General

Jul 01 2017

Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program should be interesting to U.S. frequent flyers for several reasons: they offer one-way awards; they are an American Express Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You points, and a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner; they have far more award space on their own flights than Delta has access to; they have most of their partners available for online booking.

And they have a bunch of business class award routes on sale to anywhere in Europe (including Israel for the same price).

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Jun 30 2017

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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Jun 30 2017

Airlines sometimes miss that the key question for a lounge isn’t “are there enough seats for passengers?” but “is there enough space and enough empty seats so the lounge doesn’t feel full?”

If a lounge feels just as packed as the gate area, it isn’t a peaceful escape from the terminal. I’ve been to too many lounges that feel like refugee camps during peak times. You have to hunt for a place to sit. Staff can’t keep up with the turnover and trash piles up. Food and drink go unreplenished.

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Jun 30 2017

Most air redemptions — even if you don’t maximize value by redeeming at the upper end of a redemption tier — will get you 1.6 cents apiece or more for your points. So fixed value 1.5 cents a point redemptions are a devaluation.

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Jun 30 2017

The official signup bonus for Hyatt’s co-brand credit card has changed from earning 2 free nights at any participating property to earning 40,000 bonus points. But if you’ve recently gotten it, or you act fast to do so, there’s a real way to leverage the free nights.

Two people staying at Miraval is normally 65,000 points per night. The stay includes “enjoy a $175 resort credit per person, per day along with unlimited meals, snacks and over 120 wellness activities and classes each week.”

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Jun 30 2017

Four hotels are going up in maximum award price, which since they no longer have award charts.

All of the specific changes they’re making seem on-face reasonable, but I replied asking if they would “reconsider posting a standard award “maximum price” chart” since that would foster the kind of transparency they appear to be seeking in sharing changes like this.

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Jun 30 2017

The Supreme Court lifted parts of the injunction against the Trump administration’s travel ban on Monday, pending oral argument and a full decision.

The Court, however, explicitly ruled that the injunction remains in place — the administration cannot enforce its ban — against “foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

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Jun 30 2017

My language skills are quite poor. I was never very good at Hebrew, though I studied it sat in class clueless over it for several years. I was never very good at Spanish, though I took it in school for six years. I was always better at reading it than speaking it, and once someone got into a conversational pace I was done for.

The good news is you can travel effectively almost anywhere in the world without speaking anything other than English (go ahead – flame me!).

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Jun 29 2017

There’s a new award chart, it’s published, and the changes to saver awards aren’t draconian.

There will be some price increases, and some modest decreases, and a new way for United to avoid offering outsized value when members redeem seats that the airline could have sold for cash.

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Jun 29 2017

One of the things that vexes me about United’s internet — and believe me it’s only one of the things — is that they seem to have a very odd sense of how fast their planes fly, or how far.

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