Live from a JAL first class lounge somewhere.
There’s a typhoon enroute, and I’m trying to get to Tokyo today. My original flight already got cancelled. I’m anticipating further issues today, so let’s see how it goes.
Meanwhile, seems like it’s been a busy Sunday in the points & miles world. I see Citi added JAL as a 1:1 transfer partner and Amex Platinum no lifetime language link dropped (Danny Deal Guru). Citi meanwhile added lifetime language on one of their card families as well (Doctor of Credit).
There’s also rumblings that Chase has changed a rule on approving people for Chase business cards. The prior 5/24 rule (opening 5 cards in last 24 months) seems to be tightened to 3/24 (3 cards in last 24 months). Reddit thread and Doctor of Credit post for details on that one.
It’s almost the one year anniversary of the Find Flights for Me newsletter.
And this newsletter marks the 100th free deal I’ve sent in the last 365 days!
To celebrate the anniversary of the newsletter, you can now get 25% off the premium Find Flights for Me Club, where you can get even more points & miles deals directly to your inbox. You can learn more on the upgrade page here. That’s $89.99/year to get business & first class points deals! I focus on sending hard-to-book deals often before others know about them.
Some recent deals I’ve sent include
Air France business class for 42k points (and minimal fees!)
Qatar Qsuites business class starting at 70k points
Los Angeles to Tokyo in business class for 114k points
STARLUX business class to Taipei starting at 75k points
Table of Contents
Chase Sapphire Reserve updates + contest
Apparently it’s the 10th anniversary for the Chase Sapphire Reserve. There’s a bunch of new coupon credits you have to manually add through Chase offers. There’s also a contest for a chance to win up to 5 million Chase points if you make a bunch of free promotional social media videos for Chase. All the details on the 10th anniversary and related updates on Chase’s site here.
New CSR offers include:
$250 back when they spend $1,000 on a stay at Miraval and Alila properties that participate in World of Hyatt (U.S. only).
$200 back when they spend $200 on a semi-private flight with JSX. Skip the crowded airports and enjoy flying.
$125 back when they spend $500 on a premium car rental with SIXT.
$350 back when they spend $1,500 on an exceptional vacation home with Wander.
$125 back when they spend $500 or more on an eligible stay at IHG® Hotels & Resorts (U.S. only and must spend by October 16).
Chase Sapphire Reserve business card to add more The Edit credits. Chase Sapphire Reserve business card holders currently get $500 The Edit credit split in semi-annual $250 credits. The Edit is Chase’s luxury hotel offering through the Chase travel portal. Starting January 1, CSR Biz holders will get quarterly $250 The Edit credits for a total of $1,000 in credits per year (Doctor of Credit).
Also DoorDash credits. CSR members get a $15 monthly promo on any DoorDash order starting October 1. There’s also a 2x promo of $10 for groceries and daily essentials (essentially no restaurants). So you could get up to $35 in DoorDash benefits every month.
Lounge updates
This week had a few positive lounge-related updates.
Air France new lounge at JFK. Sometime next year, Air France will open the largest lounge in their network, spanning at 2,700 sq. meters (~29k sq. feet). The 2-story lounge will be able to accommodate ~400 people. No business lite fares allowed in!(Air France corporate PR)
American Express opened a lounge in Amsterdam. There’s a new American Express Centurion lounge in Amsterdam (AMS) that opened this week. (Amex PR). This one is around 6,000 sq. feet and is located inbetween Concourse E and F. This is great news for those traveling through AMS on international flights as the current option is a not-so-great Priority Pass lounge.
Chase is opening a lounge in Seattle. A 16,000 sq. foot Chase lounge is planned in Concourse A in Seattle. The renderings look nice! (View from the Wing)
Washington Dulles (IAD) Capital One lounge back to full service. After shifting to a grab-and-go model this July as the main part of the lounge underwent renovations, the lounge is now back to full operation this week! (Thrifty Traveler)
Sign up for loyalty accounts now
If you haven’t already, you should be setting up airline loyalty accounts, even for airlines you haven’t flown. You don’t have to do it for every airline, but rather airline loyalty programs that are part of the credit card points transferring ecosystem and have good redemption rates. At some point, you may use them and if you don’t have an account opened but find the flight you need, you could run into issues.
Some issues include:
Hard-to-book award space comes out, but you had to spend time creating an account, so you missed out on the booking
Potential for points transfers to a new account being delayed due to airlines potentially flagging a new account + points transfers = fraud
Taking advantage of Avios transfer bonuses. Airlines that use Avios (Aer Lingus, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, and Qatar) allow points to move freely between those airlines. However, you usually can’t move points unless the accounts have been open 30+ days. Sometimes, credit card transfer bonuses only apply to some of those airlines (like Amex 30% bonus only to Aer Lingus, BA, and Iberia now) but you want to book through Qatar
Need an account open for a while before you can search. Japan Airlines (JAL) is the standout here. To be able to even search and book awards through JAL, your account generally needs to be open 60+ days. It can be shortened to 7 days if you transfer points in (Bilt, Capital One, and Rove transfer) with some data points indicating you can search and book within a few hours after transferring
Which airline accounts to open? A non-exhaustive list but the more important ones are bolded.
Aer Lingus
Air Canada
Air France/KLM
Alaska Airlines
American Airlines
ANA
Avianca
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Delta Airlines
Emirates
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Airlines
JetBlue
Qantas
Qatar Airways
Turkish Airlines
United Airlines
Virgin Atlantic
Other news to highlight
Register now: Earn 2x IHG points on your second stay and 3x on your third stay and beyond for stays between Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 (IHG link)
Register now: Hilton’s fall promo. Earn 3k bonus points for stays at luxury, lifestyle, resort, or all-inclusive hotels, or 1k bonus points everywhere else (Hilton link)
IHG cardholders and select elites get 15% off IHG awards. Book by Sept. 21, stay by Nov. 2 (Frequent Miler)
Singapore Escapes: Get up to 30% off select Singapore Airlines award flights in October including JFK-SIN in premium economy (Singapore Airlines)
Big news: Citi adds JAL as a 1:1 transfer partner, and has a 30% transfer bonus during the launch (Frequent Miler)
Transfer bonus: Chase has a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott through Oct. 15. Do the math on if it makes sense. Lower-end properties probably not; very fancy properties maybe (Frequent Miler)
Transfer bonus: Citi has 25% transfer bonus to Avianca (One Mile at a Time)
Amex to ANA transfer issue: Currently a major delay in transferring Amex points to ANA, longer than the 2-3 day period (Doctor of Credit)
Qatar Airways relaxes restrictions for booking for others (My own blog)
Select Chase cardholders can get 50% coupon for their next 2 Lyft rides (Upgraded Points)
Citi adds lifetime language to get sign up bonuses for Citi Strata cards (Doctor of Credit)
Deal of the week
LOT Polish has a handful of dates with 2-4 business class seats between Chicago, New York, and Toronto to major cities in Poland. Book with your favorite Star Alliance program!
The layout is still an older 2-2-2 arrangement but all seats are lie-flat. The LOT Polish lounge in Chicago is also quite nice, and great for plane spotting.