasn’t played since March 5, as he’s sidelined with mild patellar tendinopathy in his left knee.

The Blazers have lost 10 of their last 11 games. At 26-44, they’re currently 3.5 games back of the 10th-seeded Los Angeles Lakers for the West’s final play-in spot. They’ll return to the floor Monday in Detroit against the Pistons.

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Here’s a military trick that can help you fall asleep in 2 minutes

This article originally appeared on 04.11.19


For those in the military, sleep can mean the difference between life and death. But shut-eye can be very hard to come by, especially during active conflict.

According to Sharon Ackman, the U.S. Navy Pre-Flight School developed a scientific method to help its pilots fall asleep. Through this technique, 96% of the pilots were able to fall asleep in two minutes or less.

If pilots could fall asleep during war, you should be able to use it to knock out in the comfort of your bedroom.

Here’s how to do it:


Step 1: Relax in your seat

Given the space restraints of a typical plane, the pilots were taught to sleep in a seated position. They put their feet flat on the ground, while relaxing their hands in their laps.

Breathe slow, deep breaths while relaxing every muscle in your face and letting your forehead, cheeks, mouth, tongue, and jaw go limp.

Step 2: Relax your upper body

Let your shoulders drop as low as you can. Allow the muscles in your neck go lifeless.

Starting with your dominant side, let your bicep feel like it’s falling off your body. Then move to your forearm, hand, and fingers. If a muscle isn’t relaxing, tense it first, then let it go loose.

Slowly exhale your tension.

Step 3: Relax your lower body

Tell your right thigh muscle to sink, then move down your leg, saying the same thing to your calf, ankle, and foot. Your leg should feel like it has sunk into the ground. Then move on to your left leg.

Step 4: Clear your mind

The final step is to clear your mind for ten seconds. You can do this by paying attention to your breath as it moves through your nostrils or holding a static image in your mind.

Once your body is relaxed and your mind quiet, you should slip away into darkness.

For more information on this sleep technique, check out Ackman’s Medium blog.

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Everything Coming To (And Leaving) HBO And HBO Max In April 2022

We’re in the thick of Spring and, in case the warmer weather (and pollen overload) didn’t give it away, HBO and HBO Max want to make sure we know it so they’re giving us a bunch of new series and returning favorites to binge this April.

New seasons of Barry and The Flight Attendant are back, along with more episodes of A Black Lady Sketch Show — the funniest sketch comedy series you probably aren’t watching. On the originals front, HBO is delivering a crime drama starring Jon Bernthal, made by the team that gave fans The Wire while HBO Max rolls out its Tokyo Vice series starring Ansel Elgort.

Here’s everything else coming to (and leaving) the streaming platform this month.

Barry: Season 3 (HBO series streaming 4/24)

Rejoice Barry fans, your favorite hitman-turned-aspiring-thespian has returned. The long hiatus due to Covid lockdowns gave the show’s creators time to rewrite this upcoming season (and pen an entire fourth season too) so expect Bill Hader’s former hitman to be turning his attention inward — psychologically speaking. Season three is leaning into figuring out what fueled Barry’s life of crime and if acting really can save him from returning to it.

The Flight Attendant: Season 2 (HBO Max series streaming 4/21)

Kaley Cuoco’s messy flight attendant returns for more murder-mystery-solving shenanigans. After the chaos of season one, Cassie (Cuoco) is living her best sober life in Los Angeles while moonlighting as a CIA asset but a new case throws her back into the thick of yet another international scandal.

We Own This City (HBO limited series streaming 4/25)

The guys that gave us The Wire are responsible for this buzzed-about crime drama that tells the true story chronicling the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force. Jon Bernthal plays one of the corrupt cops (along with Good Wife star Josh Charles) who comes under investigation for everything from racketeering and robbery to extortion and fraud, even as they use extreme violence to fight the city’s “war on drugs.”

Here’s everything coming to HBO and HBO Max this month:

