From a bizarre (and arguably absurd) Delta flight pricing quirk, new and disappearing Alaska Atmos redemptions, American’s late premium push, or the ongoing “Battle for Seattle,” there’s no shortage of travel news for Gunnar and Kyle to break down on the show this week. Plus, the guys help a listener with that age-old question of award travel: should you book a flight with lower mileage rates or fewer fees?
From a bizarre (and arguably absurd) Delta flight pricing quirk, new and disappearing Alaska Atmos redemptions, American’s late premium push, or the ongoing “Battle for Seattle,” there’s no shortage of travel news for Gunnar and Kyle to break down on the show this week. Plus, the guys help a listener with that age-old question of award travel: should you book a flight with lower mileage rates or fewer fees?
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Join the conversation! Sign up for the free Thrifty Traveler Podcast Slack community today.
00:00 - Being “back from Japan” is so tough
02:45 - Kelly & Wes welcome us back from Kona!
04:45 - Delta airfare absurdity: Athens for less than Atlanta?!
08:50 - RIP to this awesome biz class redemption
10:50 - But Philippine Airlines is now bookable with Alaska!
13:10 - Two awesome transfer bonuses this month
15:10 - Amex adds an interesting new hotel partner
18:40 - The overlooked 100K point Chase card offers
20:40 - A word from our sponsors: Bilt Rewards & North Dakota Tourism
22:45 - American adds Flagship Check-in at DFW …
26:45 - … but cuts some upgrades for elites …
29:05 - … and raises the annual fee on its top credit card
33:00 - SkyMiles and Starbucks switch it up (again)
35:30 - Delta bullies out another airline
40:00 - But the Battle for Seattle rages on
45:10 - Would you rather: Lower award rate or fewer fees?
49:20 - On the Spot: Predicting the next fare war
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 Olsen, and with me, as always, is the most dangerous person at the party. He's the person that just got back from Japan. It's Kyle Potter. Kyle, what's up?
It's my entire personality now. Have you, have you heard of Japan?
I have. You have. I have heard of it. Yeah. The, the person who just got back from Japan is specifically such a fraught person at the party.
You're either psyched to talk to them for, like, an hour and a half, that's your whole party, or your party is just over 'cause someone's given you 45 minutes on, on how you're incorrectly pronouncing different foods and drinks from Japan. It is a, a very specific person who just got back from vacation.
I was at a party this weekend, and I talked about Japan for, like, two hours a- but s- because somebody was specifically asking me about their own trip.
Sure, sure. All right, today on the show, we're breaking down tons of news you need to know in travel this week, the absurd flight pricing that broke the Internet, some new exciting transfer bonuses and transfer partners, American going premium, Delta and the battle for Seattle, and much more. But first, Kyle, I need to find something out and let you address a, a rumor that's swirling from your time in Tokyo last week.
Is it true that you took over the jukebox at a bar and then cleared the place with your taste in music?
Yes, but two important caveats. One, this was this amazing bar called Rock Bar Mother, where their whole shtick is every time you order a drink, you get to request a song, and they have this list. So I look through this list, and one of my favorite bands, The Dillinger Escape Plan, was on there.
Spoiler alert, if you haven't listened, not a great hang, you know, uh, for the uninitiated. But this is their thing, is you get to pick a rock or a metal song. So I'm like, "You know what? When else am I gonna be able to request The Dillinger Escape Plan?" Su- Sugar Coated Sour, their first song from the album Calculating Infinity.
I played it. Two minutes later, the people next to me get up and walk out, and then the bartender walks over with the folder with the list of bands and just kinda points at it and not-so-subtly suggests, "Maybe, maybe pick something different, huh?" So, you know, we went from The Dillinger Escape Plan to The Talking Heads, which was a little bit more user-friendly.
Yeah, a little more, little more palatable so you didn't drive away any more clientele.
Yeah, I had this vision in my head of, um, Randy Marsh getting hauled out saying, "I thought this was America." But I was like, "I thought this was a metal bar."
Uh, how was Tokyo otherwise? We checked in with you from the Park Hyatt, but that was just the beginning of your trip.
Uh, it was the, the beginning and the end of the trip. It was a short but sweet stay. Uh, there's just no place like it, you know that. There's just something about that city that hooks you and, and never lets, never lets go.
Yeah, check last week's episode for more on Tokyo and Japan. But today on the show, it's all the news you need to know in travel this week.
All that and more.
Hi, this is Melissa and Kennedy from Kyle's favorite airport in Kona, Hawaii. Welcome back to the Turkey Travel Podcast.
Okay, welcoming us back this week were Kelly and Wes from the Kona Airport in Hawaii. Is that truly your favorite airport, Kyle?
It's up there.
Yes.
Uh, all of the airports outside of Honolulu in Hawaii are pretty incredible.
Any open air airport, Palm Springs, uh, that ... I'm a sucker for that.
We need more of it.
Uh- Not, just maybe not in Minneapolis.
Yeah, wouldn't quite work here.
All right, um- Or like Seattle ...
before we jump into the Extra Mile today, a quick announcement, uh, and an ask for you all. We're recording a beginner travel and points and miles series called Starter Kit. Uh, it's so travelers like you can brush up on your knowledge or other travelers can figure out how to get started in this crazy hobby and become proper sickos, is our goal.
Everyone, by the end of the course, you'll be a sicko. Uh, it'll be all bonus episodes, so don't worry, you're still gonna get our normal weekly episodes, but we wanted to ask you all if there were questions you had about getting started in points and miles, or if there are questions that your beginner points and miles friends ask you all the time that you think would be helpful and informative in this series.
Judgment-free zone, we just wanna know what parts of points and miles travelers are still hung up on. We're gonna try and answer all of them in this series. If you think of anything, post it in the podcast Slack community, we have a link in the show notes, or email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. What are your hopes for this series?
