In today’s jam-packed newsletter, we’ve got a positive update to Atmos Rewards’ lap-infant policy, Southwest Airlines lounge news (& a new premium credit card to go with it), plus a whole lot more.
- 🤝 Deal of the Day: Delta One to Europe from 106K SkyMiles
- 🎙️ New Pod Alert: Delta’s Weirdest Card Offer & Google’s Huge Move
- 💛 Premium Credit Cards & Lounges? Is This Still Southwest?
- 🎉 Give $20, Get $20 … and a T-Shirt!
- 👶 Alaska Goes from Worst to First with New Infant Award Policy
- 🍻 Minneapolis: Join Us for a First Class Happy Hour!
- ✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
🤝 Deal of the Day: Delta One to Europe from 106K SkyMiles
Heat scale (out of 3): 🔥🔥🔥
Why we love it: Burn your SkyMiles flying lie-flat in Delta One business class to Europe!
Best availability from November – February to Italy & Spain. Look for limited availability over Thanksgiving, Christmas, & New Year’s, too. 🥳
Sign up now to get all the details on this deal & don’t miss the next flight deal alert.
Already a member? Log in to see all your deals. (Not seeing it? Remove your airport filters to see every deal.)
– Gunnar Olson, Thrifty Traveler Premium deal analyst
🎙️ New Pod Alert: Delta’s Weirdest Card Offer & Google’s Huge Move
📻 Delta’s Weirdest Card Offer & Google’s Huge Points Move
🗞️ Google Flights is joining the points and miles game, United’s CEO is making bold comments, Delta launched a weird (but best?) credit card offer, and the airlines are going crazy with new routes to Europe. What does all that mean? A news roundup, of course!
Watch it now on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And stay tuned for the next installment next week!
💛 Premium Credit Cards & Lounges? Is This Still Southwest?
Saturday Night Live once hilariously parodied Southwest Airlines after the airline’s Christmas meltdown of 2022, including a joke that Southwest would be opening a lounge, which guest Michael B. Jordan deadpanned was in “an active Starbucks” where “we just get there early and hold down two or three tables for ya’ll.”
The sheer idea of a Southwest Airlines lounge was a SNL gag just a few years ago. Fast forward to 2026, and it’s becoming a reality. Southwest is a totally different airline these days. Free bags? Gone. Open Seating? Gone. Basic economy fares? You bet.
Every year, Southwest becomes more and more of a normal airline. The latest evidence? Southwest is opening four lounges (with seven more planned!) and will offer a premium credit card that gives you access to them.
The airline announced Wednesday that it will open lounges in Austin (AUS), Baltimore (BWI), Honolulu (HNL), and Nashville (BNA) starting in late 2027, the first of 11 (🤯) lounges throughout its network, although the subsequent seven were not announced this week.
News of the 12,000-square-foot Honolulu lounge surfaced last October, meaning this effort has been in the works for a while already, too.
💳 Perhaps most notably, Southwest announced it would launch a new, higher-tier premium credit card next year to coincide with the lounge opening, giving cardholders access to Southwest lounges with a card that will presumably have a much higher annual fee. (The Rapid Rewards Priority Card currently tops out at $229 annually.)
SNL made us laugh at the prospect of a Southwest Lounge several years ago, but Southwest is laughing now as the once-quirky airline joins the mainstream with airport lounges and premium travel credit cards in 2027.
Check out our full breakdown of the news on our website.
– Gunnar Olson, flight deal analyst, travel reporter, and host of the Thrifty Traveler Podcast
🎉 Give $20, Get $20 … and a T-Shirt!
Refer a friend to Thrifty Traveler Premium: They receive $20 off their first year, and you receive a $20 credit toward your next renewal.
Plus, the first 25 members with an approved referral will receive a Thrifty Traveler T-shirt featuring our plane logo on the front and “Draining PTO One Flight Deal at a Time, Since 2015” on the back!
We’ll track referrals on our end and contact those who qualify. Your renewal credits will continue to stack with every successful referral, but T-shirts are limited to one per member.
Find your unique referral link here!
– Jackson Newman, senior editor
👶 Alaska Goes from Worst to First with New Infant Award Policy
If you know, you know: Adding a lap infant to an award ticket can take years off your life. For years, Alaska had a particularly infuriating infant award policy. But now … it might have the best international infant award ticket policy in the business.
Ben Schlappig from One Mile at a Time was the first to spot this change on Alaska’s website that now reads:
For long-haul international Atmos Rewards bookings, lap infants are charged only the applicable international taxes. At this rate, the infant will travel on your lap and won’t have their own seat.
You’re reading that right: You only have to pay the taxes and fees to add an infant to your Alaska Atmos award ticket … on Alaska/Hawaiian flights or any of its global partner airlines!
For cash fares, you’ll still have to pay the industry standard 10% of the adult fare to add a lap infant, but now your Alaska Atmos points can help you save big on that infant ticket.
Good news in points and miles deserves celebrating. And for me and my fellow infant-accompanied flyers, this is a godsend.
Read our full breakdown of Alaska’s new policy on our website.
– Gunnar Olson, flight deal analyst & travel reporter
🍻 Minneapolis: Join Us for a First Class Happy Hour!
Mark your calendars, and join the Thrifty Traveler team on Thursday, September 24, from 5:00–8:00 p.m. at Utepils Brewing in Minneapolis for our First Class Happy Hour!
Get your tickets for a casual evening where travelers can connect, swap stories, and have some fun!
We’ll have drinks, travel-themed games and giveaways, plenty of travel talk, and a live Q&A with members of our team! Bring your questions and get to know the people behind Thrifty Traveler!
And because no happy hour is complete without one, your first drink is included with your ticket. Cheers to that!
Whether you live nearby or are making the trip to Minneapolis, we hope you’ll join us for a fun evening with fellow travelers!
– Kat Erdahl, community marketing manager
✈️ Other Travel Tidbits
- ✈️ Alaska’s monthly “Global Getaways” promotion is offering up to 50% off award rates to Mexico, Japan, England, Greece, and more. (Atmos Rewards)
- 🏨 If you’ve got a Hilton stay coming up, we’ve got good news for you: Amex just dropped a new 30% transfer bonus when moving points to Hilton Honors!
- 💺 Emirates just unveiled its next-generation premium economy seat, and it looks like a real treat for travelers in the middle of the plane. (@emirates)
- 🛍️ Spend $35-plus on Walmart.com pickup or delivery orders and get $10 off with a promo code. (Doctor of Credit)
- 🇨🇦 Air Canada just dropped a slew of new routes to Asia, Europe, and Latin America. (Air Canada)
