This week, the guys break down all the travel news that’s fit to podcast … and there’s a lot of it. That includes a brand-new (and free) tool to save on flights when fares drop, new big card bonus offers, 11 (!) transfer bonuses, and a deep dive on what the heck has happened with World of Hyatt? Plus, they go through the airports with the highest airfare, Alaska’s big splash, and we wade into what Gunnar is calling the “Starlink scuttlebutt.”
This week, the guys break down all the travel news that’s fit to podcast … and there’s a lot of it. That includes a brand-new (and free) tool to save on flights when fares drop, new big card bonus offers, 11 (!) transfer bonuses, and a deep dive on what the heck has happened with World of Hyatt? Plus, they go through the airports with the highest airfare, Alaska’s big splash, and we wade into what Gunnar is calling the “Starlink scuttlebutt.”
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00:00 - Gunnair has a new competitor: Pottair!
02:35 - Jen & Tom welcome us back from Ireland!
03:05 - Introducing our new FareTracker tool!
05:50 - New United card bonuses & the key to better biz class deals
09:55 - 11 (!) new transfer bonuses on our radar
13:10 - How to transfer 30K Delta SkyMiles for free
15:50 - Now the end of Bilt and Hyatt 1:1 transfers is coming …
18:00 - … and yet Hyatt keeps getting worse
20:30 - The U.S. airports with the highest airfare
23:35 - R.I.P. to this sweet spot from Japan Airlines
26:10 - A word from our sponsor: Bilt Rewards!
27:00 - New Alaska Atmos transfer partner(s)?
29:50 - Alaska’s fancy new biz class suites & more
34:20 - A (proposed) Chase Sapphire Lounge at SEA
36:40 - The Delta-Starlink scuttlebutt
41:40 - Rapid fire news and notes: Online passports & more
48:15 - Listener Question: How to manage price alerts
51:00 - On the Spot: What’s the biggest story in travel this year?
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson, a travel reporter and flight deal analyst for Thrifty Traveler. And joining me, as always, he survived a trip through Chicago O'Hare International Airport this weekend, it's Kyle Potter. Kyle, how was your pilgrimage through the mecca that is ORD? I'm beat down. I'm a shell of a man right now. Good, I'm glad to hear it. Today on the show, we have a ton of news to get to. On the positive side, we got great news around a new airfare tracking tool, some United card offers. On the negative side, there's Hyatt and Hyatt and more Hyatt, uh, and also some bad news about our beloved JAL Mileage Bank. Plus, we have to talk about Alaska's new announcements, Starlink wifi. We're gonna do a little rapid fire too at the end to touch on some news and notes that intrigued us over the past week. So because this is a jam-packed episode, Kyle, I wanna start with something frivolous and dumb for Find Something Out. Can you humor me? If I have to. Okay. All right. So Kyle, let's say you started an airline, PotAir, if you will. Is that what the name would be? Sure, yeah. Okay. Say you're launching- You're, as, as the CEO of GunAir, you would be our code share partner, so I feel like you should have a say in this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So PotAir, you're launching a new business class and lounge, like we just saw Alaska do this week, to great fanfare. What are the main exciting features of the press release? What can travelers expect from the PotAir business class experience? Uh, thoughtfully curated meals. Gross. Uh, locally inspired touches. Every buzzword you can think of. Uh, we're going full marketer's wet dream on this one. Um, yeah, Michelin-starred chef, uh, or no, Michelin-recognized chef, maybe, is how they would do it. Michelin-recognized. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Exactly. Who, they, and that chef is definitely on board the plane in every case, especially on PotAir. I like that. PotAir sounds like a lot of fun. Mine would be live sports all the time, just on every single plane, on every single screen. We get all the live sports rights. I want, like, college rowing. I want, like, third division Aussie rules football. ESPN The Ocho- Yeah ... is just streaming on every seat back device. Everything that you could possibly watch, and I wanna be able to gamble against other people who are on the flight. So not like real gambling, but I want to be able to be like, "Kyle, you're sitting in seat 2A," and I wanna say, "You know what? I think, uh, Stanford's gonna win this college rowing regatta, and you're gonna bet on Dartmouth, and I'm coming away 'cause Stanford's gonna win." I, I hate everything about GunAir, and I hope that your airline goes bankrupt. This is the worst thing I've ever heard. That's really nice. Thanks, man. Today on the show, we break down new transfer bonuses, new transfer partners, domestic airfare rankings, and we all loudly boo World of Hyatt together. All that and more. Hello from Jen and Tom. We are at the Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary in Ireland thanks to a Thrifty Traveler deal. We're celebrating our 20-year anniversary. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast Okay, welcoming us back this week were Jen and Tom on their trip through Ireland. Thank you so much for taking time out of your trip, and happy 20th wedding anniversary. That is so cool. Okay I wanna start with some good news 'cause Jen and Tom have me in a good mood. All right, we're gonna start with the section I'm calling Great Freakin' Deals, GFDs, Kyle. Does that work for you? Sure. Okay, to start today, everyone who's listening to this podcast knows that I think maybe the most underrated travel hack is rebooking your flights. Rebooking when fares go down or when better flights become available is the difference between everyday and expert travelers, in my opinion. So that's why I was really psyched when our tech team announced they were working on this project, this new tool we just launched lax- last week. It's called Fare Tracker. It's a free tool at Thrifty Traveler. It monitors the price of your flights after you book, and then gives you step-by-step instructions to rebook those flights and claim the difference as an airline credit if and when the price drops. You don't give us credit card info or personal info. You just log your booked flights into the tool, and you get alerted so you can save money when the price goes down. It is such a good tool. Uh, Kyle, I know you've been using this a lot in the run-up to us launching it. What are your initial impressions? I just so proud of our team for doing something to solve another, uh, pain point for travelers. Uh, I think this is huge, and there have been a, a number of really good tools that have come out on the market to do exactly this, to kind of automate the work that we talk about using Google Flights price alerts for. But the rub is that many of them, if not all of them, charge you for it. You have to put a credit card on file. If and when the price of your flight drops, they charge you for a cut, a percentage of whatever price you're rebooking that flight for for a voucher. We're not doing that at all. This is completely free to use. Um, if, if you're not a Thrifty Traveler Premium member, you can, uh, track up to five flights. If you do have Premium, you can track up to 10, and then if and when the price of a