Good morning, and welcome to today's community discussion thread! Today's posts will appear here throughout the day, but this thread is for going off-topic. Did you love/hate something about today's coverage? Are you tracking other news I missed? Or, do you just have a general question about rewards travel? This is the place for your wandering thoughts.
Today's posts on OMAAT:
- What Are The Best Oneworld Emerald Lounges? The Peak Of Alliance Perks
- Is The Citi Strata Elite Card Worth The $595 Fee? 10 Reasons To Apply
- JFK ATC Taunts Distracted Delta Pilot: Yes He’s A Jerk, But He’s Not Wrong
- Is Earning Atmos Rewards Elite Status With Credit Card Spending Worth It?
- Which Airlines Have Good Service On The Ground? Are There Any?
- I’m Switching My Loyalty To Alaska Atmos Rewards: The Math Is A No-Brainer
Daily threads stay open for a week, so it's never too late to jump into a recent conversation.
Ben, maybe this is too much to tackle, but Nepal has had a really bad time lately, with the political upheaval over the last year (September 2025, which literally led to that relatively-new Hilton Kathmandu burning down), now to the horrific flash flood along the Nepal-Tibet border (August 26).
It feels like an unsettling echo of what we saw with the Blatten glacier collapse in Switzerland last year—though at least they had monitoring and evacuations ahead of that one—showing just how fast these high-altitude regions are changing.
I recall your trip reports from way back in early 2017 through the region, including your thoughts on visiting Kathmandu (at least the Hyatt Regency is still there...) and your Impressions of Bhutan. Having traveled through places like Bhutan and Yunnan myself, seeing those high-altitude corridors hit like this is chilling.
It's made me wonder about risk mitigation. Other than just "staying home," I see that most standard travel insurance policies often exclude remote high-altitude events (not that this was climbing Mt. Everest). Besides, if it's a wall of ice and rock 300 feet high, most of those policies are merely for the benefit of your beneficiaries anyway. *gulp*
Has anyone been tracking how local operators are handling the fallout, or what kind of specialized travel insurance is actually holding up for folks trying to navigate or exit the region right now? I'm not sure what angle you'd want to even take on a travel-focused story, if at all.
(Anyway, happy Monday?)
@1990_ Thanks for the suggestion. I'll sync with Ben on coverage options, but I generally agree with you. Between the rising frequency of climate-related disasters and the current geopolitical landscape, travel insurance is becoming more top-of-mind, and understanding what types of coverage exist to supplement card coverage would be valuable for many readers, I imagine.
@jeremyonemileatatime-com Thank you, Jeremy.
As I'm sure others have seen recently, we don't even have to look halfway across the globe to see how volatile things can get; the flash-flooding at the Grand Canyon over this past weekend—following similar heavy events like the Central Texas floods in 2025—reminds us that these compound weather extremes happen right here in North America, too.
With a strong El Niño cycle shaping up through the winter, tracking how infrastructure and specialized insurance adapt is going to be crucial for anyone planning ahead, whether that means keeping an eye on drought and fire risks across parts of southern Africa and Australia, or handling stormier atmospheric river patterns along the US West Coast.
Definitely looking forward to whatever insights you and Ben put together on it!