a Geographer's Place

As you may know from my previous blog posts , I’m usually Oneworld-loyal. In fact, I’d guess 98% of my flights since the year 2000 have been on Oneworld airlines (OW). So, I’ve always striven for elite status, mainly because the higher statuses confer international lounge access regardless of service class (e.g., “economy” or “business”). And I just like airline lounges. Holding Oneworld Sapphire status grants you access to all OW Business Lounges. The top-tier Emerald status allows you access to all OW Business and First Class Lounges. As an American Airlines frequent flyer, “Platinum” status is equivalent to OW Sapphire, and “Platinum Pro” and “Executive Platinum” are equivalent to OW Emerald. In short, if you have OW Sapphire or Emerald (irrespective of Oneworld airline), you have access to the lounges.  One caveat: if you are an American Airlines elite member traveling domestically in North America (AA sees the US, Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean as "North America"...

Recently I came across a post on one of the travel Facebook groups I follow. The person was frustrated because the card they selected and had been earning points on for five years did not have airfare transfer partners that flew from her home/preferred airport. While I could write a post about how researching beforehand could have helped, I also know the frustration of trying to book things through a travel portal/third party vendor (like non-co-branded cards  make you do). What I've noticed over the years is there's a big difference between co-branded and non-co-branded cards in terms of ease of redemption. And for the occasional traveler, the person who makes a couple trips a year for, say, maybe visiting family who live across the country, redeeming through a portal can be super frustrating. In fact, I know people who prefer to be brand loyal simply for ease of redemption. Side note: I play the points game well, and use only co-branded cards. Yes, both my wife and I have non...