point fu

Well it's late February and I'm doing my first credit card " churn " of the year. (Last year's roundup is here ). While I often say "this is a hobby for people with more time than money", there's also an obsessive-compulsive/ extreme couponing vein running through point collector community. People go to some crazy lengths for a signup bonus, but for me, I generally sign up for a new card once or twice a year if something easy, interesting, or low-impact comes along. The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card definitely fits that bill: I already have another card with Amex they didn't pull my credit report   No annual fee the first year 25,000 Starwood points (some of the most valuable points out there – 2.2¢ each) after $3k of spending Starwood points transfer to a lot more programs than Chase UR and Amex MR points do (just not instantaneously) A refer-a-friend program where you earn 5,000 points for each person who signs up

JetBlue recently announced "gate to gate" Wi-Fi connectivity but for now I'd recommend against using their onboard Wi-Fi until you're in the air. I just flew from New York JFK (where cellular reception on the ground is a bit spotty) and used the onboard Fly-Fi to access the internet at the gate and during taxi. Once we were airborne I couldn't get my phone to connect . I'm a software engineer and a former technical support person (as is my husband) and neither of us could find any trickery to get my phone to connect. I found a thread over on Flyertalk where a user (ostensibly a JetBlue employee) is reporting that this is currently a known issue. Until a fix is posted, it's probably best to use Fly-Fi only after you've taken off . With my phone now unable to access the internet, I grabbed the laptop out of my bag and it worked fine. Until I tried to access my Google account: Yup, I'd recently enabled 2-factor authentication

Last year I tried to fly to Taipei on EVA Air's Hello Kitty plane, but a last-minute equipment change foiled my plans. According to EVA's website , the service is moving to Chicago starting 31 May 2017 . Poor Houston space kitty! Flight BR55 departs Chicago at 00:30 and has the Kitty plane Thu, Sat, and Mon Flight BR56 departs Taipei at 19:50 and has the Kitty plane Wed, Fri, Sun Official schedule (click to enlarge) EVA operates a bunch of co-branded Sanrio planes, a route list is here . The new Gudetama plane sounds awesome – I saw it on the tarmac in Taipei when we were there last. But at this point I don't have any concrete plans to go back to Asia in 2017 😢 Gudetama! Other links Fun stuff we did in Taipei

UPDATE (Aug 2023): United finished installing Polaris on all of its long haul planes this week. Given the pandemic and all, I'm going to refrain from any saucey comments other than pointing out that this post is from 2017.  UPDATE (Aug 2019): United is now claiming that half of their widebody planes will have the updated seats by the end of 2019. For anyone keeping score at home, that's 3 years to get to HALF. While the Polaris lounge situation did get better in 2019, most of the soft product is, in fact, still dead. UPDATE (Mar 2018): Polaris is basically dead . Honestly, I'm sad I was right about this. As time has marched on I think we're seeing an answer to my final paragraph in this story: the future of international travel is looking a lot more like Spirit or Ryanair and less like ANA or Emirates. UPDATE (Feb 2018): I put down these thoughts a year ago about United Polaris. One Mile At A Time just posted an update on United Polaris

I (mostly) hate Twitter. Despite all of it's obvious problems, I find it especially horrifying to see respectable writers forced into to spelling "your" as "ur". But despite all that it's still one of the best ways to get customer service these days. Recently Alaska Airlines and Virgin America merged, and I'd read several reports that customers were getting 10,000 bonus Alaska miles upon linking their points accounts with both airlines. I linked my accounts and moved all of my Virgin points into my Alaska account but never saw any bonus. I waited a month or so and then tweeted @AlaskaAir to inquire about it. They replied the same day in a private window asking for my account details and a day later 10,000 points showed up ! It never hurts to ask… Another thing I'll mention as I stare out at a foot of snow on the ground: definitely use Twitter if you want to know the precise moment that travel fee-waivers are issued due to bad weather . Our