point fu

I wasn’t gonna write this report, but Asiana has “been gonna” be absorbed by Korean air for like a decade now but it still hasn't happened yet, so maybe this will be of use to someone. It was flight OZ 224 and I was in seat 10K (upstairs).  How I did it 179,000 Amex points (this is the total after the now-moribund Pay With Points 35% rebate) for SYD-ICN-JFK Pros A380s are amazing. Huge and so quiet inside.  There's a big front lounge and you'll likely have it alllll to yourself. It's better than a private jet in some ways  Huge front bathroom  Perfect side storage bins  Espresso  Friendly and competent service  Good food  Decent airport lounge with Washlets   Split boarding (two jetways is important for such a big plane) Transiting Seoul means no clearing Korean customs  JFK (not Newark) Bathrooms have toothbrushes and lotions and mouthwash so you don’t have to open the amenity kit to get just one thing out of it.  Cons No Wi-fi (a...

I think the E word was the word of the year at some point recently and yes it's cheesy in the same way the word "adulting" is cheesy but dang if  enshittfication  isn't the theme of the late stage capitalism we're living in right now. I'm sitting here very unsuccessfully trying to check in for my Delta flight and ruminating on the fact that mobile apps replaced thousands of airline customer service agents saving airlines billions of dollars and yet their corporate masters just can't resist the urge to outsource and penny pinch the IT millions that make those billions possible. The Points Guy was doing a bunch of retrospectives for his anniversary and this one  really drove home for me how much decay is just baked into our societal expectations now. Amex (and Delta) built some gorgeous new lounges built on the idea of quiet, calm, luxurious travel and yet we're paying a $700 ( and rising !) annual fee to have an hour wait to get in, no seats when f...

UPDATE 3/2026 : I flew Qantas again (A380 LAX > SYD, no full trip report, sorry) and I wanted mention that it was a much better flight than the one I describe here from six months earlier. I don't know if it's the A380 versus the 787, or just a Dallas vs. LAX crew, but on the A380 I had proper turndown service like you'd get on ANA or Singapore, onboard espresso (with oat milk on offer), and a vastly friendlier and attentive crew than on my Dallas flight. The rest of the voyage (food, seat, no-wifi, etc.) was largely the same.    This was my first-ever trip on Qantas (!!) and, in short, it felt like United Polaris on a good day – pleasant staff, comfortable bed, decent food. 85,000 Alaska miles (topped up with my BILT card). It's a well-timed flight: take off around 10pm, eat dinner, go to bed, wake up, have breakfast, land at 6am in Sydney. I didn't even have time to watch a movie, just a couple games of Balatro ;) *gay gasp* 👎 As already mentioned, no wif...