PointsTravel

Yeah… calling that an upgrade is a stretch. Unless the room category is objectively higher (corner, larger square footage, better view), switching from a king to two queens usually feels like a lateral move at best, downgrade at worst if you wanted one bed. The “we’re sold out”...

Yeah I’d be annoyed too. You go through the whole booking flow, pick your seats, everything looks confirmed… then suddenly one leg turns into “assigned at check-in” with no way to change it unless you pay more. That feels sneaky. I don’t think it’s because you used points....

I’ll be at 800k+ Loyalty Points before the March 1 reset. Last year I had 675k and that still wasn’t enough for ConciergeKey. AUS based. 5 million miler on AA. Lifetime Exec Plat already. I’ve given them a lot over the years. At this point I’m just asking for CK. If it doesn’t...

You’re not alone, this comes up a lot with the Hotels by SAS portal. Points from those bookings often take way longer than flights. A month isn’t unusual, and I’ve seen reports of it taking 6 to 8 weeks, sometimes even longer during promos like the Christmas calendar. It’s...

I agree with this way more than I expected. A lot of people push the “one ecosystem only” idea, but real redemptions don’t always work that cleanly. Pooling points from Citi, Amex, and BILT to hit 115k Asia Miles for a DFW to JNB business class on the A380 is exactly why...

Signed up for Amex Platinum last year and used a big flight purchase to hit the signup bonus. Flights were around $6k, bonus posted, and I’ve already moved about half the points. Now plans changed and I need to reroute the trip. New fare is closer to $3.5k, so I’m expecting a...

Yeah, this situation makes everyone nervous the first time. S.Aero is great, but it’s not perfect and it doesn’t always show the same inventory AA does, especially close in or with dynamically priced awards. If AA’s own site is letting you get all the way to passenger details...

Yeah, this lines up with what I’ve been seeing too. Emirates awards just keep creeping up, especially on popular routes and peak dates. 110k Skywards for a DXB–AMS economy return in August is wild, and not in a good way. It feels like dynamic pricing has completely taken over....

I was booking a JetBlue Mint transatlantic flight and had everything picked out. One way was 52k points, the return was 83k. While filling in passenger info I accidentally hit the X instead of back, so the whole search reset. I searched again maybe two minutes later and suddenly...

This honestly caught me off guard, even though I’m now seeing it’s happened to others. I booked a JetBlue flight using points through Chase Travel. The ticket originally cost $335.73. The flight ended up being severely delayed, so I had to cancel. When JetBlue issued the credit,...

Stayed 2 nights at Alila Ventana in January and figured I’d add a fresh data point since other trip reports helped a ton when planning. Booked 45k per night a couple weeks out and somehow snagged a Fri/Sat on a long weekend. Seems like weekends drop with 2 night minimums and...

Does anyone else feel like certain Hyatt properties are artificially inflating cash rates, especially ones with pretty weak hard product? Carmel Valley Ranch is the one that really stands out to me. Cash rates are constantly listed at $900 to $1,200 a night, so on paper the...

Globalist here, planning a special anniversary trip in April and struggling a bit with Hyatt’s Europe footprint. Looking for a historic, walkable city with art and culture where the Hyatt is in a genuinely nice, scenic area, not a business district or far outside the center....

My wife’s been super stressed lately after we had another kid, and we don’t travel much these days. I’ve already canceled my Platinum, so I’m sitting on about 450k Amex points. I’d rather not waste them on poor redemptions, but a short staycation nearby sounds appealing...

Went to book a flight yesterday and saw that someone had used my points to buy a ticket for a flight today on a completely different airline somehow. They even changed my email and phone number on my Mileage Plan account. I managed to cancel the flight, fix my info, and reset my...

Transferred 230,000 Avion points to British Airways on Dec 12. The transfer was canceled the next day and points were refunded. Then, on Dec 24, the same points were taken again and finally posted to BA. The problem is that I missed the 30% transfer bonus because the promo ended...

This is a great use of points, flashy or not. Avoiding insane World Cup pricing and still locking in the exact dates you wanted is a huge win. That’s what points are actually for. Mixing LifeMiles and Virgin with a transfer bonus on your first flight redemptions is impressive...

This is one of the worst first award booking experiences, so yeah, the stress makes sense. Unfortunately BA touching a partner booking, especially for something like a name change, is exactly how these get blown up. The frustrating truth is BA agents often don’t warn you that...

New to award travel and I’m honestly blown away by Hyatt redemptions. Booked 3 nights at Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights in a Regency Suite King. Cash price was about $1,200 all in. Paid 43,500 points total. That’s roughly 2.8 cpp, which feels insane for a Chase transfer. It’s...

Really need some help or sanity checking here because this is turning into a nightmare. I had a TAP Miles and Go award booked for 1/26 from ZRH to SFO. Yesterday I didn’t get any email from TAP, but my Flighty app alerted me that the booking was canceled. When I checked TAP’s...

I’ve got about 10k KrisFlyer miles expiring soon. I have more miles overall, but it’s just this chunk that’s about to die and I won’t be flying SIA again before then. Instead of paying to extend them and maybe never using them, I’m thinking about transferring them out to...

Looking at YVR → India flights and seeing Air France biz for around 121k points. It’d be my first time flying business and it would also wipe out most of my credit card points, so I’m trying to figure out if that’s actually “worth it” or if I’m just getting starry-eyed at the...

I’ve never flown biz or first either, but yeah all the influencer videos make it look like some Michelin thing. Then you Google actual photos and a lot of it just looks like… slightly fancier airplane food. I don’t think anyone books biz for the food. It’s more like: real...