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British Airways has made it clear that there will be big changes coming November 16, 2011 with their new Avios program. Unfortunately, they have not been clear about exactly what these changes will be for their North American customers, besides telling us that their current partner award charts will go away and will be aligned with their British Airways/Iberia awards.While the uncertainty is unsettling because the changes go into effect as soon as we learn about them, they recently released the Avios award chart for Iberia flyers, which basically tells us what to expect from a US perspective if what they say about standardizing redemptions across the board is true....

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.By now, you’ve probably seen or at least heard about the United incident from this past weekend. As TPG pointed out in his response to how he got the United situation wrong, this wasn’t the traditional overbooking ordeal....

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.Cathay Pacific offers a excellent in-flight product — in first class, business, premium economy and even coach — but there’s one area where the carrier’s sorely lacking: connectivity. With many of the airline’s flights running 10 hours or longer, that’s simply unacceptable....

The death toll in one of the most deadly aviation accidents in Cuban history rose to a total of 111 victims Monday night.Grettel Landrove, a 23-year-old Cuban student, succumbed to her injuries from Friday’s crash in a hospital in Havana. Landrove suffered “severe traumatic lesions” and died on Monday, according to Cuban state-run media reports.Two survivors of the crash remain in critical condition — both are Cuban women with severe injuries such as burns and other trauma that have a high risk of complications, the state-run media outlets reported....

Update 1/9/17: An Alaska Airlines spokeswoman has now provided the following statement to TPG, which confirms what we originally reported:We understand that many Mileage Plan members have questions about a surprise 10,000 mile gift that started appearing in some accounts last night, and we wanted to help put some of the mystery to rest. We can’t wait to show members of both programs what more to love looks like with Alaska Mileage Plan, and decided to kick things off with a 10,000 mile bonus award to thank our guests who have been loyal members of both Elevate and Mileage Plan....

I was looking for a special flight experience for my wife as we traveled to the Philippines to visit her family. My mission: to find the coziest seat configuration at the most affordable price, accomplished as I was able to book United award tickets from Orlando to Manila on Asiana Airlines. Here are the details from my flight aboard Asiana’s 777-200ER from San Francisco to Seoul in Business Smartium Class.Booking Inspired by this post about the best business-class seats for couples, I hunted for Business Saver awards to Manila....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here – Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express, Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express, Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite MastercardBoth 2013 and 2014 have seen a trend in loyalty program devaluations. Hilton kicked off the devaluation parade in early 2013, followed by Delta and United over the past several months. Even Southwest devalued their Rapid Rewards program at the end of March, a challenge to their reputation as “The Friendly Airline....

TPG reader Donna tweeted me to ask:@thepointsguy– “I’m a Hyatt Diamond member and my sister wanted to give me 12,000 points from her account. Is it easy for her to do so?“Hyatt actually makes it really easy to combine points. You can do the points transfer for free; you just have to fill out an award request form on Hyatt.com that will allow you to combine points. Once you fill out the form, email it to goldpassport@hyatt....

Big changes are coming to American Airlines upgrade lists starting this Saturday. Effective May 20, the upgrade order will undergo a fundamental shift from being based on the time of your request to being based on how much you’ve spent on American Airlines in the last 12 months.These changes were originally unveiled last June and were expected to kick in sometime this year. However, we had no timeline regarding when these changes were going to go into effect until now — just days before the changes happen....

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.Hyatt recently announced that they are launching a co-branded Visa credit card. (Application link)For the $75 annual fee, you get:1) Two free nights at any Hyatt (including Park Hyatt) after $1,000 spend within the first 3 months.2) Instant Platinum status, which means 15% bonus points and enhanced customer service3) 3 Gold Passport points per dollar spent at Hyatt hotels4) 1 Gold Passport point per dollar spent on all other purchases5) No foreign transaction fees6) Lost baggage/ trip insuranceOverall, if you use the free nights at top tier hotels, its roughly a sign-up value of 44,000 points- pretty good in the scheme of hotel cards and on-par with the 30,000 Starwood promo that was run earlier this summer....

St. Patrick’s Day came a little early at an airport in Russia. On Thursday morning, an airplane carrying $368 million in gold and other precious metals fell out of the cargo hatch of an AN-12 shortly after taking off from Yakutsk, Russia.According to Russian news outlets, a damaged door handle is to blame for the loss of the precious metals. The cargo plane, operated by Air Nimbus, continued to drop more gold as it increased its altitude — gold was found as far as 16 miles away from the airport....

Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here: Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express, Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit CardTPG reader Noah tweeted me to ask:@thepointsguy “Which card should I get? The American Express Gold Premier Rewards credit card with the 50k bonus or Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier credit card with the 50k bonus?“I generally don’t answer questions like “Which credit card is better?...

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: As of 9:15am EST Thursday, Southwest’s website is back up and running. According to the carrier, most of the systems are back online this morning following yesterday’s outages. However, recovery will take some time, so if you’re flying with Southwest in the next few days, it’s best to call ahead and make sure there are no cancellations or delays....

During the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen our fair share of passenger-related incidents while on a plane. But last night, fights erupted at the Spirit Airlines ticket counter at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL) between passengers, airline employees and law enforcement.Chaos broke out late Monday night after the ultra-low-cost Spirit Airlines canceled multiple flights from the airport, leaving travelers stranded. When some travelers in Terminal 4 became agitated because the lines were so long, they took their frustrations out on one another — and airline employees....

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.Star Alliance member US Airways is currently running a 100% bonus on purchased miles. So, for less than $1500 you can buy 50,000 miles and with the bonus (which posts immediately), you end up with 100k- enough for a Swiss/Lufthansa/Continental/United/US flight to Europe in business class....

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.While the Italian city of Pisa may be best known for its leaning tower — and all the fascinating photo-ops that go along with it — the city’s culture commissioner, Andrea Ferrante, recently announced it’ll be adding a Ferris wheel to the site as a way to help attract even more tourists....

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.When the US and Cuba struck an agreement to allow nonstop flights between the two countries a year ago, the floodgates opened as multiple US airlines requested dozens of routes to the island nation. It was clear, even at the time, that the supply of flights could very well outstrip the demand, something that’s now proven to be the case, as both American Airlines and JetBlue have cut back service over the last few months....

United’s new Polaris business-class seat will launch with the airline’s first 777-300ER in early 2017, but business and first-class passengers will experience the Polaris “soft product” — improved meals and service, Saks Fifth Avenue bedding, new amenity kits and a new O’Hare lounge — beginning on December 1.With that launch now less than three months away, United decided to operate a test run on a flight from Newark to Paris earlier this week....

This week on Twitter, TPG follower Laura wanted to know how Southwest Airlines deals with fare changes:"@thepointsguy do you know how SWA does fare changes? Say my flight drops in price and I want to rebook?“Southwest makes it very easy to change your ticket, without having to pay extra fees. All you have to do is call up Southwest customer service at 1-800-I-FLY-SWA and explain to the representative that the price of your flight dropped, and ask to be rebooked at the price of the new flight, and you’ll automatically get a voucher for future travel....

Today, I want to share a story from TPG reader Frank, who overlooked a crucial detail while booking a hotel room. Here’s what he had to say:Early this year, I planned a trip with my husband to Decatur, Georgia for a square dancing event. We wanted to stay within walking distance, and that narrowed our choice down to two properties: the Courtyard by Marriott and the Super 8.Under normal circumstances I’d choose Courtyard all the way, but it was over $250 per night, which seemed like quite a lot for a Courtyard property not situated in a premium area....