How the shutdown may affect your trip, reclaiming old Hyatt points, change your Amex airline now and more

This week in our Frequent Miler week in review around the web, read about how the current government shutdown might affect your trip if you’ve got any national parks in your near-term travel plans, how you might be able to reclaim old Hyatt points, how I changed my Amex airline yesterday so I could use my credit before it expired and more.

Partial Government Shutdown Effects in Hawaii

Politics aside, I have a trip to Hawaii on the docket and hadn’t considered how a government shutdown might affect our plans while on the islands before reading this post from Jeffsetter Travel. While the inconveniences are minor in many instances (and certainly in comparison to working without being paid), you may need to reconsider your lodging situation if you were counting on a camping/cabin reservation in one of the national parks in the near future. I’m sure that’s applicable beyond just Hawaii — so it’s worth keeping an eye on your chosen park’s website to what is open and what isn’t.

World of Hyatt May Owe You Unclaimed Hyatt Points (YMMV)

Based on the comments on this post from The Reward Boss, it sounds like there was some initial success with this and then things may have changed, but it might be worth a short phone call to see if there are any old points you can reclaim. While my first reaction was that this didn’t seem right if you’d consumed the stay, another part of me figures that if the hotel never claimed the compensation from Hyatt, it clearly wasn’t all that critical to its bottom line. In some cases, a hotel that didn’t claim your points may no longer be a Hyatt hotel at all, so it seems like there isn’t much harm in trying. Go in with low expectations and let us know if you get a good surprise.

CASE CLOSED: SWEET VICTORY OVER SWISS!

Matthew at Live and Let’s Fly writes about the persistence that is sometimes necessary to get the compensation you’re due — the airline isn’t necessarily going to back down without a fight. If you’ve been following his posts on that sort of thing, I think you’ll join me in saying bravo on this fight and a well-written post.

Pro Tip: How to Change Your Amex Platinum Preferred Airline for Credits AFTER the Cutoff Date!

While I’ve heard of people being able to change their Amex Platinum airline selection beyond the deadline, I hadn’t realized how easily it could be done via chat (and how late in the year) until I’d read this post from Miles to Memories. And the timing was great: I still had $200 to use on one of our cards and I realized that I had chosen Delta and didn’t have my Platinum card on me as we were heading out of town on a road trip yesterday. Thankfully, my Platinum card was stored in my Southwest account — so I was glad that this tip from M2M helped me get my airline changed within minutes so I could make use of my credit before I’d lose it.

Public Service Announcement: Bulky Items Often Can’t Be Checked As Part Of Your Baggage Allowance (And Might Require A Seat)

Loyalty Lobby brings us a fun pro tip with this post. I don’t generally travel with my life-sized Darth Vader statue and imagine you don’t either, though I have to admit that international first and business class has sort of spoiled me in terms of what I feel like I can get away with in terms of checked luggage. I might have thought you could get away with this when flying business class. I’d have been very surprised at the thought of buying a seat for Darth — but I guess with the current Iberia promo, at least it wouldn’t cost a lot of miles.

That’s it for this week around the web. Check back soon for this week’s last chance deals.

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