Whether you’re looking to get rewarded for walking around your hotel, you want a way to score flat-bed seats to Hawaii that you probably haven’t considered, or you booked Air France business class and want the best seats in the house, this weekend’s Saturday Selection has something for you. Read on for more from around the ‘net.
The Points And Miles Fallout From Silicon Valley Bank
If you missed the news yesterday, a bank in California that specialized in serving startups failed yesterday after a run on the bank. Gary at View from the Wing covers some of the most bizarre pieces of this — from their inclusion on a list of “Best Banks” at the beginning of the week to the steak dinners at an event the night before the bank was shut down. Brex is currently looking to attract customers who fled SVB in time, though JT Genter at Award Wallet covered their no-notice devaluation yesterday. Crazy times.
Air France’s new business class seat
I’ve flown Air France business class before and I thought it was fine, but I wasn’t overly enthused. It looks like my feelings on that might soon change: One Mile at a Time writes about a new Air France business class seat that looks awesome. The catch is that the best seats in the house can only be assigned 72hrs in advance unless you have Air France elite status. That’s a great tip. I’ll be flying Air France business class this summer and I’ll definitely be looking to see if we can snag these seats for the extra space.
Under the Radar: An intriguing way to fly to Hawaii
Points Miles & Bling covers an option to get to Hawaii in lie-flat seats that I’d never considered: upgrading paid Hawaiian Airlines tickets. What makes this really intriguing is that Points Miles & Bling reports so much upgrade space on example dates at relatively peak travel periods. I don’t currently have an ExpertFlyer subscription, so I can’t check for wider availability right now — and I’m still not thrilled by the prospect of paying 50K miles + the cost of a cash ticket, but I could certainly imagine that many people would be given the distance and ordinary cash cost for such seats.
Lufthansa First Class Suite Plus
One Mile at a Time has renderings of the new Lufthansa First Class and it looks pretty cool — except for the fact that once it launches (and it sounds like that will begin next year), I just can’t see ever being able to score more than 1 first class seat again (and even that will be a small miracle with what looks like effectively 3.75 seats in the first class cabin). I’ve had a number of international first class experiences, but I haven’t yet experienced Lufthansa first….and it sounds like if I don’t do it this year, it may not happen. I’m thinking it’s not likely that I’ll get my first class duckie.
Walk 10K Steps a Day To Earn 30K Marriott Points This Spring Near Zion National Park
In a highly niche promotion, Thrifty Traveler shares that a specific Marriott properties is offering 30K Marriott points when you book and complete a two-night stay by April 30th and show proof that you walk 10K steps each day of your stay. I see some two-night stretches that come to $562 with taxes, so if you’re interested in this Autograph Collection property, this could be an awesome rebate since our Reasonable Redemption Values peg the value of the points around $240. That’s definitely not mattress run-worthy, but it’s a great rebate and I think it should stack with the current promotion for double elite nights and 1K bonus points per night if you complete your stay by April 23rd.
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The info regarding using Hawaiian miles to upgrade paid Hawaiian economy flights is so useful. I’m definitely checking out the other articles on that blog and bookmarking it.
The code for Flex and Flex Upgrade are the same, but Saver and Saver Upgrade are different. As another commenter (Sheri) at Points Miles and Bling mentions, that makes it easy to check for Flex Upgrade space (presumable available if Flex awards show as available online) but impossible to check for Saver Upgrade space (because a Saver award may be unavailable but there may still be Saver Upgrade availability).
Do you know of any way to check for Saver Upgrade availability online without an Expert Flyer subscription?
Thanks Nick for the shoutout – and thanks for the comment Eric – PMB team has recently expanded as of Jan – hopeful that it makes for some good reading for you in future too.
Glad some were able to find the article useful. As I mentioned in the article – I managed to snag saver seats which was a steal outright… I’m eagerly awaiting the new products and hopeful the new capacity makes its way to award seats as well.
Would love to hear if anyone else has a good way to check for saver upgrade space with EF, short of calling into Hawaiian Airlines of course – but haven’t come across a savvy way to find it yet without using EF.
This is exactly how we booked our first class tickets on Hawaiian for our vacation in February! Worked a treat.
Nick, SVB was a merchant services processor for Plastiq. Obviously, Plastiq will adapt its operations. But, an unanswered question is to what extent SVB has funds owing to Plastiq and, if any, to what extent full payment is impaired. If payment is impaired, might there be risks to Plastiq as an ongoing concern and might consumers be at risk? It might be prudent for consumers to let the dust settle.