point fu

British Airways and Lufthansa have been charging Business Class users to pick their seats for a while now, so we knew it was only a matter of time before United's management flipped out that they were "leaving money on the table" and followed suit.  Plenty of sites are covering this latest enshittifcation , but long story short,  the new "Base" Polaris: includes 1 free checked bag instead of 2 requires you to pay to choose your seat has no ability to upgrade to the new Polaris Suite has United Club access, but no Polaris lounge access has no free ticket changes or refunds available We all know that this isn't going to magically create a cheap Polaris seat for those types who "just want a bed in the sky and don't want any of that other fancy stuff." While that's how this un-bundling is always presented -- "we're providing choices!" -- the reality is that the crappy new product will have the old price and you'll have to pay ...

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...