One Mile at a Time

Hello from Saudi Arabia, as I just flew Saudia’s Boeing 787-10 business class on the 5hr20min flight from Amsterdam (AMS) to Jeddah (JED), as I continue my review trip. I don’t want to bury the lede — this flight absolutely blew my mind in terms of how good it was. If you can get over the lack of alcohol, this has to be one of the best business class soft products in the world. What a contrast to my Saudia flight around a decade ago — at the time, it would’ve been a compliment to call the air

We all have different habits when staying in hotels, including involving things like housekeeping. I figured I’d share my general approach with hotel housekeeping, and I’m curious to hear how the habits of OMAAT readers compare. I realize people have greatly varying approaches here… I always have the “do not disturb” sign on When I stay in a hotel, I typically have the “do not disturb” sign on from the moment I check-in until the moment I check-out. The only exception is that I might not p

Amex Membership Rewards, which is one of the major transferable points programs, has just added a new points transfer partner. Specifically, you can now move points to Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club, potentially unlocking stays at hundreds of luxury properties, including some of the most well-regarded in the world. Transfer Amex points to Leaders Club at a 4:1 ratio The Amex Membership Rewards program in the United States has just added Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) Leaders C

Air Canada has today announced that it will introduce two new premium fare categories — business class basic and premium economy basic. Details of Air Canada’s new “basic” premium cabin fares Air Canada is introducing business class basic and premium economy basic, because “demand for premium travel continues to grow, and this change aligns with our partners and industry trends.” These fare brands will be available in the Caribbean, Latin America, Mexico, South America, and in transatlanti

When you look at most KLM planes, you’ll see the name “KLM Royal Dutch Airlines” written near the front of the aircraft, and the word “KLM” written on the tail, with a crown above it. However, did you know that some KLM Boeing 777 aircraft have a different livery, which reads “KLM Asia,” and has no crown, and no “Royal Dutch Airlines” branding? I wrote about this a few years ago, but I think it’s an interesting topic that’s worth revisiting, as it’s something I get asked about with some frequ

Canada’s Porter Airlines has announced plans to reconfigure the cabins of its turboprop fleet. Airlines updating their cabins is nothing new, and the theme is typically the same — how many seats can an airline cram into a cabin, and how thin can seats be made?Well, Porter is countering that trend somewhat, and seems to be improving its seat padding, based on customer feedback. Of course I’ll reserve final judgment until I actually fly in this cabin.Porter Airlines turboprops get updated cabin in

In May 2025, Alaska Airlines added a new airline partner, in the form of Philippine Airlines. While the two airlines have now had a partnership for well over a year, we’ve finally seen the ability to redeem points added, which is long overdue, and pretty exciting.Philippine Airlines & Alaska Atmos Rewards partnership basicsAlaska Airlines has a partnership with Philippine Airlines, intended to allow Atmos Rewards members to earn and redeem points for travel on the Philippines’ flag carrier.P

JetBlue is known for its excellent Mint business class experience, though the catch is that it’s only available on select premium routes. Fortunately some time ago, JetBlue announced plans to introduce a premium product throughout the rest of its fleet, more comparable to domestic first class. This makes perfect sense, not just due to the broad travel trends we’ve seen, but also due to the premium markets that JetBlue operates in, given its particularly big presence in Boston and New York.

In 2022, Delta and Starbucks launched a loyalty collaboration, intended to reward customers from both brands. While we often see partnerships like this between travel brands (like between airlines and hotels), it’s cool to see an airline partner with a coffee chain. In 2024, we saw updates to the partnership, impacting how rewards are earned. There’s now yet another update, as the earnings structure has changed yet again, to be very similar to the original concept. Long story short, with thes

Beond Airlines launched operations in 2023, and it brands itself as the world’s first premium leisure airline. I reviewed the airline last year, and the onboard product was super pleasant. The company is headquartered in Dubai, but primarily operates flights to and from the Maldives. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be, as the airline currently has scheduled operations suspended, and plans to return this fall.Anyway, there’s now an interesting update, as Beond has just announced a major resh