flight you've booked drops by $20 or more, we'll send you an email with in-depth instructions to rebook that within a couple of clicks, pocket the difference as a voucher. Uh, at launch, this works for the five biggest US airlines, so Alaska, American, Delta, Southwest, and United. That list is gonna grow. This is ... I think this is big. I, I hope it's big. I hope people like it. I know it's only going to continue to get better as more and more, hopefully, podcast listeners get in there, start tracking their flights, and we do some of this work for them. Yeah. It saved me $100 on my Thanksgiving flights, like, almost immediately as soon as I started using it when we were kinda working on the beta. It was, uh, pretty amazing. Just the, within two days of me signing up and putting in the flights that I had booked for Thanksgiving, I got the price alert. It's $100 cheaper. I went and rebooked it. You're not gonna get a lot of price drops on Thanksgiving flights, but we found maybe the only one ever. I- if it's gonna happen, we're gonna help you find it. That's right. All right, sign up today, faretracker.thriftytraveler.com. Again, it's totally free. It's an awesome tool. All right, let's move on. We've talked a lot about the power of having a United credit card, Kyle, to get discounts on United Miles bookings, but also because it expands access to more and better points and miles availability. As you may remember Us saying a bajillion times on this episode, or on this podcast, points and miles rates are one thing, but availability, the existence of that lowest rate at all, is another thing. It's everything in award travel, and that's exactly what these credit cards do. They increase availability when booking United's flights. Um, we found the perfect example of this this week, Kyle. Walk us through this Thrifty Traveler premium deal we sent. You know, so what, what we've talked about before is that finding these, this expanded award availability with steep discounts for United cardholders or status holders or both is kinda tough to find. It's not wide, wide open. The doors are not wide open to book every single flight for 60, 70% off of what an everyday traveler would find, but it is out there. And so our team found, uh, you know, a, a good chunk of award space over to London, flying from Chicago, um, Houston, San Francisco, as well as Newark later this year and into early next year for as low as... I mean, if you have both a credit card and status with United, it's 68,000 miles each way, or if you just have a credit card, it's 72,000 miles each way, compared to 200,000 United MileagePlus miles if you have none of that. These deals are incredible if you're flexible, if you can hop on a deal like this. There are others like it. Um, maybe most importantly, to be able to not just fly that nonstop from Chicago over to London, but to start in Minneapolis or Fargo or somewhere else all across the country, basically, get to one of these big United hubs, and then fly United Polaris lie-flat, including their brand-new suites, um, flying from, I think, Houston as well as San Francisco over to London Heathrow. Amazing deal. Yeah, and the key to it is just having one of these cards, and the reason why we brought it up now is 'cause all of these cards have new signup bonus offers, too. So the Explorer card has a 70,000-mile bonus after 3,000 in spend in three months. The Quest card has 80,000 miles and 500 PQPs towards earning United status after $4,000 in spend in four months, and the Club card has 90,000 miles of a bonus after 5,000 in spend in three months as well. Um, all those get that expanded award availability and that den- 10% discount. It's a really, really good deal. I'd recommend it. If you're in the market for one, which, of course, I am, I'm just, just a skosh over 5/24 at the moment. Define a skosh for us, would you? It would... It's 6/24, and I think it's falling off in March, so I'm gonna stay disciplined for a few months, is what I'm saying right now. Uh, are you gonna pick one of these up? You ready? I, I think so. Um, I am under 5/20, so Chase's 5/24 rule is, is one of the most important things. If you've applied for more than five credit cards from any bank, not just Chase, in the last 24 months, Chase, generally speaking, will not approve you for a new credit card. I haven't cared about that for a very long time. Because in large part, I've got the Chase cards I want, and United has not been on my list at all. I haven't cared. Chase for- or United for years was, I would say, one of the weakest among the big three US airlines and one of the weaker options within the Star Alliance network as a whole With this, with these discounts, my mo- my tune is changing. I'm now thinking, yeah, you know what? This would be really nice to have so that I have the flexibility to book those 72,000 business class awards to Europe, to book, um, all the way to Australia or Asia in some cases for under 100,000 points when, you know, if I don't have that card, I'm probably seeing 250,000 United miles or more, and you're not able to book those United business class flights through other partner programs like Air Canada Aeroplan or Avianca Lifemiles or ANA Mileage Club, period, anymore. They're hoarding all of that award space to offer these great deals, and I'm, I, I gotta think pretty hard about whether this is finally worth it now because for years it just was not. Yeah, I want in too, and I'm afraid I'm gonna miss the boat, so I gotta stay disciplined. All right, let's talk about transfer bonuses. This is definitely a GFD, a great freaking deal, because transfer bonuses are maybe the best ways to use your points, period. Uh, transfer bonuses are basically free miles when you transfer from a bank to a select airline or hotel partner, and right now we are spoiled for choice. There are 11 transfer bonuses on the market at the moment, uh, most of which are brand-new for the month of October. So, if you have Amex points, for instance, you can get a 30% bonus when you send those points to Hilton. You can get a 25% bonus when you send those points to Air France KLM Flying Blue, and a 20% bonus from Amex to Aeroméxico. Any of those pique your interest? I can always use more Hilton points, um, so being able to kinda double up on that sounds nice. Uh, I think the big winner here is the 25% bonus from, um, Amex to Air France KLM Flying Blue. Air France has taken some big hits within the last month or so. Uh, at the same time, it is my go-to way to book Delta-operated flights, and if I need fewer Amex points in order to send over to Air France to book Delta flights for truly a fraction of what Delta itself charges in Sky Miles, I'm all in. Okay, let's go through a few more. Capital One has a transfer bonus to British Airways Avios. That's a 20% bonus. Chase has a transfer bonus of 70% to Marriott. Citi has three transfer bonuses right now. There's a 30% bonus to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, a 25% bonus to Avianca Lifemiles, and an up to 35% bonus from Citi ThankYou points to Qatar Airways as well. How do you like Citi, Chase, and Capital One's options here? Capital One, um, you know, we don't see this particular bonus very often. 