Boeing has officially delivered 2,000 aircraft to China. The latest plane — a Boeing 737 MAX operated by Xiamen Airlines — marks yet another milestone for Boeing and China. It took Boeing four decades to reach the first 1,000 deliveries. But with China’s rapid growth rates, this new milestone was reached in just five years. Boeing says that currently one out of every four aircraft it’s producing is headed to China....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.When Delta originally announced their new Economy Comfort product last year, it was initially to be installed on all international flights. I’ve had the opportunity to experience it on several occasions and you can read my experience when I flew JFK-Dublin recently. In summary, it’s the same old economy seat with some more legroom and recline (plus booze)....
Delta’s SkyMiles program, which was voted Best US Airline Loyalty Program by readers in our inaugural TPG Awards, causes much rejoicing and much anguish. On one hand, Medallion members are routinely treated well, and the soft perks are appreciated by frequent flyers who lean on VIP support lines to get them out of jams.On the other, there’s the continual fall in value of the SkyMile itself. Delta has recently pegged the value of a SkyMile to 1 cent in regard to things like SkyMiles seat upgrades, making it ever more challenging to find outsized value, such as the recent 100,000-mile business class award to the Maldives....
Disney announced upcoming changes to Epcot on Thursday, including a newly designed main entrance and a new play pavilion.The still unnamed pavilion will be an interactive city — a concept that Disney says will be completely new to Epcot. The play pavilion will be located under the former Wonders of Life dome, which was more recently the Festival Center, and renderings show a colorful space with typical buildings one would find in a city, like a hotel and cinema....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.Earlier this week, news broke of two fantastic additions to Amex’s lineup of Platinum cards. At first, the new 5x points opportunity with the Platinum Card® from American Express seemed to be most notable, but for some cardholders, Amex is offering an even more appealing perk, available only with the The Business Platinum Card from American Express OPEN: a 50% rebate on points redeemed for paid airfare....
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....
Most of us don’t have 33 people we like enough to use all our hard-earned points on, let alone 33 family members. The same can’t be said for Sam Pratt, who recently treated himself and 33 of his closest relatives to a weeklong vacation in Hawaii, courtesy of a million Southwest points.We’ve written before about Southwest’s new routings to Hawaii, which began earlier this year and acted as a disrupter to decadeslong strangleholds on flight prices....
On Friday night, Mount Etna — an active volcano in Sicily — spewed glowing red lava from two fissures, lighting up the night sky. Could the eruptions affect your travel plans?The highest active volcano in Europe, Mount Etna lies on the eastern part of Sicily, near Catania. According to the Express, it is considered “one of the safest volcanoes in the world” even though small eruptions like this one can occur several times a year....
Each Saturday, we round up news stories that you might have missed from the week before. Here’s the top miles, points and travel news you might have missed on TPG this week.Here’s Your First Look at United’s Wild New 46-Polaris-Seat 767-300ER. . . Now that’s a big business class.Boeing Stock Takes a Hit After 737 MAX CrashThe 737 MAX were the fastest selling aircraft for Boeing, so the recent incidents are already impacting Boeing’s stock....
Qatar Airways will retire the Boeing 777, the backbone of its long-haul fleet, by 2024. But that will not be the end for the Triple Seven at Qatar, nor will it be the end of the TPG Award-winning Qsuite business class on the 777. Qatar Airways will replace its current crop of 777s with the newer, bigger 777 models that are known collectively as 777X.Airline CEO Akbar al Baker told Executive Traveller that the decision is part of a strategy to cut emissions....
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.This summer, I booked a round-trip ticket from Sweden to the US that would take me home at the end of one trip to Europe and back again for the start of another a month later. My flight from Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN) left early in the morning, so I wanted to make sure I was already in the city the night before....
Cruisers have a lot to look forward to these days, with several new private island ports of call in the works. There’s Virgin Voyages’ Bimini Beach Club, Disney’s second Bahamian private isle at Lighthouse Point and Perfect Day at CocoCay — Royal Caribbean’s revamped private island, also in the Bahamas, which debuted in May.Now, Royal Caribbean is doubling down on the investment — and the “perfect day” concept — with Perfect Day at Lelepa, Vanuatu....
