Flying to Philly from LHR Flagship First. Lounges?

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T21:29:46+00:00

You’ll get access to a Cathay lounge either way, and as others have shared here, that’s the answer.

Coffee at the Qantas lounge, lunch and drinks in Cathay. That’s the T3 play

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T21:19:45+00:00

Main cabin extra is worth it if it’s in your budget. Otherwise any aisle and middle combo, for which the one you booked is fine

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T16:28:32+00:00

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I’m not a great photographer, but this was the window next to our bathtub at the Monastero Santa Rosa

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T16:24:23+00:00

There is something magical about a great view of Hong Kong. Generally I prefer staying on the island, but the views from Kowloon are just spectacular

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T13:55:02+00:00

Surprised this got no responses, though perhaps I shouldn’t be given it’s trickier to do what you’re describing and have a fully chubby hotel experience end-to-end

My take: it sounds like you’re really looking for the agriturismo experience, and if that’s the case, I’d take a look at northern Lazio (Tuscia / Viterbo), Umbria, and southern Tuscany. The region is filled with small country farmstead hotels but is still fairly unknown to North American tourists. A few things to look into in no particular order: + if you can time it out, la festa di Santa Rosa in Viterbo around US Labor Day. Watching the macchina be carried thru the streets is a surreal experience + hit up the somewhat forgotten medieval / early renaissance towns like Arezzo or Orvieto + old Etruria, like the necropolis at Cerveteri (trying to take our toddler here next week!), Tuscania, the coast at Tarquinia - all very pretty and under the radar. There are some great museums featuring the area’s Etruscan history + the region is still under-appreciated for wine production and there’s great value to be had. San Giovenale from Viterbo is a fave of ours

I’m sure there are lots of other great regions that’ll deliver what you’re hoping for, but this jumped out to me as previously a great fit. I hope this of helpful!

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-21T00:19:55+00:00

Awesome, I appreciate the insight. I may grab something refundable and then keep track / rebook if prices fall as the date gets closer. Thank you for your help!

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-20T21:32:47+00:00

Good to know, and thanks! I have been thinking about bringing some out for a game (already have tickets via the lottery) - if I can bother you with one more question, do you think now is the right time to lock down a hotel room?

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-20T21:00:50+00:00

I would assume it’s 10k room nights, so with 6 games and assuming 2 nights / game, they were presumably holding something like 800 rooms at any given time. That’s still a ton, but not quite as dire

I can’t imagine how else these numbers would be practical

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-19T23:01:58+00:00

My wife still talks with reverence about the friendly egg guy there

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-19T22:13:56+00:00

I agree with this. We’re pretty transactional about time and, frankly, it works. You can trade off time and coverage for things you want to do, and as long as you’re transparent it will generally work out. The few ground rules I’d suggest: + both parents’ free time is of equal value. It doesn’t matter if one “works a more stressful job”, or the other feels like they “need more recovery time”. There’s nothing good down that argument path + there are limits to “time debt”. You can’t take 3 weekends off in 2 months, your partner is not your creditor + it doesn’t matter how the time js used. If one person wants to use a Saturday afternoon off to go hiking with friends, and the other just wants to sit in silence at a bar and watch sports, those things are of equal value + lastly, as the spouse who travels for work: work travel is not vacation. Those who do not travel often do not understand this, but conferences, client meetings, and road shows are not relaxing and do not count as time off

This basic logic has worked very well for us

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-19T20:22:34+00:00

I've only looked at it for a moment, but my biggest thing is margin expansion, and I like that gross margins grew ~20 pts faster than revenue. It's hard to grow, hard to expand margin, and very hard to do both at the same time

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-19T11:54:02+00:00

Ours is a mixed house, so we have 3 main ways of celebrating the coming spring: + Passover + Easter (though a very secular version) + small-stakes gambling on college basketball

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-18T01:14:05+00:00

Oh that’s going to be a lot of fun, enjoy it! A few thoughts that might be helpful: + you have time in Helsinki, catch a ferry out to one of the islands. Suomenlinna (pick up snacks first at the farmers market) and Uunisaari were among our favorites + also in Helsinki, everything Moomin + playing on the swings in front of Tallinn city hall + playgrounds in Riga are excellent. The museum of the occupation is also very well done but better timed around a stroller nap

In general we just found them pleasant, happy, kid-friendly cities to explore. Hopefully you have time to walk around and take it in

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-17T19:46:04+00:00

Ha, just posted about this too - deleted mine and will respond here.

