Triangle Trip

One of the most efficient and economical ways to get to LaGuardia Airport (LGA) from below 57th street Manhattan is via MTA’s R, N or Q train. Total cost for a one way trip will be less than US$3.00, which includes a transfer from the train to the bus. If you’re in NYC for a few days, consider reading my article on how to maximize the value of the unlimited MTA Metrocard.

The R, N and Q trains run north-south along Broadway and through the center of Manhattan island to Queens. Once you get to Queens, hop on the M60 bus for about 20 minutes max and you’ll be at a LGA terminal.

Here are the step by step directions to get to LaGuardia Airport LGA from Manhattan.

1a. Get on the Q when you are at an interchange station because the Q runs express vs the N and R.

2. Get off the N or Q train when you’re at Astoria Boulevard – which is 6 stops after you have arrived to Queens (you’ll know when the train moves onto elevated tracks).

3. Exit Astoria Boulevard station and stay on your right hand side. Look for signs that read M60 bus and display an airplane.

5. The M60 bus will be coming off the bridge from Manhattan. Jump on the M60 and it will take you straight to all the LGA terminals.

You can pick up the same bus from LGA if you’re arriving into NYC. However, there are no vending machines in LGA for you to get a Metrocard. You’ll need to have US$2.25 in change, or you’re out of luck. For NYC visitors, you may want to check out my NYC Visitor’s Guide.

For your convenience, here are links on how to get from Manhattan to Newark (How to get to NYC from Newark) and JFK (How to take NYC public transportation to/from JFK).

Similar to last year, American Airlines has recently jumped on the Triple Miles and Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) program (link to United & Delta’s Triple Miles & EQM/MQM offer). AA’s offer effectively one up’s United; but it’s still inferior compared to Delta. AA’s Triple Miles and EQM offer allows its customers to earn triple miles and EQM between New York’s LGA and Chicago’s ORD and between LGA and Boston Logan.

AA was pressured to make the triple miles and EQM offer to compete against United at their Chicago hub. AA’s shuttle service between LGA and Boston Logan cannot compete with the hourly Delta Shuttle or US Airway’s Shuttle services. Let’s see if USAir will jump on this triple miles and EQM offer, since they are a direct competitor of Delta’s Shuttle LGA/BOS and LGA/DCA routes.

Looks like a great summer for New Yorkers to earn some airline status this year.

I personally hate AT&T with a passion.  But for 2 years it has been an necessary evil for having an iPhone.  Not only does AT&T give you no service in Manhattan between the normal working hours of 9am to 5pm, but it charges and arm and a leg for international calls from your cell phone.  One alternative could be Skype, but the evil AT&T has colluded with Apple to only allow Skype calls over WiFi.

Recently, Google Voice came out of beta and is now available to all within the U.S.  You can do a lot with Google Voice, one of which is make international calls for very cheap.  Once you sign up for Google Voice, you can make cheap international calls on your cell phone.  Kudos to this post for explaining how: http://readystate4.com/2009/07/31/google-voice-skype-the-unrelenting-phone-industry-and-a-cool-iphone-tip/

In a nutshell, you will need to use this formula when saving international numbers on your iPhone:

(aaa) aaa-aaaa , pppp, 2, 011 bb cccccccccc#

Where:
a = your Google Voice number
p = your Google Voice pin number
b = country code of the number you’re dialing
c = local number of the number you’re dialing