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News and notes from around the interweb:
- Putting spend on American Express cards may make you eligible for bonuses again
- Hyatt Place no longer offers free breakfast for all guests. You need to book direct and be a member of the program to get breakfast for free, or joint the program at the hotel. Existing loyalty program members who book through a third party will not receive complimentary breakfast.
- American raises the price of Admirals Club access February 1 and adds access restrictions. There was a rumor that the Executive card annual fee would go up, but that was apparently based on confusion over American’s club membership prices and the card’s annual fee price. I’m told there’s no annual fee change coming to the card February 1.
- Scott McCartney explains airline 5th Freedom routes in the Wall Street Journal
- Sushi Nakazawa in New York is excellent, the chef is the one who made the tamago cake in Jiro Dreams of Sushi. There’s an outpost at the Trump Hotel in DC that isn’t even a tough reservation because of you know who. If you visit Chicago try Kyoten. And if you make it to Tokyo here are 3 of my recent omakase experiences.
- Air France and KLM still operate fairly independently. In my experience counterparts in Paris and Amsterdam do not much like each other. The stupidity extends to places like Houston where each airline operates their own lounge just a few gates away from each other. The new Air France KLM CEO sees opportunities to change this.
KLM Lounge Houston - Austin’s plan for a new terminal and 32 gate concourse which would roughly double the capacity the airport will have next year after a 37.5% increase in gates.
The AmEx story certainly jives with my past experience. I’ve held the AmEx Business Platinum 4 different times now and have always received the bonus. However, each time was for an actual, real, business where I subsequently kept the cards for years and put very significant spend through them as the primary business card. So it would make no sense to deny me the bonus, as it would result in me using someone else for the next business I work with.