Bilt now lets holders of U.S. Qatar Airways credit cards earn 3 Avios per dollar on rent payments, up to 150,000 Avios per year, while paying Bilt’s 3% credit card processing fee. That can effectively mean buying Qatar Avios for about a penny each, while also generating card spend toward Qpoints, award-fee rebates, and access to Qatar’s newly restricted ability to redeem for other travelers.
Delta is expected to announce new Austin service on August 13, and the long-rumored Austin–Paris nonstop for summer 2027 appears increasingly likely. The route would fit Delta’s broader Austin strategy: build long-haul service, add major lounge capacity, grow into the airport’s second-largest carrier, and use a lucrative expansion market to drive deeper Amex card engagement.
Former Thai pop star Briohny Smyth says a wooden splinter from Singapore Airlines’ signature business class satay lodged in her throat, scarred her vocal cords and impaired the voice she uses to earn a living. Her lawsuit was filed just days before a strict two-year deadline—but so far no photograph of the shard, medical record or contemporaneous flight report has been made public.
Air India flight AI2379 suddenly dropped 300 feet, injuring 17 people and damaging the cabin. It was immediately blamed on severe turbulence—but Air India changed its language, and regulators reportedly suspect a transient technical fault.
Military testing knocked out a medevac crew’s GPS, ATC halted the jamming and then allowed it to resume. Five minutes later four people were dead after the pilots had turned toward 10,000-foot terrain on a moonless visual approach.
A Houston-bound Boeing 747 freighter reported running out of fuel with just 6,000 pounds remaining, yet the pilot still asked to continue another 210 miles to Houston. Air traffic control stepped in, declared the emergency for the crew, and made the plane land at Dallas–Fort Worth instead, almost certainly preventing a much more serious incident.
A Chattanooga airport passenger says she paid $19.64 for avocado toast and received one sad slice of bread with green spread and a single strip of bacon. The real story is bigger than one bad breakfast: airport restaurants face high rents, security restrictions, labor hurdles, politicized concession contracts, and captive customers, all of which help explain why so much airport food is expensive and disappointing.
A longtime FlyerTalk member says $3,500 was stolen from his family’s overhead bags on Thai Airways flight TG900, after a flight attendant aggressively warned passengers about valuables and before he collapsed at the airport police station with a brain hemorrhage. He believes passengers were drugged and that crew may have helped identify targets.
inKind is offering $50 in dining credit for referrals through August 31 while new users get $25 off $50. The referral is good; the broader dining opportunity can be much better.
Register and book one Southwest roundtrip by Thursday, fly by November 18, and earn a Companion Pass valid January 5–March 3, 2027.
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 »