20% isn't huge, but to need 20% fewer points in order to transfer over to British Airways Avios, and then you've got your pick of the litter of do you keep them in British Airways? Do you send them over to Iberia or Qatar or to Finnair? Really good option. Citi, um, you know, the, the 30% bonus, this is, they just recently added Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, so to do that also with a 30% bonus is pretty special, too. Yeah, that's a really good one. All right, finally, if you have Rove miles- You can get a 40% bonus to Air France KLM Flying Blue, 50% bonus to Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, and another up to 35% bonus to Qatar Airways. Uh, what's a big winner and a big loser among this crop of transfer bonuses? 11 of them in total. I mean, if I had to pick one just based on the one that I'm most likely to use because I don't have a ton of ROAV miles, I just haven't dabbled in that shopping portal and hotel booking portal as much as some others have, I would go with 25% from Amex to Air France KLM Flying Blue. That's the one that I'm most likely to use, um, when this one runs through the month of October. And a big loser? I, man- Aeroméxico? Aeroméxico. Yeah. I just, I, we, we talked about this with, with Katie on the show last week ranking the airline mileage programs. I don't think about Aeroméxico rewards at all, and I don't think it's really worth anyone's time except for in the most niche of scenarios. You're much better off focusing on other programs and not stranding your Amex points in Aeroméxico just because there's a bonus. Okay. Points to miles transfer bonus is definitely a GFD. Our last GFD, our last good freaking deal, uh, in our starter kit series from last month, Kyle, we broke down a bunch of the worst uses of points and miles. One of them was transferring miles between users' accounts. Uh, some airlines make it free to pool points, uh, some programs make it free to pool points, but most make it incredibly expensive, especially Delta. So with Delta, for instance, say you wanted to transfer 30,000 Delta Sky Miles to your idiot nephew so he could book spring break flights to South Padre Island. You'd have to pay one cent per mile and a $30 processing fee for a total of $330 just to move the miles from account to account. But- Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Have you ever been said idiot nephew? No, but actually now the more I think about it, this guy sounds awesome. Kinda wanna go to South Padre- I think you've- with your idiot nephew ... you've, you've personally referred to South Padre Island as the, uh, culture capital of the United States, right? Yeah, I mean, I've been pitching it for our, uh, company retreat for years, and I get mostly scoffed at, but someday I'll have the last laugh. Sure. We're gonna go. We're gonna go as a team someday. Sure we will. We'll show you all a good time. I've actually never been. I don't know if it's cool or not, but I think- Neither have I ... it would be a funny bit. All right. Last week, Amex launched an Amex offer on the Delta Sky Miles Amex cards that will cover up to $330 on fees associated with these kinda account to account Sky Miles transfers, meaning you can transfer up to 30,000 miles to someone else for free right now through November 14th if you have one of these cards and you activate the offer. Have you ever seen anything like this, Kyle? No, this is brand new. I think it's smart. I, I don't really understand what Delta's up to here. I'm assuming maybe they've, uh, seen a downturn in the number of people who are paying to transfer miles from one user to another, which is great news. Hopefully people are taking our advice that this is a waste of money, that if you have miles and somebody that you're traveling with doesn't, just book them that award ticket. But there are these situations where, you know, your friend or family member may be 30, 20, 15,000 Sky Mile short, and to be able to transfer some extra miles that you have to that person so that they can book that trip with you or book a trip for themselves and not have to pay, you know, 200, 300, $330 for these transfers is potentially pretty useful Yeah, we hear from people from time to time who say that they have, uh, kids who are maybe too young to have a SkyMiles credit card, but have been earning SkyMiles over the years, and those points are marooned there. They're not eligible for that 15% off bonus. Perfect use of getting those points into your big account now, if you wanna book something and get your, uh, 15% off bonus as well. Should we pivot to bad freaking deals, some BFDs, Kyle? We have to. Okay. Uh, for a while now, I've been very susceptible to the argument that our colleague, Nick Sarati, made in episode 60 of this podcast. His idea is that Bilt has perhaps pushed Chase, who I think we've long considered the king of travel rewards, off its throne. Um, I think the idea was fortified further when Chase cut transfers to Hyatt for Chase Sapphire Preferred cardholders to four Chase points earning you three Hyatt points, which started last week. Uh, Hyatt redemptions used to be the single best use of Chase points for close to a decade. I think almost every one of my Chase points went to Hyatt for, since 2020. Yeah. Uh, this just left Chase's $800 Chase Sapphire Reserve card and Bilt Rewards members as having one-to-one transfer ratios to Hyatt, but only for a few more months because Bilt announced last week it'll match the Chase Sapphire Preferred's four to three ratio starting January 1st for all of its cardholders. Um, I'd consider this a huge blow for someone like me who really sought out Bilt in part as a better way into World of Hyatt. But the more I think about this, Kyle, and the more I dig into your data analysis you just did about Hyatt redemptions, maybe this isn't that big of a deal at all. You were getting freaky with the data again this week. What'd you find? Well, first, I just wanna point out that this is a big deal because I think this is an end of an era for Hyatt, right? And the ways that people think about Hyatt and how much they value them because increasingly, they're shutting down these avenues and making you really choose. Uh, if you care about Hyatt, you gotta invest in that program, and that means that you either need to pay $795 a year for the Chase Sapphire Reserve card to get even a halfway decent deal to keep those one-to-one transfers. But I think what this says is what Hyatt really wants, is they want to stop people from transferring points from Bilt or from, um, Chase altogether. What they actually want is you to get a high World of Hyatt credit card and stay at Hyatts, and that's the way that they want people to earn points, and that's not what we're about. We're about flexibility. We're about, you know, having a pot of points that you can transfer wherever is gonna get you the best deal, and increasingly, it's looking like that's not Hyatt. Yeah. It's a really, really big bummer. So what did you find in your data analysis? We, you know, we did this right when kinda Hyatt launched its new one million tiered pricing plan where, you know, the highest-end Hyatts are now close to 75,000 points per night. Uh, what have you found? So, w-we ran this data first when Hyatt made its big changeover early in the spring, uh, to see before and after how much had things changed, how much more expensive had some of these prime properties