The bad news for Etihad Airways never seems to stop. The airline just reported a $1.28 billion loss for 2018. It’s the third consecutive annual loss for the Abu Dhabi-based carrier, even after it made significant cuts to operational costs and aircraft orders.The airline lost $1.87 billion in 2016 and $1.52 billion in 2017. The loss is lower than in previous years, but revenue also fell, from $6 billion in 2017 to $5....
Airlines around the world launch and announce dozens of new flight routes and service changes every month. Today, we’ll share just a few of the latest flights that will take to the skies this month or in the near future. Keep in mind that exact flight details (like schedules and aircraft, among other things) may change.NEW ROUTES LAUNCHED IN DECEMBER 2017Scoot Starts One-Stop Service Between Hawaii and Singapore (launched December 19)Photo by M Swiet Productions / Getty Images....
Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.If you’ve traveled on New York City’s subway or bus network, you’ve probably noticed the antiquated payment system — New Yorkers have been using MetroCards for some 25 years now, and while plastic cards beat the old token system, they’re still incredibly temperamental, and a pain to purchase and reload....
In travel and aviation, the LGBTQIA+ community faces unprecedented challenges.Transgender pilots undergoing gender reassignments must endure extensive, degrading medical examinations and psychological self-reporting in order to maintain their licenses to fly. To this day, government documents that only allow for either a male or female selection force nonbinary individuals to sacrifice being authentic to the way they see and express themselves in order to be free to travel internationally.And The Points Guy himself, and hundreds of thousands of other gay travelers, must exercise additional caution when traveling through certain areas of the world that actively persecute LGBTQIA+ (a common abbreviation for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, genderqueer, queer, intersexed, agender, asexual, and ally”) simply for being themselves....
Paine Field-Snohomish County Airport (PAE) in Everett, Washington, is the longtime home of Boeing’s Everett Factory – the largest building in the world – but lacked commercial passenger service north of Seattle even though many of the world’s airlines fly to and from the airport for maintenance and deliveries.That is about to change now as Propeller Airports reached an agreement with Snohomish County to build a two-gate passenger terminal though a Public Private Partnership (P3)....
For a limited-time only, British Airways is offering up to double Avios — and sometimes more — on purchases at some retailers through its online shopping portal, the eStore.To be eligible, you must be a member of the British Airways Executive Club. The offer for up to double Avios — and sometimes more — ends 8 March. To take advantage, head to the eStore, where you will be asked to sign in using your BA Executive Club membership number....
Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Marriott International announced Wednesday that it plans to completely remove single-use plastic straws and stirrers from its more than 6,500 locations around the world by 2019.The hotel group, which attracts more than 1 million guests every night, says it will eliminate more than 1 billion plastic straws and about a quarter billion stirrers per year....
Editor’s note: This post has been updated to reflect that commercial flights to the Seychelles will be resuming on August 1, 2020.The Seychelles are thought of as a luxury destination by most, as evidenced by the country’s initial reopening plan which only allowed visitors traveling on private and chartered flights. Beginning August 1, the Seychelles will open to even more tourists as it resumes commercial flights, but many (including Americans) still won’t be welcome....
Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.This may not come as a surprise to some, but Avianca LifeMiles is having some issues with its website. Earlier this month, we noticed that many partner awards are pricing lower than they should — as low as 3,500 LifeMiles each way for domestic United awards in economy....
If you’re a hardcore cruise fan, you probably already know this was the week of the industry’s annual monster meet-up in South Florida, known as Seatrade Cruise Global.Held this year at the Miami Beach Convention Center, the event drew more than 10,000 representatives from cruise lines, suppliers and destinations hoping to do deals involving new ships, shipboard amenities, itineraries and more. It also was — as always — a platform for cruise companies to make announcements big and small....
March 17, 2019 will be remembered as the day Southwest Airlines finally launched flights to Hawaii. Flight WN6808 departed Oakland at 11:26am and landed in Honolulu at 2:09pm. The flight was complete with hula dancing, Mai Tais and plenty of cheering. As special as it was for everyone on board, it was even more special for the Klan family; they’ve been on the past 30 inaugural Southwest flights.We got to sit down with the Klan family during the flight, and they actually have a pretty funny story as to how they ended up as some of Southwest’s most loyal flyers....
Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Virgin Atlantic has extended the life of its aging Airbus A340-600 aircraft yet again, meaning some U.S. flyers on the airline may find themselves in a far older cabin than Virgin’s A330 and Boeing 787, and especially than the brand-new A350....
Highest waitlist priority. As a result, a Premier 1K member with the above travel activity (20,000 PQPs and 54-plus PQFs) will have a total of 320 PlusPoints. This would be worth $3,200 based on the above valuation for Platinums, but I’ll add $50 thanks to the added Skip Waitlist feature. Snack boxes and Bistro on Board items cost around $10 each, and you can expect to pay $5 for an alcoholic drink....
There are some perks that are reserved exclusively for an airline’s own top flyers, even though partners and alliance members do acknowledge and take care of their peer airlines.American Airlines’ Concierge Key (CK) is one such “tier above a tier” — it sits above the top Oneworld tier of Emerald, which is how American’s Executive Platinums are recognized across the alliance. And American looks after its CK members pretty well — ground transfers to their aircraft, pre-boarding before anyone else, a meet-and-greet service, the list goes on....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.For first timers in Argentina’s capital, it’s often love at first sight. There is a reason Buenos Aires has been called the Paris of South America, after all. The melting pot of immigrants inspired the city’s wide range of architecture, from downtown’s Spanish colonial-style former Jesuit mission, Manzana de las Luces, to the Art Deco Kavanagh building, Latin America’s tallest skyscraper when it was built back in 1936....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Airfare deals are typically only available on limited dates. We recommend you use Google Flights to find dates to fly, then book through an online travel agency such as Orbitz or Expedia, which allows you to cancel flights without penalty by 11pm Eastern Time within one day of booking. However, if you’re using The Platinum Card® from American Express, you’ll need to book directly with the airline or through the Amex Travel portal to get 5x MR points....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.TPG readers have received a targeted American Express promotion offering a 10-30% bonus for transferring Membership Rewards points to JetBlue.The standard transfer rate between Amex and JetBlue is 250 Membership Rewards points for 200 TrueBlue points. However, folks are seeing three tiers of targeted bonus offers:30% bonus (250 Amex MR : 260 JetBlue TrueBlue)20% bonus (250 Amex MR : 240 JetBlue TrueBlue)10% bonus (250 Amex MR : 220 JetBlue TrueBlue)No bonus (250 Amex MR : 200 JetBlue TrueBlue)Some of our TPG Lounge members shared screenshots of their targeted promotion rates....
“Reader Questions” are now answered twice a week — Tuesdays and Thursdays — by TPG Assistant Editor Brendan Dorsey.Purchasing the right ticket for an upgrade can be confusing, time consuming and expensive. So, what’s one way to ease the burden? Buying a ticket with points through a bank’s travel portal, and then applying an upgrade to that “free ticket.” TPG reader Michael writes in asking if these tickets actually would be eligible for upgrades:[pullquote source=“TPG Reader Michael”]If I redeem my points from a credit card account such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve, Bank of America®️ Premium Rewards®️ Visa®️, etc....
Wednesday is the first day that a law punishing people convicted of having gay sex or committing adultery with death goes into effect in Brunei. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, ruler of the small and extremely wealthy nation in Southeast Asia, also happens to own the Dorchester Collection, a luxury brand that runs nine hotels in Europe and the US, through the Brunei Investment Agency.On the heels of celebrities such as George Clooney, Ellen DeGeneres, Jamie Lee Curtis and even Richard Branson speaking out about taking business elsewhere, the call for a boycott of Dorchester Collection hotels has grown even louder....
Boeing’s assembly plant in Renton, outside Seattle, is still humming along, pumping out 737s at the remarkable rate of 52 aircraft per month.In spite of the worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX fleet after two catastrophic crashes, almost two new planes per day keep rolling off the moving assembly line in the storied facility, where Boeing made in the 1950s its first passenger jet, the 707. In a statement, Boeing has said that it has “paused delivery” of the MAX to customers, but so far has not made a move to slow down the production process....