Well, you know, the working title for this was Sicko School, Back to Sicko School, so I think that says it all. Uh, you know, I think anybody, the goal is that anybody, whether you're just getting started in this, you know, you're just tuning into the podcast, or you've been doing this for a decade or more, that there's hopefully gonna be some things to learn or just kind of refresh your memory about the best ways to go about finding cheap flights, redeeming, earning points and miles, all the stuff that we talk about, but really do it in a concise format.
Yeah. Stay tuned. We're excited to get working on this. All right, it's time for the Extra Mile, where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic, and this week it's inspired by our awesome Extra Mile newsletter. It hits your inboxes every weekday morning. All of the stories we're gonna talk about today first debuted in the Extra Mile last week.
Sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/extramile. Okay, Kyle, first story. Last week you stumbled on an airfare quirk that had some people up in arms, namely that it was cheaper to fly Delta to Athens, Greece through Atlanta than it was to just fly to Atlanta. Walk us through it. What did you find?
Just the most absurd example of how airlines punish their hub travelers, uh, to an extreme.
And so this came about because I was monitoring through Google Flights price alerts a flight, a one-way flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta, and that went from $209 to, like, $459 one-way, which is not, um, not all that insulting for that route. It gets a lot worse, actually. But after sharing that on social media, um, a follower re- reached out and said, "Check out that same route from Minneapolis to Atlanta, but onward, you know, 10-plus hours to Athens in Greece."
And lo and behold, that one-way flight, by adding on that 10-hour segment across the Atlantic Ocean, dropped the fare by over, by basically $120 one-way. I mean, this is just a textbook case of, A, again, how absurd hub pricing can be for us hub captives, not just, you know, for Delta, but e- everyone. You know, for, um, American flyers in Charlotte, for United flyers in Denver or Houston.
There are tons of examples just like this of just how gross some of these, you know, hub-to-hub routes can be. But two, this is why travelers turn to things, tactics, questionable tactics like skiplagged, where you would book that flight all the way to Athens, but get off the plane in Atlanta and ditch the rest of your trip because you can save by doing that.
Yeah, so Skiplagged, if you don't know it, uh, is a site that popularized the practice of what is called hidden-city ticketing or throwaway ticketing. Uh, and it's basically you're just getting off in Atlanta and not taking that last flight just to save on one-way flights. Um, is there a reason why people shouldn't do this if they don't know what skiplagging is?
What are the risks?
Uh, I mean, the, the first thing is that I think that this has become for a lot of people, like, the first travel-saving method that they look at. It's like, "Well, I'm just gonna look at Skiplagged." That's the first thing that, where they search for flights. And while this ki- these kinds of savings are not unheard of- It's, it shouldn't be your go-to because the second point of it is that airlines hate this.
It's not illegal. Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that airlines are, on the one hand, free to charge whatever the heck they want on these one-way routes where, you know, a flight to Atlanta that takes two hours or less costs more than a 14-plus hour journey all the way to Eastern Europe, that we're not allowed to take advantage of savings however we find them.
But it is in the contract of carriage for every major US airline and every major foreign airline, too, that engaging in this kind of practice breaks that contract of carriage and can be penalized. Now, you know, you, you really have to do this a lot in order to get in real trouble, but there are examples of flyers being banned, flyers being taken to court by the airlines for repeatedly engaging in this, all of which is to say, again, I don't think it's something that you should turn to again and again and again even to search, and definitely not to repeatedly use.
Yeah. Uh, one thing I would recommend people do if, if you're interested in doing this or the flight that you're looking at is just so, so expensive, on Google Flights, when you use the Connecting flights filter, you get a whole list, a checkbox list of all the airports you could possibly connect through.
You can connect, you can click the one that you're hoping to fly to. It's a good way to kinda figure out, uh, what prices you can get by doing something like this, something like skiplagged. So that's a good little hack there if you need it. Can we move on, uh, to a sadder story, Kyle?
There's always sadness in this room.
Always. Our CEO, Jared Komoroske, ordered all flags at Thrifty Traveler headquarters to be flown at half-staff this week because we've lost one of the best redemptions in all of travel, Kyle. For the past couple years, you could drop the price of a business class partner award ticket across the Atlantic by booking a connection on either side of the pond when you're booking with Alaska Atmos.
Uh, sometimes that extra shorter flight would book into economy, other times it would book into domestic first class or European business class, but in all cases, it amounted to savings of 10,000 points or more. So an example, if you wanted to fly American Airlines business class from Chicago to London, it would cost you 55,000 Alaska Atmos in each direction.
If you added a connection, though, even from, like, a smaller airport like Sioux Falls, South Dakota, the price inexplicably dropped to just 45,000 points. Same thing if you booked a connection on from London to, say, like, Glasgow or something like that. Um, you could also do this on Aer Lingus from the US, too.
We, we used to use this example all the time. Uh, it looks like Alaska has fixed this problem. It is now gone. Just too good to last? What do you think?
It was only a matter of time. This is what happens, um, with these quirks and how awards price out. And to be clear, this was never based upon everything that Alaska Airlines has published and said.
This was never an intentional pricing system, that just for whatever reason, by adding these connections, by having a connection here in the States or over in Europe, that it would price out significantly lower. So to be able to fly from Minneapolis to Dublin and onward to Paris for 45,000 m- uh, Al- Alaska Atmos in business class flying Aer Lingus, uh, but when that nonstop from Minneapolis to Dublin would cost you 55,000, it wasn't supposed to work this way.
So it was very clear that this was some kind of a mistake that Alaska would eventually correct, and that's, that's what they've done now. So not a surprise. Huge bummer. This was easily one of the best deals in the world of points and miles.
