Award Wallet: "Housed in the Capital One mobile app is a new lounge capacity tracker. You'll find it in the “Travel” menu under “Lounges.” Selecting a location will show real-time capacity, so you'll know whether the lounge is very busy or nearly empty. And if it's busy, you can join the waitlist and get a text when you're next in line."
"The waitlist is accessible even if you're not standing outside the lounge. This way, you can enter the lounge sooner after hopping off your flight — or get your name on the list while you're still in line at the TSA checkpoint. But after the confirmation text arrives, you'll have 15 minutes to check in at the desk; otherwise, you'll lose your spot in line."
View From The Wing: "Football fans booked themselves a room at the Detroit Club hotel months ago for April 25 to be near the NFL draft. The room rate was $350 ($427.50 with taxes and fees) per night. The hotel cancelled their reservation, and told them if they wanted to stay the night they’d have to pay an $1,100 room rate."
"The property didn’t claim there was any kind of mistake in the booking. They didn’t say they were regrettably oversold. First they just sent a cancellation ‘at the guest’s request’ (which wasn’t true). Now they aren’t even trying to offer a story for why they wouldn’t honor the booking at the price they’d advertised – other than that they now believe they can charge three times as much."
Points Wire Note:
If there's a lesson from this unethical practice, it's that hotel properties sometimes have seller's remorse. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do to prevent it other than knowing it's a possibility. Be ready to pivot if it happens to you and don't expect much from a hotel that is willing to treat customers like this.
Flyertalker eponymous_coward flagged that Alaska Airlines has changed how it handles checked bags through on other airlines when on separate tickets. Previously, Alaska was willing to do this. However, they've made the customer-unfriendly decision to stop.
For example, if you want to fly from Portland (PDX) to Hong Kong (HKG), but Alaska doesn't have award space on the flight from PDX to Los Angeles, too bad. Even though you're connecting on their oneowrld partner Cathay Pacific from LAX to HKG, you'll have to collect your bags at LAX and recheck them.
American Airlines has done this for years and it's an absolute pain.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection: "Today, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority will start offering interviews to conditionally approved Global Entry applicants departing the United States from Washington Dulles International Airport."
"Dulles becomes the nation’s first airport to offer Global Entry 'Enrollment on Departure.'"
This option will be available at the new CBP office near gate B41 between 12:00pm ET until 8:00pm ET for passengers departing on an international flight.
Skift: "Hilton revealed Wednesday that it had signed an exclusive licensing deal with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), a group of 560 boutique hotels unaffiliated with the major hotel groups."
"Hyatt is a loser here. Small Luxury Hotels is ending its multi-year partnership with the smaller hotel group. World of Hyatt loyalty members could use their reward points to book stays at the group of boutique hotels. Last year, Hyatt lost a loyalty licensing deal with MGM Resorts to Marriott."
Points Wire Note:
I would expect the number of Hilton Honors points needed to book many SLH properties to be high. If you want to earn Hilton points and elite nights on SLH stays, you'll need to book via Hilton.
However, if you're not chasing Hilton status, you can book SLH properties via their preferred booking program withIN and get perks such as daily breakfast for two, a property credit, and a room upgrade.
One Mile At A Time: "As of April 1, 2025, British Airways Executive Club will create a single status qualification year. Specifically, you’ll be able to collect Tier Points between April 1 and March 31 of the following year, and status will then be valid through April 30 of the year after that."
You can get 30% off Alaska Airlines flights with the promo code THANKYOU30 if you book by 11:59pm PT on January 31, 2024 and travel between February 8 and March 13, 2024.
Day of Week Restrictions
Another random restriction is that this doesn't include flights to/from Prudhoe Bay (SCC) in Alaska.
One Mile At A Time: "Chase has been aggressively expanding its airport lounge portfolio, with the opening of Chase Sapphire Lounges by The Club. Last week we saw the opening of the Chase Sapphire Lounge New York LaGuardia, and today we’ve seen the opening of the Chase Sapphire Lounge New York Kennedy, in partnership with Etihad Airways."
"The Etihad Lounge has become the Chase Sapphire Lounge by the Club with Etihad Airways at New York JFK (that’s a mouthful). As you can tell, this lounge is a bit different than the other ones in the network, as it’s in partnership with an airline."
One Mile At A Time: "As of May 23, 2024, Air France will launch a new year-round flight between Paris (CDG) and Phoenix (PHX). The flight will operate 3x weekly..."
"Air France will use a Boeing 787-9 for the service, featuring 276 seats. This includes 30 business class seats, 21 premium economy seats, and 225 economy class seats."
Points Wire Note:
Flying Blue has been making a play for a larger share if the US market so it's great to see another potential award booking option, especially from the western U.S. When you consider the fact that a one-way saver level business class award ticket to Europe is 50,000 Flying Blue miles, this could be quite useful for those out west. Even better, you can transfer points to Flying Blue from Amex Membership Rewards, Bilt Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou Points.
Japan Today: "When the flowers bloom, they transform the Japanese countryside into an achingly beautiful landscape of pastel pink flowers, and the only downsides are that the sakura are fickle about when they’ll bloom, and only stick around for a short time after they do."
"That means that timing is everything if you’re hoping to see the cherry blossoms in Japan. Thankfully, Japanese weather forecasting organization Weather News has released its first sakura forecast for the spring of 2024, and says that the blossoms will be arriving quite a bit earlier than usual this year. On Japan’s four main islands (Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido), the first place to see the sakura bloom will be Fukuoka, on March 16, followed by Tokyo a day later, March 17, the forecast says."
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