gotten. And it w-was pretty brutal, especially at the top end, you know, the most luxurious category seven and category eight, so your Park Hyatts, your Alilas, all across the globe. And then as this deadline was approaching in or, late September, we were like, "We should check this again. Has it gotten worse?" Especially if people with, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of Chase points on their Chase Sapphire Preferred card thinking about, "Should I transfer a boatload of these to Hyatt before this transfer ratio changes?" And wanted to give people some guidance about whether that was a good deal or not. And the truth is, it has only gotten worse, which I think suggests that it's only going to continue to get worse, that over time, Hyatt is going to continue pricing, especially its top-tier properties, into those upper and top rates, so as high as 75,000 points per night, where, you know, properties in, you know, like the Park Hyatt Tokyo previously could cost no more than 45,000 points per night. Now it's as high as 75,000. That is brutal, and that shift is only accelerating as we get further into 2026 and look ahead into 2027. Yeah, so I guess their idea was probably, "We're gonna raise rates, but availability is gonna improve." Have we seen that happen? No, not really. Great. Not yet. Yeah. So thanks for nothing, Hyatt. Yeah. You- That's, that's supposed to be the trade-off. You pay more, but it's easier to book, and, you know, you're transferring more points and you're redeeming more points to book those nights, but you should have more availability. It should be easier to find those nights at those prized properties, and that's not what we have seen so far. Availability has barely increased, even as these free nights have gotten more and more expensive, and even as Hyatt is now forcing these changes that mean that your credit card points don't go nearly as far as they used to either. Fun. Yeah Uh, you ready- We're just a, it's a barrel of shun- ... sunshine in the n- in the studio today. Are you ready for more pain, or do you wanna circle back and hit us with some more Hyatt? I'm, uh, I'm always ready for more pain. Okay, Kyle, um, Hyatt did hurt us quite a bit this week, but they're not the only ones who have hurt us, because there's always Delta. There's always Delta to hurt us, Kyle. Now, uh, new Department of Transportation data released this week showed what major US airports were hit hardest with high airfare in the first half of this year. I'll go through the top 10 list right here. Number one was Detroit at an average of $521 for domestic airfare. MSP was number two at $502 on average, San Francisco three, JFK four, Newark five, Dallas six, Atlanta seven, uh, Los Angeles eight, Houston nine, and Philadelphia was 10. What are some of your big takeaways from this list, Kyle? So we went into this kind of expecting this, but, uh, it, it still is a surprise, and what's most surprising is there are some airports here where you would just expect them to be in the top 10, like JFK and San Francisco and Newark and LA, because they're pricey airports on the coast where the cost of doing business there for the airlines just because of gate fees and stuff like that pushes the price higher. And it's also airports that because of where they are and where they fly, they're more likely to have longer flights, and longer flights should cost more. But then to have both Minneapolis and especially Detroit at the very top of the list, who are some of the cheapest airports in the country, and to have Minneapolis and Detroit and Atlanta and then LA as well as, and JFK for that matter, all major Delta hubs, you can see just how much airlines are punishing their most important hubs by raising fares even higher at the hubs where they really control the game, where they control the market. So that's Dallas-Fort Worth and Philadelphia for American Airlines as well, um, Newark and San Francisco for United. This is the thing, is that like we say all the time, airfare is not a monolith. And as jet fuel prices have increased, we're seeing very clearly that airlines aren't just raising fares across the board. They are getting more money out of the customers at their hub airports where they know they can count on those customers paying more. Yeah, you touched on this in our Extra Mile newsletter when you broke down this kinda new ranking, this new list, and when you saw Detroit at the top of that list, that just screamed Spirit Airlines to you, right? Explain. Yeah. Uh, Spirit failed, what, in early May of 2026, so that gives us, you know, a month and change of, of damage. I would imagine that the second half of 2026 is gonna look even worse for Detroit, because Spirit was a big player in Detroit. The, now Delta basically is completely unchallenged at that airport, which means they can just charge more and more higher fares using the cover of, well, jet fuel is up, you know, 50, 80% as an excuse to do so. Yeah. Huge bummer. All right, one final BFD, Kyle. Uh, terrible, terrible news. It appears the ability to book Air France through Japan Airlines Mileage Bank is gone. We had the super memorable business class deal flying to Paris from just 42,000 Japan Airlines miles each way, or just 80,000 round trip. We also had that round trip business class deal to Tahiti from Los Angeles for 85,000, uh, Japan Airlines miles on Air France. Alas, they are gone. I'm sad to see it go, but we did warn everybody, right? It w- the writing was on the wall, because this didn't come out of nowhere. Um, you know, we saw, a- as Japan Airlines Mileage Bank program came on the scene within the last year, you could book, at least at the start, JetBlue flights for a fraction of what JetBlue itself would charge. And JetBlue figured that out, and they cut ties with Japan Airlines. Same thing with Emirates, you know, where Emirates would charge you, what, 108,000 miles and, you know, darn near $1,500 in taxes and fees to fly Emirates business class from JFK to Milan, but you could book those exact same flights for 85,000 Japan Airlines miles and, like, $250 in taxes and fees. Emirates figured this out. They cut ties. And then as it has gotten more expensive to book Air France, especially business class using Air France KLM Flying Blue miles, this was the last bastion. And, you know, Air France is part of the SkyTeam alliance Japan Airlines is not. They're part of the Oneworld alliance. It was very clear that this wouldn't last, so we screamed as loud as we could. These deals are absolutely incredible. They are hard to book. It's hard to find the availability, but it's worth the extra work. It's especially worth picking up the phone to call to actually book it because that's, in many cases, what you needed to do. And then over the weekend, we started hearing some rumblings that, um, Japan Airlines agents were, uh, telling passengers trying to book these Air France-operated tickets with their JAL miles, "We can't do that anymore. The door is closed." We tested it ourselves. Lo and behold, it's true. Is there a glimmer of hope that this is gonna come back? Not really. I think this is done. And so congrats to absolutely everybody who got this done before probably the start of the month is what I'm guessing when Air France said, "You guys can't l- allow your people to book