point fu

Most of my trip reports are about getting to a great place, but in the case of the Shiki Shima, the trip itself is the destination. The trip was, in a word, amazing . Seriously, 11 out of 10. They took Japanese omotenashi hospitality and added an extra helping of "surprise and delight". It's that surprise part that I'm worried about writing this. I don't want to chronicle every little thing because then each of those surprise moments is robbed of its delight. I'll do my best to walk the line between telling too much and too little. Background The gorgeous, Ken Okuyama-designed train is relatively new and it's still so popular that there's a quarterly lottery for who gets to buy tickets. The website to enter the lottery is in English and Japanese, and service onboard the train is only available in those two languages. (Tour operators in Thailand and Hong Kong occasionally do full buyouts of the train and offer all-Thai/all-Chinese options,...

In just over a year's time, Jim had 60,000 points – enough to fly ANA even during high season. The second half of the story is how to cleverly spend them…   Booking Booking reward flights can be a bit tricky – award seats are generally added to an airline's inventory either: 11-ish months out or at the last minute if a flight isn't selling well. That means the points game is best when you plan really far in advance or completely last-minute . In Jim's case, doing the spontaneous thing isn't going to work for him. He wants to go in spring of 2020 during cherry blossom season. There won't be many last-minute bargains or empty award seats during such a peak travel time. Once those award seats are added to the airline booking system, every day of delay means more of the seats have been snatched up by other travelers and your options start to dwindle. TIP: Some airlines put restrictions on new accounts, so don't wait until the last minute to crea...

Given that mainstream travel bloggers like The Points Guy are indirectly employed by the credit card industry, it's not surprising that I've not seen any of them reporting on this development. The short backstory is that you can actually use your Amex Refer-A-Friend link to refer yourself to a new type of Amex card (e.g., you have a link from your existing Platinum card and then use it to refer yourself to an Amex Gold). It always seemed a little strange to me to do so, but plenty of people have done it. Today, without any warning, Amex began deleting those referral bonuses (this process is often referred to as a "clawback"). In several cases, people have lost over 100,000 points. Folks in Reddit's Churning forum were the first to report on it, you can read the full details over there . DoctorOfCredit (one of the few bloggers who isn't indirectly employed by the credit card industry) has a summary here .

ANA announced that they're refreshing the cabin in interiors on many of their 777 planes. These are their long-haul workhorses, so hopefully the North American runs will see these beauties sooner rather than later!  UPDATE (June 2022): I got to fly it! !  Check out the video here: The full story is on One Mile At A Time . Our trip report from the current ANA First is here .

New York City transit has been putting off a upgrading to a modern farecard for so long it's become a joke. In May, though, the first signs of of a new system – called OMNY – appeared on the 4/5/6 line between downtown and Grand Central. Though this seems like a small trial, keep in mind this subway line carries more people per day than the entire Chicago El, San Franciso's BART, and the Boston T combined . At this point, the new card readers are only being used for cash fares (i.e., you cannot load a monthly pass onto your phone), but if you want to give it a try, this Amex offer will give you 4 bonus points per dollar spent on OMNY – putting it ahead of the Chase Sapphire Reserve's 3. The OMNY gates work several ways: directly with your physical card, if it has the little Wi-Fi-like tap card symbol on it traditional ApplePay (i.e., authenticate on your phone or watch, then tap the reader) Suica-style instant pay (i.e., you just tap your phone on the reader,...

UPDATE Aug 2019 : Amex offered me 50,000 points to keep my card! I've been on the fence for a while now, but the latest round of American Express feature cuts is the nail in the coffin of the Platinum card for me. In April, they got rid of the Boingo Wi-Fi benefit Then, in May, they announced the end of the Priority Pass restaurant benefit Now they're taking it from "hard" to "next-to-impossible" to use the airline fee credit option That last one is the straw that broke this camel's back. Those $200 Delta credits were essential in making the math for this card work out. Yes, they're still there, but there's no way I'm going to spend $200 on baggage fees and on-board food/bev in a year. If this credit were across all airlines I could, but they make you choose a single airline in January for the entire year. Their bean counters rely heavily on these flaming hoops so they don't have to pay out for features that they used to sell you...