Yeah, for sure. Really sad to see it go, but this next story is why you should never give up on points and miles, because even though we saw that awesome redemption go the way of the dinosaur last week, we had a new one pop up, uh, in the Alaska Atmos program.
Philippine Airlines is now bookable with Atmos, giving travelers a new awesome way to and through Southeast Asia, um, just as Philippine Airlines has just expanded its routes into the US as well. So the best value, I think, is booking Philippine Airlines business class for just 75,000 Atmos each way from the West Coast, 85,000 each way from some other cities like Chicago and Toronto and JFK.
Um, availability has been pretty strong, uh, so far as we've seen this rolled out. I'm actually eyeing some for possibly my way back from, uh, Asia, so I'm not gonna tell you what route I'm looking at so nobody goes and steals my space. I am gatekeeping a couple of dates from you. That, that is my, my truth today.
Uh, your thoughts on this new redemption?
G- I know Gunner's trying to get back in December or January or February somewhat, so just lock in a, a, a handful of dates with whatever Atmos points you have and do 'em dirty. Uh, no, this is great. Uh, y- like we say, when one door closes with points and miles, when Alaska decides to cut out this weird loophole to book a business class flight to Europe for 10,000 points or more, uh, less than the nonstop would cost, another door opens.
And, you know, the fact that there is widespread awards-based flying into the Philippines, anywhere in Asia, as that has gotten increasingly harder to do using points and miles to fly business class like this, this is a big win. And, you know, while I don't think Manila i- would be anybody's first choice in order to connect somewhere into, uh, the rest of Asia or Southeast Asia- This is, you know, some of these flights are 14, 15 hours.
That gets you a long way at a very reasonable rate to start your trip, whether that is in the Philippines, which is a, an incredible country that I need to spend more time in, or anywhere else, you know, that might be i- between, you know, two to six hours further connection from there.
Yeah, the connections were pretty strong, too, with the awards space that we were looking at.
So, um, we sent a Thrifter Traveler premium deal, uh, highlighting some of it, and, and we were kinda surprised to see how far you could actually get using those Alaska Atmos too. Uh, let's move on to some points and credit cards news. We'll start with two new transfer bonuses this month. Um, we have the first, a 15% bonus when you send Capital One miles to Avianca Life Miles.
Oh, just sent a shiver down my spine thinking about Life Miles again. Uh, it still gives you a nice discount on Star Alliance award flights, airlines like Swiss and Lufthansa and United and more. Uh, the second bonus is a 30% transfer bonus from Amex to Aer Lingus, British Airways, and Iberia Avios, giving an even better discount on Oneworld Alliance flights on those airlines, including, uh, American, Fiji Airways, Japan Airlines, and many more.
Which of these two do you like the best, Kyle?
I mean, I, I like 'em both, but no question the Amex transfer bonus to many of the Avios airlines is the bigger winner here. Not just because it's, you know, the percentage is twice as big of a bonus, but more importantly, it's even stronger than just tran- getting a 30% bonus to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus because once you have points in those accounts, so long as those accounts with all of these Avios airlines have been set up for, I think, 30, at least 30 days, you can then kick them from British Airways to Qatar and book a Qatar Qsuites itinerary that might fly from somewhere in the United States to Doha, and then onward somewhere for less, or, you know, not even being able to book it through another airline, even, like, British Airways.
Or kick them over to, you know, my personal favorite, Finnair Avios, which has some of the lowest rates for many of the redemptions that we talk about on this show, and many that we haven't had time to get to yet. So getting that 30% bonus on the front end and then kicking them over to one of these other programs, or, you know, booking an Iberia business class award, not for 40,500 Avios, but what does it price out at, 32,000?
I think you have to transfer 32,000 Amex points to either Iberia or British Airways for a one-way business class seat to Europe at that price. That's, that's really, really tough to beat right now.
Yep, that's exactly why we love transfer bonuses. Uh, we also love new transfer partners, Kyle. Um, last week, Amex quietly added Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club, beautifully named, really creative stuff, uh, as its newest transfer partner.
Um, on first blush, I did not care for this at all. The transfer ratio of four Amex points yielding you one Leaders Club point, uh, seemed not great to me. Luckily, our very own Jackson Newman dug in and found out that this partnership is actually pretty sweet if you do the math. Uh, he put it to the test.
He booked a hotel in Tokyo, the Imperial Hotel. It was going for about $500 a night, uh, but Jackson booked it for under 20,000 Amex points per night, and that's because Leaders Club properties go for around 2,000 to 8,000 points per night, even on the high end, uh, which is why that transfer ratio appears to be so poor.
Um, so he got a really good deal on that, except there's one big catch with Leaders Club, and that is, unlike other hotel programs, you still have to pay taxes and fees on these bookings. So for Jackson in Tokyo, this was about $300 in taxes and fees for his three-night stay in Tokyo, so about $100 a night on this particular hotel.
Um, but again, he only, he paid less than 20,000 Amex points for each night. Uh, considering this catch, does this program still interest you?
Yeah, definitely. I, I think because we're clearly at a point where, you know, when we're sitting here saying, "Wow, I didn't really realize that there was, you know, this kind of potential value," caveats aside, with this Leaders of the Wo- Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club
Let's, let's rebrand this, guys. Come on. Uh, with this hotel program. When, when we're finding this stuff out, that means that others haven't quite found it out either, which means that there- it's just gonna be much easier to find deals like this for now. So, you know, if you haven't scoped it out, if you have a trip coming up in the next, you know, 11 to 12 months where you're not sure about your hotel plans, but you've got a healthy stash of Amex points, scope around.
