Rapid Travel Chai

On my mind: miles and points blogs today dedicated multiple posts not to the latest airline passenger tabloid news, instead to letters arriving in the mail that the Chase IHG card’s anniversary certificates from May 1, 2018 will be capped at properties currently priced at 40,000 IHG points or less. The official list of non-eligible hotels oddly includes some that are 40,000 points/night. 330 hotels out of the 5,000+ are now off limits. It will be interesting to hear what compensation Chase gives, if any, to the inevitable complaints (from people who may not evne used the card once a year for purchases).

My wife and I received these letters for our cards. We are not thrilled, even with the feeling of inevitability. Airlines and hotels choose to copy competitors rather than maintain what really distinguishes them. I’ll have more to say on the business aspect of it.

Hacks:

• United Mile Play: check to see if your MileagePlus account is targeted to earn bonus miles.
• LifeMiles now lets you buy elite qualifying miles for award flights.
• Best two-card “keeper” combinations for the average Joe.

Travels:

• China Airlines Ontario to Taipei inaugural ceremony.
• Fiji Airways announces record profit for 2017.
• Obituary: Virtuoso co-founder Jesse Upchurch.

Events:

• H&M, a fashion giant, has a problem: $4.3 billion in unsold clothes.
• China’s feminist emperor Wu Zetian. I am not sure that she was explicitly feminist in the modern sense. She did kick ass and have guts. That’s her face, it is believed, on Boddhisattva Maitreya at the UNESCO-listed Longmen Grottes.
• NASA twins study confirms astronaut’s DNA actually changed in space.

Ideas:

• James Mattis is an Ancient Roman action hero.
• Taibbi: the legacy of the Iraq War.
• 15 years since the Iraq invasion: war and ignorance.