Award Travel News

Last week, American Airlines revealed plans to launch a new daily flight between Chicago and Tokyo, which is a route resumption, and also represents American’s return of Asia flying out of Chicago.

We recently saw World of Hyatt make massive changes to its award pricing. While the program is maintaining a published award chart, it has increased the range of pricing, meaning that peak season award stays cost more than ever before. This is clearly part of Hyatt’s efforts to improve the profitability of its loyalty program.

Hotels aren’t selling you a 24-hour stay—they’re selling a shrinking window, and long-haul travelers feel it most. Arrive early, check in late; depart overnight, check out hours before you leave—so you end up paying for nights you can’t use.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has confirmed that it will move to a city-wide accommodation tax system that is based on a 3-percentage basis for hotel rates exceeding 13,000 Yen, starting April 2027. This new tax rate replaces the static 200 Yen per person currently levied […]

Hilton partnered with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) back in 2024, a collection of small, independent hotels with their own loyalty club. Hilton began rolling out SLH hotels to its platform in stages in June 2024, and the rollout was completed in late […]

In this week’s aviation news from around the world, top stories include a huge network change-up for Breeze Airways, Avelo bringing commercial service to a third airport in Dallas, Portland Airport’s redevelopment reaching completion, and British Airways and Emirates doubling...

As of June 1, 2026, Lufthansa completely stopped releasing first class award space to partner frequent flyer programs. This wasn’t the first time that had happened on a temporary basis, but as I noted, this time around definitely felt different. This ”outage” has also lasted longer than we’ve ever seen before. Now that this has consistently been the case for over a month, I’d like to take an updat

When Chase refreshed the Sapphire Reserve® card and launched the Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ card last year, it did away with the previous 1.5 cents per point (cpp) redemptions everywhere via Chase Travel℠ and replaced them with Points Boosts. This feature gives holders of either card the opportunity to redeem Ultimate Rewards points for increased […] The post Chase Sapphire Reserve® and Reserv

Accor and H World Group are integrating direct booking and loyalty across China, Europe, and the Middle East, with status recognition, member rates, and points earning rolling out through 2026.