You know, po- enter your destination on their website, see what's out there, see what the rates are. Definitely factor in the fact that you're gonna be on the hook for, in some cases, some significant, uh, taxes and fees, um, but not egregious. I think it's worth it. Uh, it's not always gonna be a slam dunk. You know, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo is in an awesome location in Ginza, uh, right where a lot of people would wanna be for their first trip to Tokyo.
They- if they've got a, like, a really strong portfolio that I think we all need to spend some more time on looking to see, like, okay, where else can we find value like this? But there is definitely more out there. We're just getting started poking into this.
Yeah, this is definitely in the category of, uh, a program that could have some crazy value if you're willing to jump through some hoops and do some work.
Unfortunately, that's becoming more and more common in points and miles.
Right. Well, and you know, the fact that even the best properties top out somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 points per night, I mean, you can't book anything for that with any hotel program anymore really, un- unless if you're talking about, you know, the smallest Hyatt Place in a small city in Iowa or Arkansas, right?
So, you know, to be able to book some of these properties for 8,000 points per night, even at that, you know, seemingly ugly transfer ratio from Amex, the math is gonna math out in many cases.
Yeah. Did I tell you about my new, uh, hotel program that I'm starting? Losing Hotels of the World, Losers Club.
Let's move on.
Okay. I'll come up with the details later. We'll, we'll get into it.
Great.
Um, all right. Another, uh, uh, credit card sign-up offer I need to highlight for you all. The Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000-point offer is gone, uh, but something just as good still lives on. So right now, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited and Chase Ink Business Cash cards are both offering $1,000 cash back bonuses right now that you can easily convert into 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $8,000 in your first four months of opening the card.
Um, best of all, these cards have zero annual fee, so 100,000-point bonus on zero annual fee is pretty amazing. They are business cards, though. They're not personal cards, but I think you're probably more eligible for a business card than you think. Uh, I got this bonus when it came around a few years ago, despite not having a small business.
Uh, I wrote a ski blog for years, which I made minuscule ad revenue on, which was good enough for Chase to give me a business card at the time. You can also get a business card by selling clothes on Poshmark or stuff on Facebook Marketplace or driving for Uber or any side hustle. Um, Kyle, these offers are really, really awesome.
Uh, what do you think about them? I
mean, I'm gonna get one of them- Yeah ... no question, before this is done, which I, I hope says it all. I think the biggest hurdle for most people here is, "Well, I, I'm not a small business owner," and the reality is, is that many of you are. Many of you are doing something outside of your day jobs that qualifies you under Chase's eyes as a sole proprietorship, which is what you ultimately apply for these cards under, in many cases.
Of course, if you own, you know, a 10 to 20 to 50-person small business, that obviously qualifies. But for the rest of you, um, you know, any kind of consulting that you're doing outside of the terms of your day job that you're getting paid for, that qualifies you as a small business, which means you are eligible for these cards.
Yeah. Okay. Uh, we have some more news to get to. American is going premium. We've got some Delta news, some Starbucks news, and some Seattle news, but first we're gonna take a quick break. Okay, we're back. I've got a couple stories here under the category of American Goes Premium, and the first one is going to be for American Airlines flyers at Dallas.
Uh, premium check-in is coming to DFW, the airline announced recently. It's gonna be called Flagship Check-In, mirroring Delta's Delta One business class only check-in operations at its coastal hubs. Uh, the details are scarce so far, including when this will roll out and if there will be perks like private security screening, like the Delta One lounges have, uh, at least the Delta One lounge at JFK, or, uh, when this will all open, too.
Um, American is also set to pair this with a massive new Admirals Club at DFW, as well as a grab-and-go lounge as well. Are you intrigued with this, uh, these new plans for DFW with American Airlines?
Everything's bigger in Texas. Uh, sure, yeah. You know what? I think it's, uh, American has realized that it needs to play catch-up for premium travel, and like we've talked about, like, ad nauseam on this show, this is all airlines apparently care about anymore is bigger, fancier business class seats, better champagne, just doing everything they can to convince wealthy travelers to bring them their business, and this is a piece of it.
Uh, the renderings that they've put out of this new Flagship Check-In look very nice. I think it seems unlikely that there's going to be a dedicated private security queue for these, you know, business class passengers checking in in Dallas, something that Delta has done both at JFK and LA, and I think plan to bring to other airports Um, it's fine.
It's nice. Th- they, they need to do this clearly. Again, I- it doesn't move the needle for the average traveler, um, which I would just would love to see some airlines start to care about that a little bit more because they- all of them say, you know, even somebody who buys a basic economy ticket is, our goal is eventually to get them to pay full freight for a business class fare over time, that basic passengers become premium passengers over time.
And to that I say, okay, well, how do you convince somebody to keep going down that funnel, to s- stick with them because that first flight that they book when they're a 20-something taking their first big vacation after getting their first job was a great experience, and I don't know that we're seeing a whole lot of that.
Yeah. What keeps that customer from bu- buying their next ticket on Frontier or Allegiant or an airline that's a competitor, you know? If, if you're really gonna make the experience indistinguishable from a low-cost carrier for people who are sitting in the back of the plane, why would they ever eventually work to buy up to the front and go to this fancy flagship check-in area?
Well, and no airline is more guilty of that in the United States than American Airlines, who, which has, you know, reduced legroom throughout every single cabin, which has ripped out seat back screens from, you know, most of their domestic fleet, aside from the stuff that's flying transcontinentally. It is, in many cases, um, maybe not quite on the level of like a Frontier, but it's certainly a lot closer to that than the likes of, um, Delta and increasingly United Airlines.
So, you know, how, how do you convert someone over time into that higher-paying passenger when the experience that they're getting is not, you know, on the level that would convince them to say, "Oh, there's something more for me here so that when I'm, you know, when I have that disposable income, I'm gonna spend that money with American Airlines"?
