point fu

Note to self: When planning a trip, I need to remember that if I find a good mileage fare to just book it — even if my plans aren’t totally finalized, even if it’s not exactly what i want. Points flights are usually free to cancel or change, so there’s no harm in grabbing a Plan B ticket while I’m still looking for Plan A.  I have a friend who constantly does this and I even gave her a drag name for it: Edith D. Itinerary. I tease her that she's not really happy unless she makes a substantial change to an upcoming trip at least once a week. I can definitely relate to the dopamine hit of clicking "Buy" on an airline website, so I get it! While I lovingly tease her for doing it too much, I definitely err on the side of doing it too little.   For this year's annual Sydney Mardi Gras trip I changed that, though! For whatever reason (general ennui?) I just didn't get around to booking it until 3 weeks before the trip. Yeah, flying to Sydney during its absolute peak tou...

Looks like another airline is trying the "no economy seats" thing. This time, it's Skymark , a discount carrier from Japan. They're outfitting a double-decker A380 with 34" Premium Economy downstairs and 60" angled lie-flat business class seats upstairs. While this type of service always sounds glamorous and exciting to me, I'm not particularly optimistic it will do well. There have been several attempts at this and none of them seem to last very long. British Airways had their " OpenSkies " brand offering all business class flights between NY/DC and Paris but they eventually decided to install a normal compliment of economy class seats. Singapore Airlines discontinued its all-business class flight from Newark. SilverJet , Eos , and MaxJet all offered similar service and all are now out of business. The only surviving example I know of is British Airways' JFK – London City service. Given how short the flight from NYC to London is...