News and notes from around the interweb:
- Don’t make a booking with PointsHound… until tomorrow. A little birdie tells me that Tuesday mid-day PointsHound will be launching a “double earning promotion” such that a reservation that would normally earn 3000 miles will instead earn 6000 miles. The promotion will run for bookings made through August 31.
- I mentioned on Friday that the list of IHG Rewards hotels participating in PointBreaks was out, so you could see which hotels would be bookable for just 5000 points per night. Booking is now available online for stays through October 31.
- Star Alliance member EVA Airways is bringing a Hello Kitty 777-300ER to its Taipei – Los Angeles route. With 3 daily Los Angeles roundtrips, we do not yet know which flight will get this aircraft. But the very idea of Hello Kitty everything is just awesome. And business class award space on EVA Airways is really, really good.
- American’s Admirals Clubs are getting new self-service cappuccino machines. You wouldn’t think that’s cause for joy, but it is.
American’s lounges are generally nicer physical spaces than United’s, but there’s very little in the way of complimentary snacks. You can generally order off of a menu, but I find most of the food for purchase in the lounge quite bad (the food in the D30 club in Miami is an exception, as is of course the food in the Los Angeles and to a lesser extent New York JFK first class Flagship lounges).
Fortunately the lounge staff don’t general enforce a no outside food or drink rule the way I’ve seen many United lounge agents do, so there are options. Nonetheless, more coffee choices is a good thing.
- San Francisco International airport will be getting food trucks 11am – 2pm on Thursdays on the departures level of terminal 1 (near the entrance for Southwest). What would be even better is if you could bring all the foods through the TSA checkpoint, but sadly the War on Water continues. (HT: sobore on Milepoint)
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Gary, is your PointsHound referral link, which offers “level 2” status, still valid?
@surffnutt3000 – they haven’t told me it ended, so I assume you will still get level 2. In addition, I was told that “from now on” when you sign up with my link you get 500 bonus miles instead of the standard 250 after first booking (because I give up the miles earned for referring you).
Re U.S. Airways, does anyone know if one buys miles (during the current promotion) using the U.S. Airways credit card will points accrue at 2 miles per dollar or is it processed by the third party?
@Stuart Falk – US Airways miles purchases are processed by points.com so do not get coded to earn double miles
Thanks Gary. Then I’ll pay with my Amex Starwood Card.
The coffee machines sound nice, but they’re actually reconstituting powdered coffee substitute (and, I think, milk powder), so the end results are pretty vile.