Avail. 4/1
10, 1979
Annabelle, 2014 (HBO)
Armed and Dangerous, 1986
Balls Out: Gary the Tennis Coach, 2009
Battle Los Angeles, 2011
Beetlejuice, 1988
Bells Are Ringing, 1960
Black Gold, 1947
Blood Ties, 2014 (HBO)
Boys’ Night Out, 1962
Brewster McCloud, 1970
Brie’s Bake Off Challenge, 2022
Capote, 2005 (HBO)
Captains Courageous, 1937
Chicago, 2002 (HBO)
Children of the Damned, 1964
Czech It Out!, Max Original Premiere
Dances With Wolves, 1990 (HBO) (Extended Version)
Erased, 2013 (HBO)
Fantastic Beasts: A Natural History, 2022
Five Easy Pieces, 1970
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, 2009
Girl Most Likely, 2013 (HBO)
Graffiti Bridge, 1990
Hugo, 2011 (HBO)
Insidious, 2010
Iron Eagle, 1986
Iron Eagle II, 1988
Kin, 2018 (HBO)
Krull, 1983 (HBO)
Larry Crowne, 2011
Les Miserables, 1998
Limitless, 2011 (HBO)
Moon, 2009 (HBO)
Moscow on the Hudson, 1984
Nobody’s Fool, 1994 (HBO)
Odd Man Out, 1947
On the Waterfront, 1954
One True Singer, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Only Lovers Left Alive, 2014 (HBO)
Original Sin, 2001 (HBO) (Extended Version)
Peggy Sue Got Married, 1986
Point Break, 2015 (HBO)
Rain Man, 1988 (HBO)
Red, 2010 (HBO)
Rendez-Vous, 2020 (HBO)
Revolver, 2007 (HBO)
Salt, 2010
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954
Sex Drive, 2008 (HBO) (Extended Version)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, 1949
Show Boat, 1936
Six Degrees Of Separation, 1993 (HBO)
Slc Punk!, 1999 (HBO)
Spartan, 2004 (HBO)
Special Agent, 1935
Summer of ’42, 1971
Surf’s Up 2: WaveMania, 2017
Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962
The Asphalt Jungle, 1950
The Big Chill, 1983
The Big House, 1930
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, 2009 (HBO) (Director’s Cut)
The Break-Up, 2006 (HBO)
The Brothers Solomon, 2007 (HBO)
The Chosen, 1982 (HBO)
The Freshman, 1990 (HBO)
The Heartbreak Kid, 2007 (HBO)
The Incredible Hulk, 2008 (HBO)
The Informant (aka A Besugo), Max Original Season 1 Premiere
The Ladies Man, 2000 (HBO)
The Last Airbender, 2010 (HBO)
The Last Detail, 1973
The Last Dragon, 1985
The Raid: Redemption, 2012 (HBO) (Extended Version)
The Relic, 1997 (HBO)
The Secret In Their Eyes, 2010 (HBO)
The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, 2013 (HBO)
The Thaw (aka Odwilz), Max Original Season 1 Premiere
The Thirteenth Floor, 1999
The Toy, 1982
The Wackness, 2008 (HBO)
Tootsie, 1982 (HBO)
Under the Cherry Moon, 1986
Universal Soldier: The Return, 1999
Vice Versa, 1988
Welcome To Collinwood, 2002 (HBO)
Who’s Harry CRUMB?, 1989 (HBO)
William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, 1996 (HBO)
Winter Meeting, 1948
Wrath Of The Titans, 2012

Avail. 4/2
Batwoman, Season 3
Chad

Avail. 4/4
The Invisible Pilot, Documentary Series Premiere (HBO)

Avail. 4/5
Man of Steel, 2013 (HBO)
Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off, Documentary Premiere (HBO)
We’re The Millers, 2013 (HBO)

Avail. 4/7
Close Enough, Max Original Season 3
Queen Stars, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Tokyo Vice, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Trinity of Shadows, Max Original Season 1 Premiere

Avail. 4/8
A Black Lady Sketch Show, Season 3 Premiere (HBO)
Crabs In A Barrel, 2022 (HBO)
Mi Casa, 2022 (HBO)
The Night House, 2021 (HBO)
When You Clean A Stranger’s Home, 2022 (HBO)

Avail. 4/12
Black Mass, 2015

Avail. 4/14
The Garcias, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Gensan Punch, Max Original Premiere
The Great Pottery Throw Down, Max Original Season 5 Premiere
Not So Pretty, Max Original Season 1 Premiere

Avail. 4/17
The House, 2017

Avail. 4/21
Amsterdam, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Marlon Wayans Presents: The Headliners, Max Original Special Premiere
The Flight Attendant, Max Original Season 2 Premiere

Avail. 4/22
A Tiny Audience, Season 3 Premiere (HBO)
Toy Aficiao, 2021 (HBO)

Avail. 4/24
Barry, Season 3 Premiere (HBO)
The Baby Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

Avail. 4/24
We Own This City, Limited Series Premiere (HBO)

Avail. 4/27
The Survivor, 2022 (HBO)

Avail. 4/28
Ana Emilia Show (aka Desafío Influencer con Ana Emilia), Max Original Premiere
DoDo, Max Original Season 1 Premiere
Lamput, Season 1-3
Made for Love, Max Original Season 2 Premiere
Up Close with Ana Emilia, Max Original Special Premiere
The Way Down: God, Greed, And The Cult Of Gwen Shamblin, Max Original Season 1 Part B Premiere

Avail. 4/29
Snowpiercer, Season 3

Avail. 4/30
The Blair Witch Project, 1999
House of 1,000 Corpses, 2003
The Devil’s Rejects, 2005

Here’s everything leaving HBO and HBO Max this month:

Leaving 4/3
Life’s Too Short, 2012 (HBO)

