One Mile At A Time: "What’s most interesting here is that Air New Zealand doesn’t plan to make any changes to the cabin of these jets, which is fair enough, given that this is a lease. So these planes will maintain Cathay Pacific’s four cabin layout. This is especially good news for business class passengers."
This aircraft will operate three flights per week on the Houston-Auckland route starting November 30, 2023.
Points Wire Note: The reverse herringbone business class cabin layout on this aircraft is far superior to Air New Zealand's traditional herringbone layout.
If you choose to buy up to the first class cabin (still with business class service), it should cost ~$343 one-way. The six first class seats are massive.
You can book with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or a Star Alliance program such as Air Canada Aeroplan or United MileagePlus.
AP: "JetBlue Airways said Wednesday it has started selling flights scheduled for next spring and summer between the United States and both Dublin and Edinburgh."
Points Wire Note: Redeeming JetBlue TrueBlue points for Mint (business class) is generally a poor value. However, if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred, you can book via the Chase travel portal and redeem points for cash tickets at a rate of 1.5 or 1.25 cents per point, respectively.
Similarly, the Amex Business Platinum offers a 35% points rebate when you book via Amex Travel and Pay with Points. The Amex Gold offers a 25% points rebate, but that benefits ends February 1, 2024.
With both Amex and Chase, you'll be using points to cover the cost of a cash ticket so you can earn redeemable miles.
God Save The Points: "The ETIAS non-visa, but “kind of a visa” was initially scheduled to roll out in early May of 2023. That obviously didn’t happen. More recently, it was tipped for the beginning of 2024. That’s not happening either."
"The closest thing we have to a “date”, is that EU officials now plan a roll out for the first half of 2025. Correct, any dreams of rolling this out in 2024 have been quashed, and in the meantime, there’s absolutely no reason to panic or worry about added travel entry requirements until… 2025."
Euronews: "EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in Luxembourg that the commission is looking into the issue of internal border checks, which she described as one of the challenges of the Schengen area."
Points Wire Note: Several EU countries have or are introducing border checks within the Schengen Area. Keep this in mind if you're traveling in Europe.
One Mile At A Time: "JetBlue TrueBlue now has an ongoing status match called Match to Mosaic, whereby those with elite status on other eligible US airlines are able to receive Mosaic status. Qualifying members can receive complimentary Mosaic 1 or Mosaic 2 status for three months, with the opportunity to keep their current status, or even “level up” to Mosaic 3."
"JetBlue TrueBlue will match status with Alaska Mileage Plan, American AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, and United MileagePlus."
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Neither the organizers or speakers get paid for this event. Instead, the focus of the event is giving back to the points community. To be transparent, I believe using my promo code potentially helps offset some of my flight and hotel costs.
If you'd like to attend, my promo code can get you a discount on the event ticket and afterparty ticket.
Event Details
If you get an general admission ticket and an afterparty ticket with my promo code the total cost will be $339.
Hope to see you there!
Emirates has launched its new business class product for the Boeing 777 and it's great... for 2010. Unfortunately, it's 2024.
For context, I flew Emirates business class on the A380 in November 2016 and this "new" product will basically be the same. It'll have nicer finishes, but the seat and cabin layout are the same. At least the layout is 1-2-1 and all seats are lie-flat compared to the 2-3-2 layout with angled flat seats that had been on its Boeing 777.
The fact that their CEO said that they're "raising the industry benchmark when it comes to premium travel," is wild. I worked in politics for a decade, so I'll hope it's just spin. Not great spin, but spin. Alternatively, he might just be so passionate about where he works that he can't see their own shortcomings - this might be worse.
View From The Wing: "Delta Air Lines cancelled more flights last month than they did in 2018 and 2019, in an historic meltdown following the CrowdStrike outage. They delayed taking care of customers, denied blame, and their CEO jetted off to Paris for the Olympics."
"They’ve made a big show of their plan to sue CrowdStrike for damages, since this wasn’t Delta’s fault, but they have several hurdles to overcome."
"They also suggest that in any litigation they’ll be forced to drag Delta’s poor IT “design and operational resiliency capabilities” and failure to upgrade systems. In other words, Delta’s reputation for premium will be further called into question. Discovery, and ultimately trial testimony, could be more damaging to Delta’s business than anything they might hope to recover."
American Express has a new Amex Offer for stays at Relais & Châteaux hotels in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. If you spend $500+ at a Relais & Châteaux property, you can get $100 back as a statement credit. That's up to 20% back.
Important Terms
Points Wire Note:
We can book you a stay with Relais & Chateaux Preferred Partner or Virtuoso benefits such as an upgrade (if available), daily breakfast for 2, a $100 property credit, and more.
You can search for a property with our self-serve portal or submit a request once you've found the hotel you want to book.
Southwest Airlines has struggled since the pandemic and they're making some big changes to get back on track.
Seat Assignments
According to the survey data Southwest released, 80% of their customers want seats to be assigned. You can expect to see Southwest launch assigned seating in 2025.
Premium Seating
Until now, alls seats on Southwest had the same amount of legroom. Going forward, they plan to add extra legroom to about one-third of seats across the fleet.
Unless Southwest decides to remove some seats on each aircraft, that will mean less legroom for two-thirds of seats once this change is implemented.
Redeye Flights
Southwest will launch redeye flights starting in February 2025. These flights are already bookable online. The first redeye routes include:
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In August 2018, I started the Straight To The Points flight alerts newsletter with the goal of making it easier to book business and first class flights with points & miles and fare deals.
I started Points Wire to make it easier for you to keep up with the news you need to know without all of the fluff.