Perhaps the single thing that can most positively impact your experience on a flight is having an empty seat next to you. That’s especially true in economy, where space very much comes at a premium. I think everyone wants an empty seat next to them, but not many people are actually strategic about assigning their seats in order to maximize these odds. So in this post, I’d like to talk about that in a bit more detail — what’s the best approach to maximizing your odds of having an empty seat ne

For the amount of “security theater” you’ll find at airports, it’s amazing how things sometimes slip through the cracks. Here’s a case where someone wandered an airport terminal, then snuck onto the apron, then managed to board a plane and sleep there, only to be confronted by the crew in the morning (thanks to Samo for flagging this)… Austrian Airlines plane broken into overnight in Slovakia This incident happened in the early morning hours of Thursday, July 23, 2026, at Košice Internatio

Over the years, we’ve seen the increasing trend of hotels charging either resort fees or destination fees. These are essentially junk fees intended to sneakily boost revenue.Different hotel groups have different ways they handle these fees on award bookings. For example, World of Hyatt waives these fees when redeeming points for all members, which is a nice touch. Marriott, on the other hand, doesn’t waive these fees when redeeming points.However, here’s a new one — a Marriott property in Hawaii

A few months ago we learned how United CEO Scott Kirby had reportedly approached American CEO Robert Isom about the concept of a merger. American “rejected” this for obvious reasons, arguing there was no way this would get regulatory approval. Nonetheless, Kirby made his case publicly about how this would be good for consumers. As it turns out, before Kirby approached Isom, he actually approached Delta CEO Ed Bastian about the concept of a merger between those two airlines.The idea of a Delta &a

Hello from Dubrovnik, as I just completed a cruise with Four Seasons Yachts, which is Four Seasons’ new cruising venture. I’ve been fascinated by the recent trend of luxury hotel groups launching cruise brands, and it’s wild to see how quickly this industry is evolving. Several months ago I sailed with Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, and had a great time, all things considered. Now the industry has moved even more upmarket, with the launch of Four Seasons Yachts’ first ship, Four Seasons 1. Th

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how Alaska Airlines wrongly denied a family boarding, and then kicked them off the next flight, with that second removal being due to a “clash of personalities” with the crew. There are a lot of details there, so please read those two posts before continuing to read. I won’t recap what happened, as this post will be long enough already. Well, if you were curious what the outcome was, here you have it. Long story short, Alaska conducted a thorough investigation

Lufthansa is in the process of rolling out its much anticipated new Allegris business class cabins, and so far, they’re installed on select Airbus A350-900s and Boeing 787-9s, consistently available on some long haul routes. Lufthansa has heavily marketed how its new Allegris business class product is all about choice, and that the airline offers at least five different business class seating options. The catch is that a majority of these seats are actually buy-up options, so they’ll cost you

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far! We’ve just wrapping up a cruise on Four Seasons Yachts, which has been quite the experience, so I’ll have some initial impressions on that shortly. After that, I continue my journey to Saudi Arabia, flying Saudia and Riyadh Air, which I’m looking forward to. I have no travel planned in August, which I’m very excited about, as we have something super fun launching the first week of August here at OMAAT. On the points & travel front, this wee

Airplane seating arrangements can be complicated, especially when you’re traveling with others — some airlines charge to assign seats, some airlines don’t assign seats in advance, some people may book last minute and not be able to reserve seats together, etc. There’s only so much that airline reservations agents and gate agents can do to seat people together, so often if you want to sit together, you may be relying on the kindness of strangers. In this post, I want to share my general philos

Iceland is a gorgeous country that’s well worth a visit, but flying there typically isn’t very luxurious. Outside of seasonal flights on some carriers from the United States, there’s not much flat bed service to the country (Icelandair’s premium cabin is more comparable to domestic first class in the US). Well, that’s finally set to change, as Air China is launching flights to Iceland… and you don’t even have to be coming from China to take the flight!Air China adds Copenhagen to Keflavik fifth