point fu

It looks like United is launching a whole new sub-fleet within its A32X planes and calling them "Coastliners." Near as all the experts can tell, these Coastliners are a dedicated set of premium-configured planes to run between the coasts' largest and most profitable cities. The name seems a bit Amtrak-y, which immediately gives me fears that they'll be chronically delayed, but I digress… Back in the day (starting in 2004) United had fleet of 757s badged as "Premium Service," and boy do we (and many other plan nerds) have a some fond memories of its legendary, infinite-legroom Row 9. The whole thing sorta fell apart back in 2015 when they started moving heaps of their JFK traffic to EWR (they eventually left JFK altogether). This was right about the time that JetBlue stunned the American aviation market by launching its lie-flat Mint product, the first domestic planes with beds and closing door suites.  I'll be honest, the rise of Mint coupled with Unit...

UPDATE: According to some folks on the Reddit United Airlines forum, people whose home airport is Newark were targeted for this promotion due to the many operational problems United experienced there in 2025 (ATC moved to Pennsylvania, tarmac construction, etc.) I just got back from our annual holiday trip to Australia and I'm sitting here at 7am jet lagged and slowly combing through 2 months of low-priority emails and notice there's a United Airlines survey to earn 500 miles.  Fine, I'll do it. "Did our recent email informing you that we've decided to extend your Platinum status through 2027 have any impact on yo---" WAIT, WHAT?!  Dig through my inbox and sure enough, on the 16th of January:  …and it's not just the status, I have 40 shiny new PlusPoints sitting in my account! (My flight home from Australia was in Polaris thanks to last year's PlusPoints). Keep in mind, I barely crossed the finish line for Gold this year (12,200 PQPs), and barely cross...