Saturday Roundup

In today’s roundup, it’s a great time to fly United, Chase removes Priority Pass restaurant access from the last major card that had that feature, and Alaska has launched a subscription plan.

Now you can pool United Miles

United now allows you to pool miles with up to four other people. I’m a big United fan, and this change makes their product even more appealing, especially (but not only) if you often travel with others. 

Now, you don’t necessarily need to pool points to make a great trip happen. For example, we flew to Japan by each of us opening an AA Aviator card and booking our flights separately. And I was able to get us both to Italy with just the Delta Skymiles I had on hand in my own account. But sometimes the math doesn’t work out. If a dream flight is available for 50k miles and you have 75k in the bank but your partner only has 25k, you might be out of luck. At best, one of you might drain your transferable points (Bilt or Chase points, in United’s case) to book the flight, but that might just place you back in the same situation later when one of you ends up short on those points. With points pooling, you don’t have to worry about this. If two tickets cost 100k miles and you and your travel partner have 100k miles combined, you can book it regardless of who had what balance individually.

It’s not necessarily just partners and groups that can benefit from this, though. There are a lot of ways to earn MileagePlus miles from United Airlines. In addition to flying, I earn them when eating out, booking Airbnbs and Vrbos, and occasionally shopping online. And my parents earn them occasionally, but will probably never accumulate enough to book a flight of their own. With pooling, though, their earnings won’t go to waste. I could simply use their miles on my next redemption, whether that’s for a vacation or to fly them out to visit me. Your mileage (ahem) may vary, but this makes it just slightly easier to get value out of the MileagePlus program. 

The United app can now automatically give you better seats

As I said, I am very much pro-United, and one of the reasons for that is their great app. And that app is getting even better. Now, you can select your seat preferences and the app will automatically reassign your seat if it becomes available. Stuck in the middle seat? Set a preference for aisle or window and you’ll be moved if one of those seats frees up. You’ll also receive a notification about the change. This is a huge benefit, especially for people like me with middle seat allergies. 

Alaska Airlines has a new subscription service

With Alaska Access, flyers willing to spend $60 annually can receive early access to Alaska sales, a free in-flight wifi session each month (usually $8), and a personalized fare page to help you find the absolute cheapest deals going (in both points and miles) to your dream destination of choice.

At first glance, this is just part of the subscriptionization of everything, and a concerning development in the aviation space. (Mini-rant: I recently upgraded to a new, non-ancient computer, and I learned that I can no longer buy Microsoft Word, but rather have to rent it annually.) It’s not that hard to find flight deals with resources like Google Flights and Alaska’s own published award charts. I like to use flights to watch downloaded Netflix episodes on my Kindle, so the wifi doesn’t appeal to me. Besides, if you’re a T-Mobile customer, you can already use the wifi for free on Alaska (and other airlines, too). Delta already offers free wifi on most flights, and you can get some free wifi access on AA with the Aviator card. As for the sales, I don’t see slightly earlier access to sales, most of which I wouldn’t be in a position to take advantage of, as a major selling point. Alaska fanatics may see things differently. 

I am curious to see (a) if other airlines will start following suit, and (b) if Alaska might add this as a perk to their co-branded credit card. If one airline finds a way to squeeze more revenue from customers, the competitors usually aren’t far behind. If so, I hope it is at least a more compelling product. But given that the benefits are relatively minimal, it seems like a great benefit to get people to sign up for Alaska cards that wouldn’t actually cost the airline that much to offer.

Chase is taking away the Sapphire Reserve’s Priority Pass restaurant benefit

Since Capital One stopped offering Venture X cardholders Priority Pass restaurant benefits in early 2023, the Chase Sapphire Reserve has been the only major premium credit card offering a Priority Pass with not just the ability to access airport lounges, but also to get credit (usually $28 per diner) towards meals at select airport restaurants. Although I only got to use it twice before it was taken off my Venture X, the restaurant benefit offered a great way to eat for nearly-free in the airport and a decent alternative when a Priority Pass lounge was not available or convenient.

Alas, the Sapphire Reserve is following suit with Capital One and Amex and cutting out restaurants from the Priority Pass benefits that come with card membership. 

While I haven’t done a full review yet, I’m not a big fan of the Reserve. Although its earning structure is very solid (3x points on dining and travel, up to 10x when booking travel via Chase) and the rewards program excellent (combining a 1.5¢ minimum value when booking travel with Chase with excellent transfer partners like Hyatt and United), the $550 annual fee is only offset by $300 in statement credits toward travel. With so many of its benefits matched by other cards with lower (usually $0) net annual fees, I thought it was hard to justify investing in the Reserve unless you were already a diehard for Ultimate Rewards or one of Chase’s transfer partners. Although the restaurant benefit was a small one in the grand scheme of things, losing it means losing one of the only clear advantages the Reserve had over its competitors.