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Ooh! United just announced several new (and useful!) routes in the Pacific SFO – Adelaide . I still haven't been. I could definitely see meeting up with Tim there at the beginning of a visit if we found a cheap fare there. Honestly, though, I thought the same thing with Brisbane and I've still never done that. You figure these routes will help pull people off of the Sydney/Melbourne flights who would have been connecting so that leaves more seats to Sydney for us. They're claiming that SFO-Adelaide will turn 51 destinations into 1-stops versus their current 2-stops. I can't imagine 51 places you can get to directly from ADL that you can't from SYD, but ok.  SFO/LAX – Hong Kong – Bangkok and SFO/LAX – Hong Kong– Saigon . I'm paraphrasing a bit here because they're technically only launching the intra-Asian legs, but they're timed conveniently to line up with United flights arriving from SFO/LAX . I would have preferred direct service rather than a HKG ...

We booked a last minute flight to seattle to surprise my brother for his 50th. Alaska was our best option, but thanks to chatGPT and a lack of info from Alaska, I had no idea they have their own lounge at JFK T7. After buying coffee I went looking for the BA galleries lounge (which I figured they wouldn’t let us into on a domestic itinerary) and, y’know, launched the gay meetup app Sniffies just for fun. Lo and behold what do i see but an Alaska lounge 20 steps away (with no airport signage). They let us in on a domestic first ticket and it had all the usual alaska things: strong coffee, the pancake machine (they’re calling it a pancake printer now) and a DIY trail mix bar.  gorpin’ to the Decemberists whatwhatwhat?! AI is wrong 60% of the time 

( last update Feb 2025 ) It's odd that I haven't written this until now, honestly. I first went to Korea right around the time I started writing this blog 10+ years ago. But I find that I write these guides mostly in response to people asking me for recommendations so maybe more people are going to Korea lately? *shrugs* General Stuff Due to Google and Apple not adhering to Korea's security policies (SK is technically still at war with North Korea), lots of normal digital life stuff doesn't work here (Apple/Google maps, AirTags, Find My, etc). There are rumors that Apple might start complying in mid 2025, but until then,  download the Naver map  app . Even if you get Google Maps to work, Naver is important for checking a business’s opening hours. Google’s are completely wrong.  UPDATE (4/2025): Apple's FindMy works now ! Download the KakaoT app for car hailing . Uber sorta works, but it's only Uber Black and Uber Van. Using a ride hailing app will ensure that t...

I joined Seats.aero a year ago and then quickly realized those instantly-confirmable PlusPoints upgrades are also eligible for Mileage Upgrade Awards. With that knowledge, the need to chase 1k status for PlusPoints and upgrade pecking order basically vanished. That is to say, we've mostly been finding confirmable upgrade seats, paying for an Economy ticket, and then using the Mileage Upgrade Award to instantly upgrade to Polaris (usually 30,000 miles + $500).  Giving a quick glance over these 12 months of flying here's a few things that occur to me: Flexibility is key . Given Kel has an American job with its max-4-weeks vacation and 3 mandatory office badge-ins per week, we've had to buy him tickets on several occasions instead of flexing his date to one with a confirmable upgrade seat. Tim and I have a lot more flexibility so we've been able to take better advantage of those. A Mileage Upgrade is a good deal, but the co-pays and the value of the miles definitely add u...

  Checking in for my flight to SFO (and then on to Sydney) and I got the coveted " Touchless ID " opt-in prompt! I noticed this line (or should I say lack of a line) last time I was at Newark and the agent told me to opt-in next time and I could use this facial recognition pilot they're doing to skip straight to front of the queue.  Near as I can tell, it's a competitor to Clear, but sponsored by the TSA itself. Rather than using your eyes, it uses facial recognition to identify you. So now you have regular security, PreCheck, Clear, Clear with PreCheck, and TSA Touchless. This isn't confusing in the least! I'll update this later after I (hopefully) sail thru security today. *crosses fingers* UPDATE: Piece o’ cake. No line. Didn’t even have to show my ID! special lane at Newark terminal C 