I mean, a piece of this, too, is that, you know, increasingly Americans don't have a choice. If you're in Dallas, you're flying American Airlines or you're connecting. Um, the same is true in Charlotte. You know, it's true for us here in Minneapolis with Delta and for, you know, folks in Detroit and Atlanta and Salt Lake City.
The list goes on. So that is a piece of this, too, is that, you know, if you're gonna fly any premium product, any premium airline, it's, uh, 99 times out of 100 it's gonna be the airline that dominates your home airport
Well, that was supposed to be the positive story that balances out this next one, but I guess we're just gonna dive deeper into the negativity.
Uh, American status holders accustomed to getting complimentary business class upgrades on long-haul domestic flights were gonna have to get used to premium economy instead. Uh, the airline announced that status holders booked into main cabin will only get complimentary upgrades to premium economy on coast-to-coast and Hawaii flights starting August 25th.
Previously, they would upgrade straight into that lie-flat business class seat. Um, you can still get bumped up to business class if you booked a premium economy ticket to begin with or booked a flight that doesn't have premium economy on board. The system-wide upgrades, if you're a super top-tier elite, are unchanged.
You can still move into business class using those. Uh, this is just another big blow for travelers with status on US airlines, huh, Kyle? I- when's the last time we saw, like, really good news for status holders?
2016? 10 years ago? I don't know. I mean, this, I think on the one hand, this ultimately affects a, a relatively small amount of routes because the, the planes that have a true business class cabin available are, are almost solely on transcontinental routes across the United States from, say, LA to New York or vice versa, stuff like that.
On the other hand, I mean, it does go to show that, you know, whatever, however many tens of thousands of dollars you're spending with your airline is increasingly getting you less, and this is another example. And it's also another example of how there are basically no original ideas in the airline industry.
This is something United did, I think, a year or so ago. Uh, it's, it's been a little while. Um, and that also means it is only a matter of time before Delta does the exact same thing, where, you know, n- not that the odds were ever great that you would get a complimentary upgrade from, you know, Atlanta to San Francisco up to a Delta One seat, but they were there, and now that's just
Whenever Delta decides to copy this, and again, I do think it's only a matter of time, you're gonna g- get into premium economy at best.
Yeah. Uh, go check out our episode from February called These Bros Ain't Loyal. Uh, that was one of the episodes where the title came first, and then we backed into the idea of what to talk about.
We had to figure out how to do a show in order to support the name that we came up with.
That's right.
That's where the best stuff comes from.
It does. It really does. Okay, one more story from American and American going premium. Uh, the Citi ... Okay. Oh, gosh. I gotta take-
Take, take a deep breath ...
gotta catch my breath.
The Citi AA Advantage Executive World Elite MasterCard, the airline's highest level co-branded card, is jumping from a $595 annual fee to $695 a year starting August 23rd. Uh, the card will get some new perks, we assume. We don't know that it will get a new welcome offer to go with it. Usually, that is the case with these big card refreshes.
Um, we do know that in addition to an Admirals Club membership, including two guests, you're gonna get perks like $500 back on AA vacations per year, $100 on in-flight or Admirals Club purchases per year, uh, an Omni Resorts free night reward, an Omni Resorts Champion status, uh, and complimentary Avis Presidents Club status.
Um, thoughts on this refresh, Kyle? Are you interested in this card at all?
No. Uh, if only because I think the primary benefit is Admirals Club access, and I just don't fly through airports frequent enough that have good Admirals Clubs that would be better than my other, my a- alternate options to justify paying almost $700 in annual fees.
Going back to the point we just made about how there are no original ideas, take a wild guess what United's club card annual fee, an- annual fee is after an increase last year.
I would guess 695.
You are correct, sir. Wow. Uh, Delta isn't far behind with the Delta Reserve card at 650 after an increase, I think, two years ago.
I mean, this is just the way this whole industry works. This is where the money is in the entire airline industry. Airlines' primary goal is not just to get you to fly with them, but more importantly, that flying with them becomes the incentive to open and spend on a credit card. And the more expensive and, you know, loaded with perks that those credit cards are, the stickier that becomes, where people who open this card are just spending it constantly.
And in order to justify paying $700 in annual fees, you have this laundry list of, and growing laundry list of credits. I mean, I need another $250 twice-a-year credit like this new, um, AA vacation credit. I need another one of those like I need a hole in the head. Like, I'm, I'm done. I'm tapped out on that kind of a setup.
I've got plenty of credit cards that have that kind of a system, and I don't need more of them.
It has dawned on me that this, uh, American section is just basically three copycat changes. It's the you know, stripping away the business class upgrades, adding a flagship check-in, and then adding more complicated perks to the highest-end card.
Well, you know, and it's because American realized, probably three or four years too late, that this is what works now. You know, for better or worse, this is why Delta is at the top of the industry. It's why United is now on Delta's heels, because premium travel is everything, and the hallmark of all things premium travel is a premium credit card that costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 a year.
I think, you know, if, if I were a, oh, now I have to do it. What am I doing? Citi Advantage Executive World Elite Mastercard holder already, I would be okay with this. You know, the annual fee went up by $100 a year, and there's a lot of new value here that's relatively easy to take advantage of, with the caveat of if I already have a handful of credit cards in addition to this one that have this kinda system of credits, I'm not too thrilled about spending $250 twice a year on an, a, an, um, AA Vacation Club booking.
But the rest of it, it adds up pretty quick to outweigh that annual fee
Yeah, definitely. Um, let's move on to Delta. Let's talk about Delta and Seattle. That's how I'm encompassing these next stories. Uh, the first one's only loosely Seattle, and that's because of Starbucks. So- And
the second one is not Seattle at all
And the second one's not Seattle at all.
