Bilt Adds Amtrak, Aeroplan Gets Better, and Can an Airplane Have Too Many Premium Seats?

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Ed and Richard are back together after a weekend in New York—and before they can get to travel, there are some important matters to resolve. Richard has strong opinions about restaurant eggs, Ed has an explanation for his highly unusual chicken-wing-eating technique, and Julian and Jillian apparently think a perfectly reasonable honeymoon itinerary involves going from the Maldives to Lapland to Iceland.

Eventually, travel news breaks out.

First up is a partnership Richard knows particularly well: Bilt Rewards has added Amtrak Guest Rewards as its 26th transfer partner. Richard says the deal took roughly 14 months from the first phone call to launch and marks Amtrak's first traditional transfer partnership since Chase ended its relationship in 2015. Transfers are 2 Bilt points to 1 Amtrak point, and Richard argues the economics can still work because of the relatively high value of Amtrak points—especially when cash fares get expensive.

There's also a follow-up to last week's Citi Strata Elite discussion. Listeners point out a potentially powerful pairing with Citi Double Cash: earn effectively 2 ThankYou Points per dollar on everyday purchases if you pay the balance in full, combine those points with Citi Strata Elite, and then transfer them to American Airlines AAdvantage. For someone specifically trying to build an AAdvantage balance, Richard thinks the strategy deserves consideration.

Then Ed and Richard discuss a new software issue affecting the Boeing 737 MAX. According to the information discussed on the episode, a newer software version can cause issues with certain autopilot functions around an aborted landing/go-around. Boeing has identified a workaround involving the earlier software version, but Ed questions why increasingly powerful simulation and AI tools couldn't be used more extensively to find edge cases before software reaches aircraft.

The Aeroplan credit card has also received a refresh. One new benefit provides a 15% discount on Air Canada flight rewards—and importantly, Ed says Aeroplan confirmed that it can stack with elite Priority Rewards. At the highest elite level, that creates the possibility of combining a 50% Priority Reward with the additional 15% card discount. The card is also making its fourth-night-free hotel award benefit permanent and adding a fourth-day-free benefit on car-rental redemptions.

Finally, there's a strange problem developing around the Airbus A321XLR. Premium-heavy configurations planned by American and United may need ballast in the rear of the aircraft to keep the plane properly balanced. That's particularly interesting because adding otherwise unnecessary weight requires more fuel and could eat into the very long-range capability that makes the XLR attractive for "long, thin" international routes.

That raises another question: How long are you willing to fly on a single-aisle airplane? Richard thinks a New York-to-California transcon is already approaching his limit. Ed is more willing to judge the experience by the quality of the seat rather than the number of aisles.

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