I returned to the country to a pileup of mail, including this from Chase: Someone has too many currently-open Ink cards. Chase is removing the ‘Lounge Club’ benefit from their Ink products. Lounge Club is the credit card version of Priority Pass, it’s a card that gets you lounge access though there are varying levels of membership. The basic free version just allows you to pay for entrance on each visit at participating lounges (American Express’ Hilton Surpass card gives you this.) The major difference between Priority Pass and Lounge Club is that the former includes several United Club lounges while the latter does not, so it’s a product that several credit cards can offer without violating Chase’s exclusivity (the initial branding was Priority Pass Select, which I first saw offered by American Express Platinum).…

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A James Bond film crew is in the news for their bad inflight behavior. Drunken film crew members involved in the latest James Bond movie triggered an international air alert by vomiting, urinating in the aisles and going on a drunken rampage during a flight to Mexico… The behaviour is said to have included smoking cigarettes in flight and removing a pin securing one of the cabin doors while close to American airspace. Apparently the crew in question were “[a]round 150 Spectre stunt men, camera crew and technical workers..on board the chartered Airbus A330 travelling from Stansted to Mexico City for the shooting of an ambitious opening scene based on the annual Day of the Dead festival.” SPECTRE of course is Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, the criminal syndicate and terrorist organisation…

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News and notes from around the interweb: Discounted United awards to Hawaii Bonus for points transfers into Aeroplan. Unfortunately Membership Rewards transfers aren’t eligible. Starwood transfers are, though — 80,000 Starpoints would yield 125,000 Aeroplan points instead of the usual 100,000. How to make my heart stop: This came into my email inbox: Fortunately this isn’t word that my Suntrust Delta debit card will no longer earn miles for purchases. It’s just that they’re redesigning their online banking site. Which I could care less about since I only use my Suntrust account for debit purchases (and to deposit money into the account, to make more debit purchases). Everyone checking into Marriott Courtyard hotels today get 1000 bonus points to celebrate the opening of the 1000th Courtyard property in Walla Walla, Washington. (HT: Paul B.) They…

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It seems like hotel programs have been incentivizing booking low end hotels — keeping those cheap, making the points cost even cheaper than before — while pricing top end awards astronomically. We’ve seen massive ‘category creep’ at Marriott. Two years ago Hilton increased the price of their top awards as much as 90%. Hyatt created a new category 7 with higher prices for their most expensive properties. Wyndham is going the opposite direction. They are creating a single award chart price of 15,000 points per night. That’s an increase for the cheapest hotels, and a decrease for the most expensive hotels. Wyndham Grand Rio Mar, Puerto Rico

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The International Civil Aviation Organization has “significant safety concerns” about Thailand’s aviation regulator‘s standards (not about Thailand’s airlines). ICAO, a UN agency, informed governments around the world about its designation of Thailand as a “significant safety concern” on March 20. ICAO’s designation came after it determined that the “corrective action plan” submitted by the Department of Civil Aviation on March 2 to address the issues raised by ICAO were “needing revision’, ACM Prajin said this weekend. The designation is seen as a possible prelude to ICAO’s downgrading of the kingdom from the so-called Category 1 to Category 2 as result of its January audit, which reportedly showed that the DCA was able to meet only 21 out of 100 ICAO requisites. The audit covered a broad range of areas relevant to aviation safety and airline…

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There’s a video going around of an incident yesterday in New York where a police officer unleashes a rant on an Uber driver (“How long have you been in this country? … The only reason you’re not in handcuffs and going to jail .. is because I have things to do.. because you’re not important enough.”). Uber released a statement, The behavior in the video is wrong and unacceptable and we appreciate the NYPD investigating the incident. We are in touch with our driver-partner who was subjected to this terrible experience and will continue to provide any support he needs. From the video, posted to YouTube by a passenger in the vehicle at the time: Police abuse of Uber driver in New York City. In an unmarked car, the policeman was allegedly attempting to park…

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British Airways reported that about a million of their accounts were hacked and they locked down those accounts. Mine was among them, and I had to reset my password to regain access to my account. Once back in, I learned that they had temporarily removed all of my points. Yesterday those points were restored. Then this morning I received another email, and I thought oh bloody @!#!@#, not again! We have now locked down your online account to protect it from further access. As part of the lock-down process we have also changed your password and you will need to reset it before you are able to use your account. Except… my account wasn’t locked and I have no problem accessing it. Perhaps their mass email database was hacked this time!

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The Park Hyatt New York was one of the most anticipated hotel openings last year. A new luxury property in New York, you can expect to pay a minimum in the high $600s per night on prepaid rates when the hotel expects to be relatively empty. It’s a Hyatt Gold Passport category 7 hotel, meaning 30,000 points per night. The problem has been that getting reward nights at that hotel has been a challenge. The hotel opened before all of its rooms were fully online, and there’s a limited number of ‘standard’ rooms there eligible for points redemptions. In fact, only about 12% of the hotel’s rooms are considered ‘standard’ — a practice I consider to be quite dirty pool. Fortunately award availability appears to be thawing there. I’m finally finding free night awards available,…

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Reader Joe asked, I am US Chairman, and I have a trip to Alaska this fall (EWR-SEA-ANC). I would like to somehow get into First. I’m thinking I could do an Elite Match with AS to qualify for an upgrade. But I need the AA EQM’s to re-qualify for top AA status. Can I change the FF #’s after securing an upgrade? This is an interesting challenge but one that has broader implications for members looking to use one airline status for benefits (perhaps they have status through a status match with a foreign airline and want waived checked bag fees and lounge access) while crediting miles to their main US program. Why Airlines Status Match Airlines will often give customers with elite status on one airline status on their carrier — or at least…

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