u/omdongi

This is something I found online. It's quite interesting since even though SEA is not very strong for DL, it supposedly ranks above all of the Alaska hubs significantly. And Alaska actually ranks dead last across all hubs.

I'm not claiming to understand or give weight to what this actually means since I also think it doesn't take into account that JetBlue and Alaska have much lower operating costs than the other carriers. But maybe some industry experts can interpret this better.

This is what I found about QSI

An Airline Quality of Service Index, or QSI, is basically a way to estimate how competitive one flight or itinerary is compared with the other options in the market. Airlines and airports use it to model which flights passengers are more likely to choose and, from there, estimate market share and demand.

How It Works?

The model gives different weights to the things that tend to influence booking decisions, such as nonstop versus connecting service, schedule, frequency, and travel time. Each itinerary gets a QSI score, with a higher score generally meaning a more attractive option.

Once all of the competing itineraries in an origin-and-destination (O&D) market are scored, those scores can be used to estimate how the market should split between airlines. This is often referred to as an airline's "fair share" of the market.

I'm searching the same routes JFK to Manhattan, is there something different between the two?

International carriers starting new service can often be one of the best times for wide open calendar open availability, as the route is completely new.

For example, when JAL re-opened ORD to NRT last year, the entire calendar was available with tons of F/J awards ready to book with partners.

While it's not official, many suspect that AA is taking over this service, rather than being a net new addition. AA announced this route today, given the joint venture, the 2027 start date, and JAL downgauging to a 787 on this route, many signs point to this just being AA and JAL coordinating a route swap.

Overall, this is a less than ideal development, as this means far less partner and saver level availability. I would keep your eyes peeled and monitor your JAL bookings for 2027 on ORD to NRT, and prepare for rebooking situations if/when they occur.

MSP has improved a lot, it used to be down in the 60s, but still lags the rest of the hubs by a lot.

Not quite as good as the MSP to HND deal for 79k, but you do get to use the LAX D1 lounge!

Layovers with AA in DFW/ORD/CLT for 70k miles. I also see this from the other major hubs like PDX, SAN, SFO, or LAX. Pretty good deal I'd say, especially when most dates are 150k to 300k miles for the Alaska flight.

Otherwise there are some dates where the Alaska flight is 95k miles, but there isn't as much availability. It seems like SAN/PDX get far fewer dates for the 95k Alaska flight though.

I'd say unless you're flying from SEA, the AA deal is better because you'd need a layover anyways. SEA-based flyers can consider if 25k miles is worth the nonstop convenience.

I unfortunately am racing the 6/30 deadline for hotel bookings for my $200 credit, and I'd like to use it for a Home Away from Home booking, but I don't get that unless I already have the Gold status.

Does the Gold status apply on the account as soon as you hit the $4k spend or do you need to wait until the statement closes?

In general, the data shows that Alaska has most of the low hanging fruit covered, these are not substantially large market sizes aside from CLT. Most of these PDEWS would be too small and regional to ever be effective for Alaska to start service, the planes would be half full even if 100% of the passengers flew the nonstop.

I would say SEA to CLT is somewhat interesting one given how large the market is, and the fact that CLT is an AA hub, so there are numerous connecting opportunities on both ends that I think would be beneficial for Alaska and AA.

However, SEA to CLT is a very well-served route ranging between 3x (winter) to 5x daily (summer) depending on seasonality, with the usual being 4x daily for most parts of the year.

CLT is a very unique market from how tight of a stranglehold AA has on it. CLT has no carriers flying from CLT to the West Coast aside from AA. Every major West Coast hub route to CLT is an AA monopoly (SFO, LAX, SAN, SEA, PDX, etc.). Not even UA flies SFO to CLT, despite the Wells Fargo banking ties and the UA fortress.

However, CLT continues to be one of the fastest growing cities in the US overall, and the market size will continue to grow significantly unlike the others. Coupled with that and the Alaska/BofA ties, I would expect Alaska to launch service here eventually in the next few years.

Source: BTS

What's interesting is that Delta usually defaults to Korean for Asia connectivity. And the fact that United also has similar interline agreements with Cathay Pacific out of HKG, and none of them are in the same alliance.

I just joined Bilt recently, I wanted to check out how the mortgage stuff worked. And to my surprise, it already had an insane amount of information on me, my neighborhood, rental applications, somehow all my other credit cards have been connected to Bilt, all the way down to my mortgage loan number with Chase.

The rental stuff I can chalk up to applying to Bilt-affiliated properties. The credit card stuff is a bit weird, but maybe that has something to do with Apple Wallet. But the fact that it has my mortgage address, the exact payment amount, and every last digit of my loan number is wild.

This a little disturbing to me, given I've never shared or authorized any of this information with Bilt. I would've expected at least some sort of manual authorization process like with Plaid or something to link accounts, but this just happened automatically. Is there genuinely that much accessible information about us in this day and age, where a 3rd party can just pull up all this information on you?

I've accepted that no one really has real privacy in this modern era, but I've always had the perception that financial data is somehow more sensitive and secure, which seems like is just not true.