Get United miles by joining online DVD-rental services

If you've been holding off joining an online DVD-rental service, such as Netflix or Blockbuster, here's an additional incentive: earn up to 4,000 United Airlines Mileage Plus miles. You'll earn 2,000 miles for joining, plus an additional 2,000 miles if you pay with your Mileage Plus Visa credit card.

The bad news is that this offer applies only to a first-time paying member. Current and past members are ineligible.

To sign up or to get more information, visit www.united.com/netflixoffer.

JetBlue raises change and cancellation fee

JetBlue Airways (www.jetblue.com or (800) 538-2583) recently raised its change and cancellation fee from $25 to $50 per person, or $40 for doing it online, up from $20 originally.

Other than raising the fee, the rules and restrictions remain the same. The fee is in addition to any applicable difference in airfare, and any remaining balance will be placed in a JetBlue credit and may be applied toward future travel for one year.

While JetBlue has raised its fee, it's still lower than a lot of the major U.S. airlines, but we expect to see more airlines raising fees as a way to earn more revenue.

Save with American Airlines Deal Finder

Airlines are increasingly offering their best fares on their own Web sites, and are undercutting prices on sites such as Kayak and Orbitz. Just over the last few weeks, American Airlines' DealFinder service has offered 25 percent off fares to Mexico, the Caribbean and Shanghai, and 15 percent off to Hawaii.

DealFinder requires that you download an application that only works on Internet Explorer and on Windows 2000, XP, 2003 or Vista. Find it at www.aa.com/dealfinder.

Earn $50 with stays at InterContinental

From now through March 31, Priority Club members will receive a $50 Visa gift card for making a reservation for a Friday or Saturday night at any InterContinental hotel or resort in the U.S., Canada or Puerto Rico when they pay with their Visa card.

To qualify for this promotion, members must first register at www.priorityclub.com (then click on the "Offers" tab, then select "United States" and the registration link should be listed under "Hotel Brand Offers").

Only one room per member per stay will be awarded the gift card, which will be mailed to the member about six to eight weeks after the qualifying stay is completed.

Visit Homer at PaleoFEST

If admiring Sue, the largest preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever discovered, at the Field Museum (www.fieldmuseum.org or (312) 922-9410) isn't enough to placate your fascination with dinosaurs, then you might want to make a short trip to Rockford to see Homer, the Burpee Museum of Natural History's newest dinosaur discovery.

Homer, a juvenile triceratops, will be unveiled during the 10th annual PaleoFEST at Burpee on March 1 and 2. Ten of the world's best-known dinosaur hunters and paleontologists will gather to tell dinosaur tales and host interactive workshops with families, professionals and dinosaur lovers of all ages.

PaleoFEST will have Paleo Talks, Family Workshops and special DinoBlast passport activities for children to learn facts about long-necked sauropods, ancient trilobites and dinosaur relationships, as well as parent-child activities and make-and-take crafts to bring home.

Admission to Burpee is $5 and includes all DinoBlast activities for kids each day. Lectures are an additional $10 each, or you can purchase a one- or two-day package for $40 or $70, respectively. Workshops are an additional $8 each for one adult and one child, or $15 for a one-day package.

For more information, visit www.burpee.org or call (815) 965-3433.

Welcome new year on Colorado train

If you haven't made plans for New Year's Eve, then consider taking the Royal Gorge Route Railroad in Colorado. On Dec. 31, at 9:30 p.m., the historic railroad will launch its inaugural New Year's Eve train.

Priced at $199 per person, double occupancy, this package includes overnight accommodations at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Colorado Springs, round-trip transportation from the Crowne Plaza Hotel to the train depot, dinner, train ride, entertainment, party favors and champagne to ring in the new year.

The train's culinary team will prepare special courses for dinner as the train winds through the Royal Gorge. The celebration will be held on board the train's dining and glass-topped vista dome cars.

Considered to be one of the nation's most scenic railroads, the train features classes of service ranging from coach, vista dome, gourmet lunch, dinner, wine and murder mystery trains.

The train travels along the Arkansas River through the Royal Gorge more than 1,000 feet beneath the canyon's rim.

US Airways sneaks in hidden fees for online bookings

Well, this is a real fine how-do-you-do. We learned from CrankyFlier.com that US Airways has tacked on an extra $5 fee to all bookings made on its site.

Here's what we know. Travelocity charges about $6 to $7 for a booking, so we checked a flight from Boston to Phoenix and found a fare of $1,332 on Travelocity and $1,330 on US Airways.com. Clearly, there should be more than just a $2 difference. And we know Travelocity hasn't budged in our favor here, so … .

For a breakdown of taxes and fees, get out your jeweler's loupe and check out www.CrankyFlier.com.

Reach George Hobica athobica@gmail.com, Kim LiangTan at KimLiangTan@aol.comor log on to www.airfarewatchdog.com.