So maybe I should go back to the drawing board, but it's too late. The microphones are on. The ability to earn SkyMiles when buying Starbucks has been a fun, it's not super lucrative way to earn s- Delta miles over time, but it is just nice to be able to earn SkyMiles in small increments like this. You used to be able to earn them on every dollar you spent at Starbucks.
Then they changed it, was it last year or two years ago? So it only works when you reload Starbucks gift cards in $25 increments or more. Now, they are back to earning one SkyMile per dollar spent, but you'll need to have flown a qualifying Delta flight within the previous 12 months to be eligible for this promotion.
They are tinkering this promotion to death, Kyle. Um, newly linked accounts get to skip that rule for, I believe it's the first year. So you can, you have a year to fly a Delta flight at, while still earning SkyMiles so that you can earn SkyMiles again in the next year. Thoughts on this new policy for earning SkyMiles on Starbs.
I think simplicity is always better, and the, you know, this previous tiered structure that they had where if you s- if you loaded your Starbucks account with $25 or more, you would earn X amount of SkyMiles. If you went as high as $200, you would earn the most. It's just a level of complication that I di- don't think really ever made sense, and I think it clearly didn't make sense because they're basically reverting to the old structure of just a flat mile for every dollar you spend with this caveat that you need to have flown Delta within the last 12 months.
I mean, this isn't a meaningful way to earn a ton of SkyMiles anyway, so I don't think it really truly matters. You're just working on the fringes, and if you're a loyal Delta flyer already, you might as well link your SkyMiles and Starbucks accounts to earn every time you do buy a coffee. If you're not a loyal Delta flyer, and then this carve-out shouldn't really affect you because you shouldn't really be focused on earning any SkyMiles anyway.
Yeah. If you are, if you are spending, I think what, what the cheapest one-way Delta flight you could book with SkyMiles, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of like 4,000 SkyMiles, 5,000 SkyMiles each way. If you're spending five grand at Starbucks every year and not taking a Delta flight, uh, I don't know what you're doing.
That, that doesn't make any sense.
There's one person on the planet that spends that mon- much money on Starbucks, and it's Mike Russo of The Athletic- ... who covers the Minnesota Wild, and I bet he's probably earning $10,000 a year, or 10,000 SkyMiles a year through this now.
Russo, I did not mean to offend you.
I know that your, your SkyMiles earned at Starbucks go a long way for you.
You'll be getting a terse message.
All right. Um, just, just let me cook on this one. All right, Kyle? 'Cause I'm, I'm fired up. Find, fi- I'm fired up
about this ... first, let's find the Seattle through line here.
There's almost no Seattle through line here except for maybe Delta.
Okay. Here's my theory. Delta is an abusive ex, Kyle. Whenever we Delta hub captives start flirting with other airlines, Delta swoops in to ruin our lives. Delta will never let us live our lives or play the field ever again. That is exactly what just happened here with Aer Lingus at MSP, one of our only long-haul flight options from MSP that's not Delta or one of its mean girl partners.
Uh, d- Aer Lingus offered us low fares, solid business class award availability, and most importantly, a way out from under Delta's thumb when traveling to Europe, and Delta hated that. So Delta added a daily non-stop flight to Dublin and just drowned Aer Lingus out, and it totally worked. Uh, Aer Lingus announced it's gonna leave MSP sometime in October.
Um, and if you think Delta is just gonna continue to operate that Minneapolis to Dublin route, I have, I have, uh, some tough news for you. That flight will quietly disappear sometime soon. Delta will have quashed all of our dreams of moving on and starting a new life with Aer Lingus. Thanks for nothing, Delta.
You win again. I hate this so much.
This is ... I wish this was surprising, but it's not. It was clear from the moment that, you know, two hours after Aer Lingus announced it would resume flying from Minneapolis to Dublin and then Delta matched on that exact same day one or two hours later, it was clear that this was not just Delta's hope, but also probably how it would shake out because Delta is a much bigger airline.
It can afford to throw a much bigger plane and reduce fares to a level that Aer Lingus couldn't compete with, fill those planes, especially with not just, you know, corporate contracts of people, you know, from companies like Medtronic flying over to Dublin a couple of times a month. But, you know, people not just from Minneapolis, but from across the Midwest and even the West Coast connecting into Minneapolis and then flying over to Dublin on a Delta plane, a luxury that Aer Lingus did not have, that they were going to bully them out of Minneapolis, and that's what they did.
And it's just, it's sad for that alone, for that route alone, or for the ability to, you know, fly from Minneapolis to Dublin and onward basically anywhere in Western Europe for cheaper rates in both, you know, economy if you're paying cash, but definitely in business class redeeming, like, Alaska Atmos rewards But bigger picture, you know, when this started to come together a couple of years ago, it felt like, you know, our home airport in Minneapolis had a chance to become much more competitive, that Aer Lingus was coming back, that Lufthansa was starting service.
There was talk that Turkish Airlines was gonna start a nonstop from Minneapolis to Istanbul. And just in the space of the last two years alone, that case has really fallen apart, and it's clear that Delta really controls things, and that Delta has done this before. I mean, they bullied out Iceland Air from Detroit, um, and then promptly dropped their own nonstop from Detroit to Reykjavik.
And already we have seen that Delta has started reducing its flights next winter from Minneapolis to Dublin after bullying Aer Lingus out of here. So while I hope you know, for our sake, for Minnesotan's sake, for anybody connecting across, you know, basically the western half of the country, that Delta is going to continue flying this.
It wouldn't shock me at all if we get to next summer and this service is gone altogether.
Yeah. This stinks. I think the, the annoying part is that Aer Lingus was also starting to make inroads into the minds of flyers here. Maybe I should include a disclaimer. Uh, the following discussion includes hyper-regional content.