We’ve been double-tapping our way through Instagram since 2010 — liking and tagging the most incredible destinations around the world. With each post, we’ve discovered a new sense of wanderlust through some amazing people and places we follow. To commemorate the end of the year, IG has unveiled a list of 2017’s most Instagrammed places around the world. The results? Not too surprising. So if you’re looking to rake in some likes before the new year, consider these 10 most-geotagged locations on the planet....
The Perseids, the year’s biggest and arguably most popular meteor shower, is taking place starting tonight and extends through August 13. However, peak visibility is expected between August 12 and 13, according to Time Magazine, particularly between the hours of 3am and 5am.At the time of the showers, there will be a near new moon according to Bill Cooke, a NASA meteor expert, making it among the best of 2018. The Perseids are also equipped with fireballs, which should make the show particularly vivid....
This February, TPG has been recognizing African-Americans in the aviation industry for Black History Month. Today, we’re spotlighting the work of Fly For The Culture, a nonprofit based in Charlotte, North Carolina that “focuses on promoting diversity within the aviation industry.“Fly For The Culture’s founder, Courtland Savage, hopes to improve diversity in aviation by planting the seed early.“What we do is take kids on introductory flights. Kids who have never even stepped foot on an airfield,” Courtland told The Root in November....
View this post on Instagram @robynrael checking out downtown Nashville from Bourbon Sky Bar #nashville #tennessee #rooftopbar #rooftopbarnashville #bourbonsky #bourbonskynashville #jwmarriottnashville #blonde #wanderlust #visitnashville #nashvilletn #travelusa #nashvillebars #bourbon #nashvillegram #thingstodoinnashville #jwmarriott #downtownnashville #downtownnashvilletn #tn #cocktailsinnashville #drinksinnashville #roadtrip #nashville2019 #nashvilleviews #bourbonskybar A post shared by Matt Zions (@themattzions) on Oct 12, 2019 at 6:49pm PDT View this post on Instagram View this post on Instagram @robynrael checking out downtown Nashville from Bourbon Sky Bar #nashville #tennessee #rooftopbar #rooftopbarnashville #bourbonsky #bourbonskynashville #jwmarriottnashville #blonde #wanderlust #visitnashville #nashvilletn #travelusa #nashvillebars #bourbon #nashvillegram #thingstodoinnashville #jwmarriott #downtownnashville #downtownnashvilletn #tn #cocktailsinnashville #drinksinnashville #roadtrip #nashville2019 #nashvilleviews #bourbonskybar...
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.Each year, unfortunate passengers end up missing holiday celebrations due to weather, maintenance delays or other irregular operations. But there’s another group of flyers who (at least somewhat intentionally) miss Christmas day entirely by booking a flight that departs on Dec....
Krispy Kreme announced on Monday that it plans to open a “first-of-its-kind flagship” location in the heart of New York City’s bustling Times Square.The 4,500-square-foot store, slated to open in early 2020, will feature the world’s largest “Hot Light” — the sign informing customers the doughnuts are fresh — and be open 24 hours a day for those late-night doughnut binges. It’s expected to serve more guests annually than any other Krispy Kreme location on Earth....
Beginning as early as summer 2020, a handful of US-based carriers will launch new service to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (HND), in some cases shifting flights over from the larger Narita (NRT) hub. Delta’s even planning to end service to Narita entirely, scrapping its NRT-Singapore (SIN) flight in the process.The US Department of Transportation (DOT) finalized its route approvals in August, giving the formal OK for the following flights to Haneda:American Airlines: Dallas/Fort Worth; Los AngelesDelta Air Lines: Seattle; Detroit; Atlanta; Portland, Ore....
After a number of extra long take-off rolls experienced by A340s, including one incident involving an Air France A340 departing Bogota, Air France and Lufthansa have finished a joint study of the issue, according to FlightGlobal.Back in March 2017, an Air France A340 departing Bogota experienced a low rate of rotation that effectively made the take-off roll almost 1,000 meters longer than it should have been. The result: the aircraft lifted off the end of the runway with only 140 meters to spare, at a height of about six feet, barely clearing the Instrument Landing System (ILS) at the end of the runway....
