Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for December 2016.

Chase Transfer Partner Korean Air Now Lets You Book SkyTeam Partner Awards Online

car pulled over on side of road with dinosaur
Dec 29 2016

Korean Air offers the best first class award space between the US and Asia of any airline. And there’s very little competition for that space — because Korean Air partners like Delta and Alaska can book business class awards on Korean, but cannot book first class awards.

They also offer fantastic value partner awards, like US-Europe for 80,000 miles roundtrip in business class. And you can now book SkyTeam partner awards online.

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I’ve Just Banned Someone From Commenting on This Blog. Did I Do The Right Thing?

Dec 29 2016

My general approach is that ‘it’s the internet’ and that what someone writes reflects more on their own character than on anyone else. I’ve been a denizen of the internet for more than 20 years, and I probably have too pollyannaish a view of what kind of free speech community it was supposed to become that derives from a mindset formed in the early 1990s.

More importantly though I question my ability to be particularly Solomonic in my approach to moderating comments. It’s too easy to let distaste for a commenter’s truly offensive posts become a slippery slope into dislike for someone who thinks I’m deeply and morally wrong on some issue.

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Starwood Partnership With Virgin America Ending January 6, Transfer Points Now

Dec 28 2016

When transfers from Starwood to Virgin America briefly disappeared from the Starwood website a week ago it looked like a change without notice, the elimination of a partnership driven by Alaska’s acquisition of Virgin America. After all, it was separately announced that Citibank would lose the ability to transfer points to Virgin America as well.

Fortunately the ability to transfer points to Virgin America return to SPG.com and always remained available by phone. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, of course, that Starwood’s partnership with Virgin America is ending however.

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Over 650 IHG Hotels Will Change Points Prices January 15. And Two-Thirds Get More Expensive (Mostly in the U.S.)

skyscrapers in city
Dec 28 2016

IHG Rewards Club has posted a .pdf of hotels that will be changing rewards redemption category on January 15.

About 650 hotels are changing category. Of those, about 75% are going to cost more points to redeem starting January 15th. Two-thirds of the hotels that are changing category are in the U.S. Over 90% of those are going up in category and price.

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American Flight Runs Out of Airsickness Bags, Diverts to Uruguay on Christmas

airline cabin
Dec 28 2016

On Christmas Eve, American’s flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires ran into trouble on final approach. As it prepared to land in Buenos Aires, weather forced it to divert to Montevideo.

Turbulence was so bad as the plane tried to land in Buenos Aires initially that perhaps half the passengers on the plane threw up and the aircraft ran out of airsickness bags. And there was reporedly a lightning strike as well.

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