Uh, th- this is very Minneapolis, but I was
at- That's a really good sound effect.
Thank you. I was at, uh, our National Night Out party in our neighborhood, and I had several people in a circle talking to me about how they had flown Aer Lingus this summer. They thought it was awesome. They were excited for the low fares, and then I had to break the news to that circle of people that Aer Lingus was leaving.
And actually, as we were having that conversation, th- the Aer Lingus plane flew over us, and I was like, "Say goodbye one last time, folks." But everyone was very sad to hear that, uh, this airline is leaving. But, um, this is, like you said, a playbook that Delta uses all the time, and interestingly, I'll pivot now to the actual Seattle of this.
Uh, this is a playbook that Alaska was trying to use on Delta in Seattle. So, um, I've spilled a lot of ink about the battle for Seattle in our On Our Radar section of the Extra Mile newsletter. You can catch that section on Friday mornings if you're ever interested in hearing or reading more from me for some reason.
Uh, this week I wrote about Alaska using that playbook against Delta in an interesting way, and then as soon as I pressed publish on that, Delta fired another shot back. So here's what I'm talking about. Alaska sneakily extended its Seattle to Rome nonstop flight into March and April last week, which might seem small, but it was kind of a major shot, I think, that they fired across the bow at Delta in the battle for Seattle.
Delta only operates Seattle to Rome four times a week, and only in May through October. Alaska was running the same route every single day, all summer long, and will now run the route uncontested in March and April for now. Delta still may come back at them, but this is exactly what Delta does to its competitors.
It's exactly what Delta did to Aer Lingus here in Minneapolis. Um, Alaska is just trying to drown Delta in capacity here to offer more flights and lower fares, which is really interesting. Um, I really hope that they do retaliate 'cause of course, for people in Seattle, that's gonna mean incredibly cheap fares almost all year round on that nonstop route from Seattle to Rome.
Uh, people in the Pacific Northwest are gonna be the big winners here. Uh, but thoughts on this move from Alaska?
You love to see it. Mm-hmm. Um, the battle for Seattle is definitely on. In my mind, it is the single most exciting airport in the country right now, and probably has been for a good two years just because of Alaska and Delta consistently going tit for tat in ways like this.
And competition is everything for flight deals, competition is everything for award space. The more seats that are flying out of an airport to a destination, the more likely we're gonna see better deals, especially when there are two carriers offering that nonstop instead of just one. So in all things travel, the more the merrier.
Love to see it.
Yeah. Um, and then the next kinda shot back from Delta was, according to Istrian Aviation, who broke this news, uh, Delta is making a move of its own that I think might be retaliation for the Rome stuff, or it's just its own move. Either way, Delta is launching Seattle to Tokyo Narita, uh, mirroring Alaska's Tokyo flights to Narita.
Uh, Delta only flies to Haneda right now, which is obviously the preferred airport of most travelers. But adding Narita flights only makes sense as a way to try and take down Alaska, right?
I would just say, like, if anybody in Atlanta is listening to this, if you want other ways to light money on fire, I will give you my Venmo account or my PayPal.
Just let me know how you would like to send. I mean, they are gonna lose so much money doing this. Which, you know what? Good on them if they feel like they can sustain that. But I, this, there's no logical way to defend this other than just, "We're gonna try and hurt Alaska for what, for what we've been doing to each other the last two-plus years."
Flying into Narita, which is, is a great airport, but it's primarily an airport that's great for connecting passengers onwards throughout Asia, and Delta does not have a partner in Narita that can do that They made an intentional switch to f- n- stop flying into Narita, it, before the pandemic, and switched everything to flying into Haneda, which is a much better airport for getting people into town because it's like a 20, 30-minute subway ride or a 20, 30-minute cab ride instead of an hour and a half, in some cases, getting from Narita into town, into Tokyo.
This makes no sense whatsoever. The only justification is demand is so high to Tokyo that, and we can't add additional flights into Tokyo Haneda because that airport is incredibly restrictive in terms of how many flights it can add, especially from foreign countries. But even then, I just don't see this making any sense.
I think the upside here is that, again, more capacity is always better. I think we're gonna see some great deals flying from Seattle into Tokyo, Narita in the weeks and months to come. I would be shocked if we don't.
Yeah, I would say, uh, watch this space for some insane deals. And, uh, Mike Russo, the, that 5,000 Sky Miles you made on Starbucks purchases last year, that might be enough to get you into Narita and back considering how steeply they discount, Delta discounts some of its, uh, really soft Asia routes.
I mean, the lowest one's t- uh, 25,000 round trip to Hong Kong and Taipei. Would not be surprised to see something like that on the Narita route almost right out of the bat.
No, no, not at all. And, you know, we've seen a handful of great deals flying business class, not for 5,000 Sky Miles each way, but as low as 79,000 Sky Miles each way.
Would not be surprised at all to see that, especially in some off-peak months, which there really is not a bad time to visit Tokyo. And if you can get there in a lie-flat Delta One suite instead of, you know, an economy seat, that's a win.
That's a win. Uh, you ready to help a listener?
Let's do it.
Okay.
Kristin wrote us saying, "Hey, guys. Love the show. Wanted to see what your guys' opinion is on these options. I'm going to Europe for a 40th birthday, leaving from Orlando. I wanted to fly business class, and I found a Virgin Atlantic business class. There were two options to book, so would you rather?" Kyle, the first one is booking through Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, 35,000 points and $700 in taxes and fees each way for that one.
Booking option number two is booking through Air France KLM Flying Blue, 85,000 points and $250 in taxes and fees. She said, "Three of the girls booked directly through Virgin Atlantic 'cause they didn't have points. I booked through Air France because I had transferred some points during a transfer bonus.
