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:
- Save On JetBlue Flights With Amex Offers (Targeted)
- Save On Frontier Airlines Flights With Amex Offers (Targeted)
- United CEO Scott Kirby Mocks Delta’s Pacific Expansion… He’s Probably Right
- Best & Most Memorable Airline Safety Videos
- Hilton Honors Amex Card Review: No Annual Fee, Huge Welcome Offer & Elite Status
- Starlux Airlines First Class Lounge Taipei Airport Review: A Private Space That Falls Flat
- Capital One Venture Card Review: Is The $95 Fee Worth It For 2x Miles?
- Cool: American Airlines App Can Now Automatically Move You To A Better Seat
- Why Is American Airlines Suddenly Sucking Up To President Trump?
- Vietnam Airlines 787 Near-Disaster In Munich: Investigators Reveal A Bizarre Cause
Daily threads stay open for a week, so it's never too late to jump into a recent conversation.
Lots of Rakuten credit card bonuses today including $150 on Citi Strata Premier (and also one of their occasional $200 on Rakuten credit card days).
Review of the UA 737 MAX Trans Atlantic (Spoiler Alert: It looks awful, and it's from the Torygraph)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/cramped-cabins-loo-future-flying/
@travelinwilly It's obviously far from ideal, but at least there are 54 extra legroom economy seats. That said, regular seats are 30" of pitch, which is decidedly not great on a long flight. Same on the XLR for UA.
While AA barely has any extra legroom on its XLR, at least economy seating is at 31".
Just a note on CLEAR+. I've historically found it to be annoying to use and a marginal benefit at best, so I just stopped paying for it, even though I have a statement credit from Amex Plat. In particular I found the "family membership fee" of $125/pp to be egregious.
They have naturally been emailing me non-stop about rejoining but for the first time (that I noticed at least) their "it's wedding season" pitch said that they would include up to 3 family members for free (in addition to $70 off - not that the $ off means anything if you have a credit in the first place). Naturally I took a look at the fine print and it clarified that the family members would only be free for the first year and then would be billed at $125/pp, and they would enroll you in auto-renewal. (Kids are free). So... just a bit misleading.
In an age of TSA Touchless ID (which is excellent) it's just hard to see what CLEAR+ adds from a "this is technology that will get you through security faster" perspective. Sure it's a different line, and lines can sometimes be longer or shorter. But it's quickly becoming anachronistic, even though it may have been in line with what TSA Gold+ was envisioning in terms of private entrants to the airport security market. But now that TSA Gold+ has been scrapped... what is the point of CLEAR? I suppose it's really only useful for those that have CLEAR but do not have PreCheck?
@peter_ good call, and well done specifically reading the fine-print. There’s often a catch. If it sounds too good to be true, it often is.