Room service used to be one of the clearest signs you were staying somewhere better than an Airbnb or a limited-service chain: hot coffee in a pot, breakfast on a cart, and food delivered with some sense of occasion. Now even premium hotels too often send up plastic containers in a paper bag, stripping away one of the last touches that made paying more actually feel worth it.
You can’t bring this knife through security and bring it on an airplane – but you can be given this knife on an airplane. Make it make sense! This passenger is wrong to blame this on TSA, though, let alone take it out on the front line screener who isn’t expected to ponder the existential nature of the role. Congress did it!
Southwest Airlines is no longer just testing the idea of lounges. The airline now appears to have at least five lounges in its pipeline, with Honolulu, Nashville, Denver, Dallas Love Field, and Austin all part of a move into premium airport space.
United’s free Starlink internet rollout is still supposed to take until the end of next year, but passengers are now reporting that free Wi-Fi has quietly spread to some non-Starlink aircraft as well. If that holds, it means United has started delivering one of the biggest quality-of-life upgrades in domestic flying faster and more broadly than it has publicly said.
The FAA has capped Chicago O’Hare at 2025 schedule levels for the summer, a move that sharply cuts back United’s much larger growth plan while largely preserving American’s rebuilt position. That makes this more than a routine delay-fighting order: it is a major intervention in the Chicago airline battle, one that blocks United from using aggressive over-scheduling to strengthen its hold on gates and market share.
The World of Hyatt Business Credit Card now has its biggest-ever welcome bonus: 80,000 points after $10,000 in spending in the first three months, up from the previous 60,000-point offer. The bigger reason to care is that Hyatt makes this its fastest card for spending your way toward elite status.
Chase has brought back the best-ever 200,000-point offer on the IHG One Rewards Premier Business card, giving small-business owners a shot at one of the richest hotel bonuses currently on the market. The card’s $99 annual fee is easy to justify if you value the annual free night and fourth-night-free perk, making this a rare hotel card offer that is strong both for the signup bonus and for keeping long term.
Airlines are selling domestic first class seats for as little as $26 instead of using them to reward frequent flyers, and that is quietly gutting the biggest reason many customers chase top-tier status in the first place. That weakens premium credit card spend. But there are ways they could fix this.
United Airlines top-tier 1K status is being offered online for just $330, a tiny fraction of what frequent flyers normally spend to earn it. It may look like an easy shortcut to upgrades, priority treatment, and fee waivers, but buying status this way risks far more than wasted money if the airline decides the offer was unauthorized.
Business class doors have quickly become the next must-have feature after flat beds and direct aisle access, but that does not mean they always make the seat better. On some aircraft, especially narrowbodies, the space used for doors may be better spent on a longer bed, a wider aisle, or a roomier overall seat—raising the question of whether doors deliver real privacy or just the appearance of it.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