I know, I know, I broke one of the rules." She said, "Was curious to see which option you think was really better." All right, what do you think about Kristin's choice here? She went with Air France KLM Flying Blue. What would you have done?
I I'll, I'll answer this more broadly and then answer for myself personally.
I think there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all answer to basically all things in points and miles because it's really personal. And in, in this case, the personal questions, the personal factors here are what's your budget for this trip cash-wise? You know, how, how much would spending an extra $450 hinder the rest of your trip?
If it's not at all, then it's like, well, you might as well spend fewer points and more cash in order to get there and then save those points for the next trip because, you know, this is more than double the amount of points by booking through Air France to save cash. If, however, you're pretty limited in what kinda points you have or you have some other big trip in mind that you haven't booked yet and you wanna save those, um, you know, it, it's, it's hard to answer this.
I think personally I would saddeningly book the Virgin Atlantic redemption for 35,000 points and $700. It stinks especially because just two years ago that would be 35,000 points and $250, and we've just seen Virgin Atlantic increasingly raise these fees a couple of times. Um, but that's g- using double the points would just hurt unless if you're just absolutely flush, have more points than you know what to do with, then I think Flying Blue is the easy answer here.
Yeah, I, I think it, this, w- the more I went back and forth on this, I think these are about dead even in redemptions- Mm ... in my eyes. Like, using 85,000 points but saving all those taxes and fees, probably worth it in a lot of cases, but if you only have so many points, you know, 35,000 points and $700 in taxes and fees is a really good redemption.
I think the tiebreaker goes to Virgin Atlantic just because you're booking the seat with the airline that you're, you know, flying. Yeah. So I think when in doubt book direct is kind of the best advice we can give, and that might just be the tiebreaker on this one for me.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
I, there, there is another angle to look at this which is, you know, take the cash cost of this flight and then figure out which points are getting you the better redemption. I think that's the wrong way to look at this. I think you need to look at it, uh, from a personal lens of what matters more to you. I think the, the angle of booking directly through Virgin Atlantic so if something does change or something goes wrong the path to getting things back on track is gonna be a lot easier rather than booking a partner award ticket through Air France.
That's a really good one, too. That's another ... I would certainly tilt it further towards Virgin Atlantic for me personally and I think for a lot of people. But I think you gotta look at this of, like, what am I trying to get out of this? What would spending another $450 mean to me? What would spending another, you know, 40, 50,000 points mean to me?
Those are the right questions to ask.
Yeah. Christian, I still think your booking was awesome with Flying Blue . It is at least a really interesting thought experiment for us to go back and forth on, on this podcast. But, uh, excited you get to go from Orlando to Europe using, uh, your points and miles this year.
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?
All right, we talked, you've written at length about the battle for Seattle being one of, if not the most exciting airports in the country for flight deals.
What are, let's say, one or two other US airports or Canadian airports that you're jealous of, that you're like, "Oh man, if only, you know, I were in blank, I would have it so good"?
Interesting. Okay, so you're, you're talking about this in terms of, like, competition creating really cheap fares. I mean, there's the obvious JFK just has so much incredible competition there.
They, there are airlines all over the world, airlines you've never heard of, that are flying in and out of there every day. The fares are always, when we do fare analyses at the end of every year based on premium deals, JFK's always the number one most represented airport in premium deals. So having all that would be amazing.
Uh, do I, um, want to spend $100 on an Uber every single time I wanna go to the airport? No, I do not. Uh, and do I wanna take, you know, two to three trains to get there? Also no. So I don't, uh, envy New Yorkers in that way. I think Boston is probably solves that problem, where it's, like, a little bit more of a convenient airport.
They still have incredible competition there, especially their transatlantic stuff is always so cheap, um, and a good place to find award space as well. So those two in the Northeast. Um, Dallas, I mean, every year it seems like Dallas adds two or three new airlines flying somewhere around the world, and the, the competition is heating up there, even though AA and OneWorld do still have the clamps on that place.
So, um, I don't know. I'm s- I don't know which airport's gonna be the next one to, uh, get a bunch of competition. I wonder if, I wonder if San Diego... Uh, I'm just talking. I'm just gonna- We're just spitballing ... I'm just gonna start listing airports. Yeah, we're just
doing it live.
I wonder if San Diego, because that, obviously, that area is so popular, and Alaska has moved in there in a big way, and it seems like every airline wants to have a good foothold in San Diego.
And they do have, you know, they have pretty solid award space to Japan. We see Japan Airlines award space from San Diego over there pretty frequently, and they're no stranger to flight deals, so I wonder if that maybe is the next little battleground. People who are- That's
the next Seattle.
Yeah.
Hmm.
It's not the next Seattle.
It's not that big, but it's a nice little battleground. You can find some good competition, good fares there.
Yeah. That's a good shout for where to look next. The other one that comes to mind for not there yet, but could be in the next few years, I think, is Austin. Yeah. Is that there's just so many airlines moving in there.
Southwest has grown a lot. American has shrunk a lot. Delta is filling the void there, and is rumored to be adding a nonstop to Europe from Austin, which I think would really change the game, not just for Austin flyers, but for how airlines will look at that airport and s- think about what's possible and where they should add.
So I think Austin is a good one to watch, too.
Yeah, definitely. Now I've got so many just coming into my head. But we're not gonna do this. I'm not gonna just list airports all day. That's not good-
We'll do the
airport
episode ...
podcasting. Absolutely. Okay, thank you all so much for listening to the show.
Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, and like and subscribe to Thrifty Traveler on YouTube. Send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the seeming.
This episode was produced by your favorite host, who is gonna earn 28 Sky Miles on his, uh, iced mocha Frappuccinos, Gunner Olsen. It's produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.