our seats anymore. We're getting killed." We're gonna have to do an episode where just in the title we're gonna have to explain to people that we're not gonna talk about Japan Airlines, just for one week. We need to give everybody a break, I think. It m- it's gonna be next week at this rate. Okay. Um, we still have to talk about all this Alaska news. We still have to talk about Starlink, but first we're gonna take a quick break. Okay, we're back, and for the rest of this I need your help determining if these are good freaking deals or bad freaking deals, GFDs or BFDs, if you will. Are you okay? Are we, are we gonna trademark this? Yeah, yeah, I'm working on it. I'm trying to make it a thing, speak it into existence, you know? Yeah. Okay, first thing- You are nothing if not committed to the bit. I will give you that. That's right. The first thing, uh, Alaska Airlines came out swinging during its investor days last week with some big, splashy announcements about planes and lounges. We're gonna get to those in one second, but I think the actual most important thing Alaska announced is a new way to earn those super valuable Alaska Atmos. So according to the airline, starting in 2027 sometime, Bank of America cardholders will be able to transfer their points directly to Alaska Atmos, and that's not all. Alaska also teased opening up to other transfer partners, too. So right now it's just Bilt as an Alaska partner, making the Bilt cards and Alaska's own cards the only way to earn Atmos right now, but maybe Bank of America in the future. Is this a GFD or a BFD, Kyle? Uh, uh, MFD, medium freaking deal- Okay because we don't know. We don't know exactly what this is gonna look like. I- most importantly, Bank of America today does not have a travel rewards card with transferable points. So that's really the big news here, that Bank of America is gonna get into this game, you know, like Chase, like Amex, like Capital One. But we don't know exactly what that's gonna look like, which cards are going to be eligible. Is Bank of America going to come out with a new card? Are they going to have a, you know, top dollar premium travel rewards credit card that can transfer to Alaska? Will that be the only one that can transfer to Alaska? Will that be the only one that can transfer to Alaska on a one-to-one basis and some of their existing cards that don't have an annual fee or have an annual fee of $95? We don't know. I think it's, it's very interesting that Alaska is getting into this, um, that they're going to add another transfer partner. Most importantly, Bank of America is their co-branded bank for their Alaska Atmos and Hawaiian Atmos cards. Really importantly, I think that's the most important thing because while that will be good for Bank of America cardholders and may put Bank of America on the minds of travelers who haven't given them a, a second of thought, yourself, my- myself included, um, what does that mean for Bilt? Yeah. Is Bilt gonna going to be able to keep those one-to-one transfers once, you know, A- Alaska is linked up more closely with Bank of America? That's an open question. That's why this is an MFD. Yeah, man, I really, really hope that Bilt's able to keep that relationship alive. I think almost all of my Bilt points have gone to Alaska at this point. Um, you know, Gunner Air and Bank of America have been circling each other for a while. They're, they're gonna be the first transfer partner for Gun Air bucks. What, what's the hang-up in that negotiation? Uh, I don't c- I don't call, I don't return calls usually. Um, I'm just not a good businessman. You're like the Bill Murray of airline CEOs. Got it. Exactly. Fax me. Okay. Uh, the other Alaska news, the one you've probably already seen 'cause every influencer you know is in Seattle for Alaska's Investor Day last week. Uh, it wasn't because they were pouring through Alaska's financials, Kyle, it was because of these brand-new fancy Aurora business class suites, these new, uh, Leihouku Hawaiian business class suites on the A330s, and the all-new premium economy cabin on their long-haul flights. They also, uh, unveiled plans for a new Aurora lounge at Seattle, a 737 MAX 10, a single-aisle plane that will also have lie-flat suites on domestic flights across the country, too. The massive announcement had so much new information. We have a full breakdown on our website, uh, that I'll link in the show notes if you wanna see it all. But this is, like, a big premium cabin push for Alaska, along with the announcement that they're joining the Oneworld alliance, uh, joint venture, meaning that they're gonna collaborate with foreign partners to set airfare and schedule international flights. Um, it seems to me like this is just Alaska's big announcement that they are, uh, an international airline now, right? Yeah, I think so. Um, there's, I think there's good and bad news in this, too. I think the, the good news is, you know, everybody loves new business class products. The introduction of premium economy on these long haul flights is, is probably long overdue. It's one of the most popular cabins on any plane flying across the oceans right now, and one of the most profitable for airlines as well, so that makes sense. Um, I think the, on the one hand, probably the biggest news, the best freaking deal in this bunch is that they're going to put lie-flat beds and premium economy on their 737 MAX 10s once they get those, probably starting sometime next year, maybe sometime into 2028, because that has been long overdue as well. Alaska just really can't compete with those transcontinental trips from Seattle to JFK or Miami or wherever they might fly these, where other airlines, their competitors, have, you know, business class seats on those, and they just have their domestic first class recliners. This is gonna close that gap. I think the other side of that is that it's borderline hilarious that they're gonna have these fancy new 1-1 business class suites with screen- with 4K screens and premium economy behind that with, you know, some very spacious seats and 4K screens, and then back in economy on those exact same planes flying as long as six hours, economy passengers don't get a screen, period. I, I, it seems like such a fumble where, you know, American Airlines now is going back and installing s- uh, screens across its entire domestic fleet, and Alaska is looking at that market and saying, "Nah, it'll be fine." I, I don't ... It seems like a miss. It's gonna be so funny watching people watch Top Gun: Maverick over someone else's shoulder, who're just kinda sitting up a little higher in their seat to check out the screen three rows in front of you. Yeah, the neck craning back in economy is -- They're gonna need to hire some masseuses for that economy cabin. How are you gonna watch sports if there's no screens? Well, you- How are you gonna watch third division Slovenian handball and bet on it if you can't have a screen in front of you? Well, you gotta fly Gun Air. Yeah. You have to fly Gun Air. Yeah, this is -- Those planes are very interesting. The decision to not put screens in the economy cabin is at least strange. So the airline's president and CFO did some interviews afterward and basically said they would have wanted to, but in order to get a, an economy seat with a seat back screen certified