[75,000 Miles] Capital One Venture X Offer

Dec 15 2023

Capital One Venture X is the premium version of its signature Venture product And I’m sort of amazed at how much they’re including at the price point.

For travel rewards fans this is going to be a strong card to consider – and it hits high marks for all of the reasons you may want to get and use a card – a (very) big initial bonus, strong earning for your spend, and great benefits.

Continue Reading »

Delta’s Big Move in Austin: Questionable New Flights as American Airlines Cedes Ground

keep austin weird
Dec 15 2023

While American shed highly unprofitable flying, they had been using pretty much all available windows for swing gates, gates that could be used for flying by any carrier. And that blocked others from significant expansion.

With their recent moves opening up the field I speculated that could mean Delta making good on its promise to create a focus city in Austin. They’ve been willing to stick by unprofitable flying like Seattle, buoyed by strong performance of their interior hubs and their lucrative American Express deal, making a bet on long-term performance.

Continue Reading »

Bilt Adds Avianca LifeMiles As Transfer Partner

aviancaplane
Dec 15 2023

Avianca LifeMiles is a popular Star Alliance frequent flyer program for U.S. members because they sell miles inexpensively on a regular basis, and because you can transfer points into their program from several different credit card currencies.

They have generally reasonable redemption pricing with no fuel surcharges, though getting customer service when things go wrong can be challenging at times.

Continue Reading »

When Everyone’s A Suspect: The Paradox Of Two Million People On U.S. Terror Watchlists

airport security
Dec 14 2023

TSA has often failed to catch over 90% of contraband going through checkpoints, there have been tens of thousands of misconduct complaints against the agency’s staff, and yet we haven’t seen repeats in the U.S. of 9/11 largely because there aren’t as many threats as we think, they’re harder to carry out than we imagine, and because we’ve reinforced cockpit doors and passengers would no longer sit docilely by as an attack was carried out.

Continue Reading »

It’s Back: Mileage Awards For World’s Best Business Class Are Wide Open

first class beds
Dec 14 2023

Qatar has one of the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’ that offer doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space. Their QSuite is a fantastic hard product, and service and food in the air are outstanding.

A month ago award space opened wide up. It went away, but on a handful of routes it is back in a big way.

Continue Reading »