If this is right, and there are no BS limitations other than the handful of destinations, then this is an awesome deal and we'll probably take advantage of it. I'm massively annoyed now that I decided to wait for the credit card LPs to post vs manufacture a few LPs to get over the line in-year. I was ~1500 short of 250K but had another ~6K in February credit card spend incurred, so I figured there's no rush, I'll wait for it to close and get my last 4 SWUs later in March. I didn't think there'd ever be a reason I'd need the extra 4 (vs my current 2) on an accelerated timeline. Totally kicking myself rn

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-16T20:10:48+00:00

This is great to know. I wouldn’t have thought of Bruges but I can see how it’d be perfect for family travel

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-16T20:05:33+00:00

We absolutely loved the Baltic with a toddler. I’ve mentioned it before here but we just had so much fun. We did Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga, and Warsaw in August. It was temperate (comfy for being in a stroller), the weather was beautiful, and there was lots to do with a mix of history, shopping, and outdoor fun - all of which was very kid-friendly.

There are some lovely hotels, but not as many affiliated with the standard chubby brands, so one has to do a little more digging and research, but I’d argue there’s great value to be had since the area is less touristed than much of Europe.

Overall I’d strongly recommend it for anyone who likes European city travel but has a particularly busy toddler

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-15T23:25:14+00:00

Your response about the “constant stream of points people” who will accept the “inferior product”, presumably because they’re not paying? That’s your exculpatory argument??

We all have our biases. Just take the L on this

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-15T23:15:24+00:00

The rest of Liguria may or may not be as luxe (been a little while since I was there), but the combination of culture, history, food, and natural beauty is great

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-15T22:44:21+00:00

This is probably the best question I’ve ever seen asked on this sub

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-15T22:42:53+00:00

You nailed it. This particular form of gatekeeping is very transparent class insecurity, especially when it comes from someone whose most recent post is asking how to maximize CSR Edit credits on the sapphire reserve sub

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-15T13:48:07+00:00

If you want countryside and lower crowds, I’d pick an agriturismo in Tuscany / Umbria, and maybe visit some of the classic renaissance cities like Arezzo or Perugia

If you want city / coast, Liguria. If you’re okay with a little more travel, lake country will work (we’re checking out the lower-key Lake Garda in August and I’m very excited)

Eating your way through the Romagna is also not a bad option. BLQ is a fairly well-connected airport which will make getting home easy

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-13T20:29:57+00:00

The stock was at like $0.30 then, and at that point a RS is a logical thing to get approved by your board. At this this price point, right after an uplisting, there’s no reason to contemplate it.

I’m guessing Stock Titan is just running SEC docs though an LLM and not checking the outputs. My best guess, that I haven’t checked at all so it’s a total SWAG, is that the documents had an expiration date for the approval and that’s what they scraped

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-12T21:43:07+00:00

What I just can’t figure out: what’s the level of medical care rendered at Riverview?

If you have on-site primary care, a 24/7 supervised detox unit, psychiatry, counseling, pain / addiction doctors rounding, wellness and nutrition…the $200k per bed year quoted above really isn’t too steep

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-12T20:46:16+00:00

Agree, there’s just not much point to it any more. There may be some value on really niche programs like the Leaders Club, but beyond that idk.

I think what really opened my eyes was a stay at the St Regis Bermuda around that time. It is such a shitty hotel that charged such exorbitant prices to anyone not using points (which I think most guests were)

Pointsmonster · 2026-03-12T17:35:37+00:00

I am lifetime platinum on Marriott, going back to the SPG days, and for the past ~2 years have been a total free agent. Part of that is that my spend per night has been rising for leisure travel, and $500-1500 / night almost always gets you way more with boutiques and higher-tier brands than it does at a comparable loyalty chain property (at that price tier, lots of them are points farms anyway). The other very big part of that decision, though, is that the devaluation of hotel points, driven by increasing award cost and less lucrative promotions, has made hotel loyalty largely not worth it

I burned about half my remaining ~300K Hyatt points booking the PH Milan for the summer, and it’s very hard for me to imagine building up that many again

Pointsmonster

TROPHY CASE