in time to get it in the air with these planes, the timing just didn't work. But it st- still does send a message. No matter what you say about, "Well, they'll have Starlink, and you can watch it, whatever you want on your own device, and we'll have, you know, an entertainment portal that you can boot up on your phone or your laptop or your iPad, so back in economy there's gonna be plenty to do as well," I get that. I do still think that it sends a message that economy isn't important, and if you're trying to be a premium airline, I think what every airline in the country has learned from Delta is that screens matter, whether you use them or not. It sends a message that we care about every passenger on board, and to walk through that cabin From the f- from the front of the plane through these fancy business class suites and these new premium economy seats, and then to plop down in what will still be a very basic and seemingly outdated economy seat, I think sends the wrong message. Yeah. It's super interesting. All right, let's move on. Uh, I need to figure out if the Chase Sapphire Lounge, Seattle, is a GFD or a BFD. So late last month, the Port of Seattle's commissioners heard a proposal to turn a massive new lounge space in the new Concourse A at Sea-Tac into a Chase Sapphire Lounge. The proposal calls for a huge 16,000 square foot space decked out with all the usual Chase Sapphire Lounge staples, made-to-order food straight to your seat, shower suites, a kinda semi-outdoor terrace area. There is no timeline for the lounge opening or construction beginning, and that's because the lounge isn't even approved yet. Uh, the commissioners asked for more information from port staff about who can access the lounge. One of the commissioners actually asked, I, I'm not gonna quote her verbatim 'cause I don't have it, but I'll paraphrase. She said, "What's a Chase Sapphire?" And then they said it was a credit card, and she goes, "Who even has that credit card?" So there were a lot of issues about who can access the lounge and everything like that, too. Um, that was a pretty funny back and forth. Also, the meeting chair was furious with his staff that the news, quote, "leaked," even though it was a public meeting and a public document that they have to, by law, publish before every single meeting. Maybe that's too inside baseball and I'm just a big public meetings nerd, but I thought that was very funny that he was furious about the leak, um, the, the required by law publishing of an agenda. But, uh, a potential new Chase Sapphire Lounge at Sea-Tac if the commissioners will approve it. Are you excited about this? If they ever learn what a Chase Sapphire is- Yeah. ... it will happen Yeah. Um, you know, I think Chase has done more than any other bank to build out this network of Sapphire Lounges faster. You know, we're now what? Almost five years into Capital One's journey on this, and they still have, depending on how, how you count them, at most seven. Chase, this would be, I think, their 12th, and they started two years later than Capital One did on this journey. They opened their first Sapphire Lounge, in the United States anyway, in Boston in 2023. So this is moving really fast, and I think Seattle's a great spot for it. Seattle has increasingly some great lounges to pick from, but, you know, based on what Chase has done so far with the Sapphire Lounges, they're some of the best, at least some, some of the best that you can get into with credit cards. Yeah. Uh, renderings are undefeated, but the renderings do look very, very cool. Uh, it looks like a good, good lounge. It's the first time anybody's ever said that. Yeah . Okay, let's move on and talk about Starlink Internet. So American Airlines, Southwest, Hawaiian, Alaska, and United have all tapped Starlink to be their in-flight internet provider of the future over the past year or so. Uh, last week, some of those carriers started rolling it out to more and more planes. Some of those airlines are kinda just getting started. The notable exception from that list is Delta, who instead chose to go with Amazon Leo for its faster in-flight Wi-Fi. By most reports, Leo lags pretty far behind Starlink in getting up and running. Uh, Delta promised its first planes with Leo by 2028 when it announced the partnership in March. Uh, this has led to a little bit of scuttlebutt online. Oh, that's what we're calling it, a scuttlebutt? I'm calling it scuttlebutt. Okay. Yeah, and you'll, you'll see why. According to a report on X from user John NYC, uh, who has known to have pretty good sources within Delta over the years. He's got some good scoops from time to time. Uh, Delta CEO Ed Bastian told employees that Delta, quote, "Does not want to be with E- Elon Musk. Trust me." End quote. So in response to the rumor, uh, Starlink CEO and of course the CEO of the same platform, X, uh, Elon Musk said, quote, "He will lose his job over this," talking about Ed Bastian. Um, before I ask if this is a GFD or a BFD, Kyle, what does in-flight internet mean to you? We're, we're really wading into this hornets' nest, huh? I am, yeah. Why not? Yeah. All right. All right. We're deep into the episode. Okay. Uh, does in-flight internet mean, what does it mean to me? It's important. Um, you know, especially traveling for work, it's important to stay connected. That said, I, I personally don't care about it as much as many other people. I- there's nobody on the planet who cares as much about it as the users on X who have turned a scuttlebutt into the biggest drama in the history of the internet, apparently, because it's a crime to not have Starlink on a flight now. I, this is so overblown, and I think it's really important to recognize that even if you think that Starlink Internet on planes is the most important thing since sliced bread- Delta's internet is still, for the most part, quite fine. It's been free for many years. It has, generally speaking, gotten better. It's gotten worse on some flights, specifically flying over the Pacific Ocean because they haven't had a satellite to keep things running there. Fine. It does need to get better, but two things can be true at once. Delta's Wi-Fi can be better. At the same time, the number of people posting on the platform that Elon Musk owns saying that they're done flying Delta because they bashed Elon Musk, and they'll never fly again without having Starlink, and they're f- therefore, they're going to United instead of Delta after years of being a Delta Diamond Medallion. I mean, first of all, every single person on the planet that has Delta Medallion status has dreamed of posting that sentence. And second, are you really gonna switch your loyalty? If you're in Atlanta, you're gonna start flying United, and you're gonna start taking a connection everywhere you go, unless if it's Newark or Chicago? Of course you're not. Are you gonna do that if you're in JFK and you refuse to fly out of Newark because you live on the East Side of Manhattan, or you live in Queens or Brooklyn? Of course you're not. I think that this just blew way out of proportion, and that if it's truly important to you to have in-flight internet that's reliable and as fast as Starlink truly is Go for it. But I, I doubt that this is really gonna move the needle. Maybe I'll be wrong. No, I think you're absolutely right. I'm