A pre-dented suitcase is now something you can buy on purpose — because apparently looking like your bag has already survived years of airline baggage handling is a travel aesthetic. Also: Amex’s JetBlue transfer bonus disappoints, Singapore Airlines adds Starlink slowly, and Etihad turns amenity kits into collectibles.
May 2026 brings a fresh round of best-ever credit card offers, with several new bonuses added and others already gone. Here’s the up-to-date list of the most lucrative deals still available.
Airlines can fill planes and still be terrible businesses. The same competition that gives passengers cheaper fares and more choices also makes capacity hard to manage, prices easy to undercut, and profits fragile — which is why airlines keep searching for moats in hubs, loyalty programs, credit cards and premium product differentiation.
With employees gone and baggage offices empty, passengers whose luggage was found may still have no one there to give it back.
Air Canada’s new Hertz partnership is unusually rewarding: Aeroplan members can earn points, Hertz elite status, and even credits toward Air Canada elite status from car rentals. The odd twist is that most members now earn more Aeroplan points renting from Hertz than they do flying Air Canada.
JetBlue is not about to file for bankruptcy, despite rumors being planted around the industry. But the fake story is catching on because the airline’s problems are real: six years of losses, billions in debt, rising fuel costs, and a turnaround clock that is still ticking.
A rental car employee went viral after showing a car returned after hours with the windows left down in the rain — and a full plate of spaghetti sitting on the passenger seat. A $9,000 cleanup bill may sound inflated, but between water damage, stains, odor, remediation and loss of use, this is exactly the kind of after-hours return that can get expensive fast.
American Airlines has struck a deal with the PS terminals to offer a complimentary use to ConciergeKey members.
News and notes from around the interweb: Charlotte airport staffer stole $5,000 in jewelry from a passenger’s luggage and sold it on Facebook. Their defense? ‘I didn’t steal it, I found it’ (cough) but it still didn’t belong to them and they still sold it, it seems. Court documents said a woman reported that multiple pieces of diamond-encrusted David Yurman jewelry were stolen from her suitcase during a layover April 11 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The jewelry was valued at about $5,000, documents said… In the days after the initial report, detectives said they found a social media account, “Alonys Garcia,” listing every piece of jewelry the woman reported stolen and selling it as a bundled item…Reyes-Garcia claimed he found the jewelry in the secure baggage area. Two cases of Legionnaires’ disease linked to…
Citi Strata Elite arrives in a surprisingly premium package, but the real value is what the card earns. The current offer delivers 75,000 points and credits worth up to $1,200 in the first year, and its points now transfer to American Airlines AAdvantage.
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 »