I feel like lounges have made a lot of news lately: Delta's big c redit card access cutoff , Chase's posh new Sapphire lounges, Delta being forced into opening a competitor to United's fancy Polaris lounges... If everyone wants to be in one before they fly, won't we eventually end up at a point where the airport is entirely comprised of lounges ? But I digress… Over the years I've only mentioned lounges in passing – if something was particularly good or bad, or if there was a good tip to pass on. They're largely all the same in my head as long as they have the basics in order. But what are the basics? Clearly the Delta zombies who will wait an HOUR to get into a lounge have a very different view of the world than I do.  Before I get to my own list of realistic lounge must-haves, can I just put an "item 0" at the beginning of this list -- i.e., The Dream List :      0. If you fly on ANA's A380 service from Hawaii to Japan in a premium cabin, you ...

 Just read this article and dang this is terrifying but not unexpected, sadly. The non-programmer summary is: airline employees and pilots can go thru the TSA unscreened if they have a special barcode or an employee number that's checked in real-time to be valid the company that runs the validation service for dozens of airlines didn't implement even the bare minimum, security 101 features like preventing SQL injection anyone with a web browser can access this database and not only view it, but add their own entries and allow themselves to pass thru TSA checkpoints and INTO AIRPLANE COCKPITS with no screening The white hats who found the problem quietly reported it, but it seems like only a very cursory fix was put into place. It really points a finger at a very weak link in the chain of our national airline security theater.

a little primer :)  Ok look, I normally hate these kinds of lists because they're full of things that any halfway intelligent person with a tiny bit of context should be able to figure out (eg, footpath = sidewalk). Or worse, they're full of "Crocodile Dundee" Aussie slang that I've never heard even once in my time there ("crikey", "fair dinkum", etc). Lastly, this is very Sydney-centric and I don't care if anything here doesn't apply in Perth or Coober Pedy. All that said, here's some Australian terms that threw this seppo for a loop (or at least made me laugh). When I'm really sad I'm... Seppo = American. It's rhyming slang: American > Yank > Tank > Septic Tank > add the "o" to it like Australians LOVE to do and you've got Seppo . Most of the "o" slang is pretty obvious, but the first time I encountered the word for 'devastated' it was in a text and i thought my friend was...

In late 2023 I subscribed to a new service called Seats.aero that constantly scrapes airline websites looking for real, bookable points and upgrade deals. They have a slick United PlusPoints upgrade finder which I quickly discovered also finds instantly-bookable Mileage Upgrade Awards (MUA). Given how expensive it is to make 1k and get a basket full of PlusPoints, this discovery was a game changer.  Ideally we always want to have our upgrades confirmed at booking time. Given work schedules and holidays we sometimes have book a flight without confirmable upgrade space and hope for the best when flight day comes. Tim and I have both had instances where, despite being 1k and using PlusPoints, we didn't get an upgrade because all the seats were sold or they were given to people with higher status. The big downer of my new strategy is that in these instances, we'll be even further down United's elaborate upgrade pecking order (i.e., a 1k requesting a MUA will lose the upgrad...

DoC is saying that Chase is launching a Chase Private Client-exclusive card above the Sapphire Reserve. Given that my husband and I just became Chase Private Client customers (thanks First Republic bankruptcy!), I'm intrigued.  Are they going to try and compete with the Amex Centurion (aka Black) card? Or will they aim for a spot in between the Platinum and the Centurion? I'm trying to imagine what they might offer on this new product given the clientele it's aimed at… Chase's new lounge at Laguardia is quite nice, so maybe they'll give this card line cutting privileges. Or a private seating area with better booze? Oooh, or will they give you free/discounted access to the private suites in the lounge ?  Will it give you Gold status on an airline like the Centurion? Given their partnership with United, this could be Complicated™. I mean, it'd be awesome if it just came with Emerald OneWorld status… Will it offer NO bonus categories like the Centurion? Will it h...