probably even further down on in-flight internet than you are. I really just don't care. I almost exclusively fly for pleasure, and I kinda miss having a two-hour block on my calendar that says, "You know what? Actually, I'm not reachable for this time, and I'm gonna watch Top Gun again in peace." No sports scores, no text messages, no emails, just Top Gun. Right. That's, that sounds like a great flight to me. I do wanna point out, again, Starlink is great on the flights that I've had it. I used it a couple of times over the weekend. It is certainly faster than anything else that I've used in the sky. It is, however, on less than 33% or so of United flights right now. So I flew four United segments this weekend. It was available on two of them. Had I taken a different route, it probably would have been on zero of them because I was on, I was on a flight where I flew United mainline that didn't have Starlink. Wi-Fi was still $8, and it was pretty crappy. I would say much crappier than what Delta offers for free. And then on a United regional, a United Express flight operated by, like, SkyWest, that's what had Starlink. So it is still very hit or miss. Y- so again, back to the point of are you really going to switch airlines because of this? In a country where airlines dominate all of the major hubs, of course you're not. Calm down, medallions. You're not switching. All right, rapid-fire section? Let's get through it. Okay. US airlines could soon be required to publish the size of their seats to a Department of Transportation dashboard. It would be the first time the airlines would have to be fully transparent about the legroom and size of their economy seats. The government already has some of these dashboards regarding delay and cancellation protocol and family seating policies, but they may soon have to be clear about their seat sizes, too. This is not a done deal, Kyle. The committee has not released its findings after a discussion last week, but would you welcome something like this? Yeah. Information is power, and more information more readily available is great. That said, is it really gonna move the needle for people? Are people really seeking out this da- dashboard? I don't know. I, what I wish is that airlines themselves would be more upfront about this rather than relying on Google to do that work for them. I think that's, having this within Google Flights is probably the most meaningful difference, where people are actually gonna see this and be able to compare airline against airline. But more information is always better. Yeah, definitely. All this stuff is already in Google Flights. That's how I find out about all this information. But yeah, I would love to see just a little more transparency. Okay, next one. Uh, speaking of the government, Trump administration announced that its goal is to have all passport applications handled online. For two years now, the State Department has allowed passport renewals to be done online, but starting sometime next year, even first-timers will go through the whole application online instead of in person. Uh, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said the passports would be redesigned, come in more, quote, "dignified" shipping containers, and will have a real-time status tracker so you can keep up with your application and approval process. About time, Kyle? Yeah, I think so. Um, you know, the United States is really joining the 21st century and joining other countries like Singapore and the UK and, I believe, Ireland and Finland, and a handful of others that allow people, whether you already have a passport or you're applying for the first time, to go through that process online This is great. Let's just stress that the groundwork for this was laid out five plus years ago when the Biden administration first started to bring pa- online passport renewals online. And even then, the question was will this eventually happen with first time applicants? And they, they basically said, "Not right now." And the Trump administration has decided to really take that functionality and bring it, uh, to be available for everybody, which I think will be great news whenever this happens, hopefully starting sometime next year. Yeah, totally agree. All right, next one on the rapid fire. A quick follow-up here from our episode 81 from a few weeks ago about booking holiday travel. This week, Google released its data around when the best time to book holiday flights is, and there was a surprising development. So for Thanksgiving flights, it's kinda status quo. Uh, the best time to book flights for Thanksgiving is right freaking now, Kyle. You gotta be booking. Uh, once October is gone, Thanksgiving fares go even crazier. But the interesting part, for Christmas, Google says the best time to book is nearly a whole week earlier than last year. For Christmas flights, Google says to book between late October and early November in general, which is a full five days earlier than last year's recommendation. So is this, uh, last call at the holiday flights bar, Kyle? Yes. Music's playing. Music's playing. Closing time. If you haven't listened to us for the last three weeks as we've been yelling about this, prices are only going to get worse. The odds of a, even a modest price decrease on the flights that you're looking to get home for Thanksgiving and increasingly Christmas are far outweighed by the, the odds of a drastic increase in fares. You gotta get on this stuff now. Google is backing us up here. Okay, next story. After United and American announced new destinations and some wacky new routes all over the globe to places like Slovenia and Luxembourg, Delta's new route announcement went over with a whimper late last month. According to Delta, the only new Europe routes on tap for next summer are Boston to Venice and Detroit to Athens, along with the previously announced Austin to Paris. Where would you grade these new routes on a scale of meh to womp-womp? I'd go meh. Okay. It's, it's important for people that either live in or connect through these airports to get somewhere, I think especially for Austin to have a nonstop to Paris on Delta, especially for Austin to see Delta really making inroads at that airport and trying to turn it into something approaching a hub, probably within the next couple of years. But these are all destinations where Delta already flies nonstop, in some cases from four or five of its hubs across the country. So it's, it's not exciting. I gotta think that there's more to come, that we know Delta has been circling, for example, a nonstop from LA to Singapore for a couple of years now. Is that gonna come out in the coming weeks? I would guess it probably does. I would guess that there might be even more additions in Europe maybe, or elsewhere in the globe, that this is not all of Delta's new slate for 2027. There's gotta be more to come, and if there isn't, then it's a womp womp. Okay. Next one. Um, Kyle, I added this in here because I was right about something last week. What is it they say about a broken squirrel? A, a- A- ... a blind clock? A broken clock. A broken clock finds a nut, whatever. Over the last year, anecdotally, I've noticed more and more travelers signaling an interest in traveling to China. I'm sure you've maybe heard from people who think the same thing. We