Leaving 4/30
2 Fast 2 Furious, 2003 (HBO)
A Good Day to Die Hard, 2013 (HBO) (Extended Version)
Aftermath, 2017 (HBO)
Anna to the Infinite Power, 1982 (HBO)
Bloodsport, 1988 (HBO)
Cake, 2005 (HBO)
Cursed, 2005 (HBO)
Darkness, 2004 (HBO) (Unrated Version)
Executive Decision, 1996 (HBO)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 2011 (HBO)
Firehouse Dog, 2007 (HBO)
For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, 2012 (HBO)
Freejack, 1992 (HBO)
Frida, 2002 (HBO)
Getting Even With Dad, 1994 (HBO)
Hearts in Atlantis, 2001 (HBO)
Her Body, 2018 (HBO)
Hitman, 2007 (HBO) (Extended Version)
House, 2008 (HBO)
Moonstruck, 1987 (HBO)
My Baby’s Daddy, 2004 (HBO)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002 (HBO)
Never Let Me Go, 2010 (HBO)
News of the World, 2020 (HBO)
Poltergeist II: the Other Side, 1986 (HBO)
Poltergeist III, 1988 (HBO)
Promising Young Woman, 2020 (HBO)
Senseless, 1998 (HBO)
Showtime, 2002 (HBO)
Something New, 2006 (HBO)
Stigmata, 1999 (HBO)
Summer School, 1987 (HBO)
The Betrayed, 2008 (HBO)
The Brady Bunch Movie, 1995 (HBO)
The Day After Tomorrow, 2004 (HBO)
The End, 1978 (HBO)
The Fast and the Furious, 2001 (HBO)
The Happening, 2008 (HBO)
The Pope of Greenwich Village, 1984 (HBO)
The Poseidon Adventure, 1972 (HBO)
The Presidio, 1988 (HBO)
The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, 2007 (HBO)
The Transporter, 2002 (HBO)
The Wings of the Dove, 1997 (HBO)
Thelma & Louise, 1991 (HBO)
Tomcats, 2001 (HBO)
Unleashed, 2005 (HBO) (Director’s Cut)
Waiting to Exhale, 1995 (HBO)
Weightless, 2018 (HBO)
Welcome to Sarajevo, 1997 (HBO)
Witness, 1985 (HBO)
Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, 2018 (HBO)

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Fontaines DC Wander Through A Surreal Club In The New ‘Skinty Fia’ Video

Fontaines DC are now about a month away from releasing their latest album, Skinty Fia, as that’s set to drop on April 22. Today, the band offers a new video for the album’s title track, a rhythmic post-punk tune. In the video, singer Grian Chatten wanders through a peculiar ballroom lit like a dance club as he stares at the camera and deadpans the lyrics.

Chatten previously told Rolling Stone of the song, “‘Skinty Fia’ is an expression that our drummer’s great auntie used to say. She was an Irish-speaking person, like strictly Irish-speaking, exclusively Irish-speaking person. She used to say that as kind of like a colloquialism. I never heard it before Tom [Coll] said it to me recently, but it was a substitute for a swear word, basically. If she drops something, she’d say, ‘Ah, skinty fia.’ It roughly translates as ‘the damnation of the deer.’ I don’t know, it sounds like mutation and doom and inevitability and all these things that I felt were congruous to my idea of Irishness abroad. Like if you go to Boston, that expression of Irishness. That’s skinty fia to me. That’s that mutation. That’s a new thing. It’s not unlicensed and it’s not impure. Just because it’s diaspora, it’s still pure. It’s just a completely new beast.”

Watch the “Skinty Fia” video above.

Skinty Fia is out 4/22 via Partisan. Pre-order it here.

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A ‘Bridgerton’ Actress Was Absolutely Sure That She’d Be Fired Before The Show Even Began Filming

The time has almost come for Bridgerton‘s second season, and the Shondaland show is going to go for at least four full seasons. In the meantime, ready yourself for more scandal as Lord Anthony Bridgerton begins to maneuver through courting season in search of his viscountess. In the meantime, prepare to see more interviews about sex-scene props and corsets, and also, actress Nicola Coughlan (who portrays Penelope, who’s doing a lot of juggling this season with that secret of hers) is opening up about how it all began: with fears.

The Derry Girls actress sat down with the New York Times and revealed that she was thrilled to join the ensemble cast, but she also figured that she’d be canned before things got real. That’s not something that one would expect from an actress who’s also pulling off some duplicity within the role, but yes, really:

Told that she had the part, Coughlan tempered her enthusiasm. She had known plenty of actors who were hired onto prestige projects and then fired when the studio demanded a bigger name. “I should have been like, This is amazing,” she said. “Instead, I was like, This is fishy. I don’t know about this.” She remained tense throughout the first table read.

That’s rather wild, since it’s almost impossible to envision another actress popping into the Penelope role with the same mix of vulnerability, entrepreneurship, and ingenuity. Plus, she can pull off a yellow dress like few people can. It’s worth noting as well, that Bridgerton showrunner Chris Van Dusen was thrilled with Nicola’s performance and said “everyone loved her as much as I did.” Now, let the scandal pages begin anew.

Bridgerton (along with Lady Whistledown) returns on March 25.

(Via New York Times)