Sometime between February 7 and February 28 the renovation of the Airspace Lounge in San Diego was completed, and the lounge has been renamed Aspire.
The $10 per person food and beverage credit from Amex Platinum is no longer available.
So this change devalues my Platinum card by $150-200 a year (most of my travel is solo).
Have you booked anything recently?
I’m planning a trip in July and the few available IAP options are grossly more expensive than what I can book directly with other airlines.
When I’ve spot checked before (pre-pandemic) there were some great fares.
Yeah in the last few weeks I’ve booked good discount J fares on Qatar and JAL that each saved about $400/passenger vs direct. Have also had good luck with Cathay in the past, but likely not in the future.
I am not sure, but speculate that the way this program works is that AmEx returns their agency commission to the member as a discount.
Maybe it’s my route (SAN-KUL).
The only two IAP options I get are on Delta/Skyteam and they’re more expensive by $1,400 to $2,700 compared to what I could book on Qatar or Cathay or JAL directly.
Plus I’m on the AA status treadmill, so the Oneworld options work better for that reason as well.
Yes, it usually works best when there is a discounted or restricted J class fare to work on. Then the discount is appreciable.
Do check out The RuMa hotel in KL, from the folks behind The PuLi in Shanghai. Finally, a worthy competitor to the Four Seasons in town.
I just finished booking the return (I’d already booked the outbound trip) with AA miles. Award space wasn’t available on the return when I booked the outbound segments.
Total for Business Class on JAL/Malaysia (SAN-NRT-KUL and the reverse on the return) was 140,000 AA miles + $102 in fees/taxes.
I may still buy a better return itinerary with real money, as this one has a 10-hour layover at NRT (although other options required three segments and about the same amount of time in transit)… but for now at least I have Plan A in place.
If you guys want to get into credit card churning, do yourself a favor and read up at Doctor of Credit and Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning
There’s a post about the American Express platinum card offer of 150,000 points and gold card offer of 90,000 points. You don’t need to send a PM to get it as it’s not secret.
[American Express]
[Expired] [YMMV] American Express Gold 90,000 Points + 20% Back On Restaurants - Doctor Of Credit
Amex Plat - 150K Bonus Point; Gold - 90K Referrals
The platinum offer would give you at least 156,000 points, which is worth $1,716 cash if you also have the Schwab platinum card to get the cash out ability, so $1,716 minus $695 equals over $1,000 cash for spending $6,000.
But you really should read up at Doctor of Credit and Reddit to know which cards to sign up for first. Many people go to Chase first due to the Chase’s denial if you signed up for 5 credit cards in the last 24 months.
Rip Amazon payments
Anyone remember that method 
Churning threads is way more profitable
Guys i have a question if i book award flight using aa.com from lhr-mia the flight is thru Ba but fees are astronomical like almost $300 what if i move my miles to Ba and use their Portal do you think fees will be cheaper? And thats for economy fare not even business!!
Its not AA, its LHR. Known to have some of the highest fees tacked on when booking award flights for fuel surcharges.
why don’t you just check?
Doesn’t work that. BA charges a Fuel surcharge that AA passes on to its customers on Award customers. if your goal is LHR you’ll have to either book direct on AA or connect somewhere else like MAD
@Sharif This. BA charge YR fees AKA a fuel surcharge and is known to have some of the highest fuel surcharges. Booking with a different carrier is the easiest route.
BA does have astronomical YQ surcharges but LHR also has a departure tax(forgot what it’s called)which is applied no matter which airline you fly. If it’s a business flight $300 makes sense. Economy should be closer to $200.
If you book with UR or MR it’s essentially a revenue ticket so the tax will be included in the price.
Some people fly out from a nearby city (Dublin, Paris) to avoid this.
I was thinking of flying back from Paris for this reason! Hopefully i will find award availability!
Ok guys I finally gave in and got the amex plat for 150k signup bonus!! They been emailing about this for a while and im planning my euro trip in September! I guess it will come in handy and i have a csp as well for backup!
Is there a special way to get this? I keep seeing the standard 100k offer but would very well pull the trigger for 150k