heard from some premium members who are asking about more deals, and I've seen so many US influencers sending back dispa- dispatches from the Great Wall. So I asked the folks at Google Trends if they were seeing the same thing, and it turns out I was right, shockingly. Uh, data from Google Trends tracked a 300% increase in the search term "flights to China" in the last year versus the year prior. But the interesting thing is when I went i- into Cirium and started looking at some airline data, the US airlines are still flying 62% less to China than they were pre-pandemic. That's why, Kyle, I argued in last week's Extra Mile newsletter on Friday that the US airlines are poised to add more China service in the next year. Do you think I'm onto something here? What am I missing? I think you are. Uh, supply always follows demand, and it's very, very clear, not just from the data that Google gave us, but also just in general what we're hearing anecdotally, that after really disappearing, um, leading into the pandemic, travel demand to China h- is starting to come back. Uh, it's probably gonna take some time for, you know, the supply of flights, new routes from different airlines to mainland China from the mainland US to come back to where it was pre-pandemic, but I think it's only a matter of time before we start seeing some more additions. Okay. Should we help a listener? Let's help a listener. Okay, Reesie sent us a note. Reesie asked, "Gunner, I love your enthusiasm for Google Flights alerts. I only have three or four alerts set, and the emails drive me crazy. I especially do not want to know if a price has increased, but I have not seen a way to be alerted only for price decreases. Is there one? How do you manage the Google Flights alert emails? Thanks, Reesie." So, Reesie, um, my answer, I don't manage the emails, they manage me. Uh, I live under the thumb of my Google Flights price alerts. Yeah. There are 100 of them set, so I get many, many emails a week. Gunner is the puppet and Google Flights- is the puppet master. That's right. Um, Reesie, I might just be a really, really sick man, but I do like to see when prices go up. It's kinda part of my job to understand the ebbs and flows of airfare, so I do like seeing the price increases. Also, if I already have something booked and that price just keeps going up and up, I love to see that. Just knowing how much I, how much better I did on a fare than someone who's booking the same thing the same day makes me feel good about myself. One way I would say that you can kinda- uh, narrow your searches a little bit is use more and more filters to make the alerts more precise. So when you're setting, uh, a Google Flights price alert for a full day of flights, you can only do that one time. But you could dig down individually into each individual flight. You can set more precise alerts with more filters. Like I only want the flights that are departing between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM to show up in my alerts, or I only want the flights that are gonna connect through O'Hare because I love it so much. Um- We know Those are things you can do. Find a new bitch. I'm really stuck. I'm really stuck on the old bits, Kyle. Um, but you can be really precise about your filters, and that'll help eliminate the kinda volatility and the price movements and all of those alerts that you're getting over time. And then finally, one last shout for our Fare Tracker tool. If you put your flights into Fare Tracker, you only get alerted if the price goes down by more than 20 bucks. So only if you're gonna have, like, substantial savings, we're gonna alert you to that so you can get your money back on those flight prices too. Anything else that you do? You're done finally? I'm done finally. Your, your body was taken over by Google Flights- ... until that final plug for our homegrown tool, and then you, you finished your blackout and you came back to us. I'm really proud of you. I did. I did. Thank you. Google Flights is like, uh, the Voldemort on the back of my head. Spoiler alert. I'm not sure the, the folks at Google are really gonna love that simile. No, no, no. Yeah, they probably won't. That's okay, though. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback for us, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. To close the show, as always, we go on the spot, and it's Kyle's turn to put me on the spot. What do you have? So we talked about some of the biggest, best, and worst n- bits of news from the last week or two, let's say. What do you think is the biggest, most important tr- story in travel right now? The biggest, most important story in travel right now, I think it's, it's easy to say that it's just the rising airfare overall, um, because of the, you know, rising cost of jet fuel, so the airlines say, and not because of all the competition. But I think it's just, uh, I b- you know, I was talking to people this week who were just a little sour on travel right now just because the sticker shock of the airfare is so high, especially for domestic flights. And I tell them all the same things we always tell people, like, "Look abroad. The fares abroad are actually really cheap right now." Um, but, you know, people start to think smaller when airfare goes up. Um, I still think that that's gonna be the dominant headline for the year 2026. Um, I don't see any relief on the horizon at the moment either, and it's just increasing the importance of earning points and miles. I think that is still the biggest news story, the most consequential one in travel right now. Do you agree? That's a good answer. I think it's up there, and it dovetails with, what to me, is the biggest one, which is still just this emphasis, arguably overemphasis, on premium travel because I think that is a big piece of why airfare is so seemingly out of control, with important exceptions. But when all airlines care about is chasing wealthier consumers and getting more money out of them, and using the higher jet fuel prices as really, in some ways, an excuse to charge even higher fares, knowing that those people are going to pay more because they're gonna get a fancier seat, and they're gonna get maybe Starlink WiFi or whatever. At the same time, where Spirit is now gone, Frontier is turning into something more like a normal airline. Every ultra low-cost carrier or low-cost carrier in, on the, on the, in the country is moving upmarket. There's an overemphasis on premium travel at the same time where there is a decreasing footprint in budget travel, and I think we're gonna pay for that in the long run. Yeah. So, you know, just another sunny note to end a podcast on. Yeah. Rich people win again. It's 50 to nothing. Who knew ? Well, 50 to one. There's always Potair. I, I would say Gunair caters more to the, the budget traveler, right? The working man. Yeah. That makes more sense. All right. Thank you so much for listening to Thrifty Traveler podcast. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation. And if you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host, the maybe chairman of the board of Potair- Oh ... if you, if you'll have me. Please. All right. It's official. You heard it here first. Gunner Olson. This episode was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you guys next week. See ya.