2 trip reports in first class, #MarchMayhem, and don’t you DARE check in to your flight at 6pm

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the past week of travel information – here’s a recap of what you may have missed from Points With a Crew over the past week or so

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With the NCAA tournament in full swing, I thought it would be fun to run a mini bracket competition to figure out the best miles, points and travel tools.  Make sure to make your voice heard and vote!  Here are the 8 first round “games”!

#1 Award Wallet vs. #16 Boingo Wifi, #2 Autoslash vs. #15 Osmand, #3 Google Flights / ITA Matrix vs. #14 Cashback Monitor, #4 Airline Route Mapper vs. #13 The Flight Deal, #5 Award Mapper vs. #12 Expert Flyer, #6 Rome2Rio vs. #11 Check My Trip, #7 Hotel Hustle vs. #10 Flight Aware, #8 FlyerMiler vs. #9 Seatguru

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I’m still in the middle of recapping our round the world trip.  So while there are still a few parts of the trip report to write, here are 2 first class trip reports

JAL first class review from ORD (Chicago) to NRT (Tokyo)

Help! I’m “stuck” in Emirates First class on ONLY a 777!!! (from Singapore to Dubai)

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As part of our 4 night stay in Singapore, we decided to spend a night in Malaysia.

There are a couple of different options for crossing the border from Singapore to Malaysia

We ended up taking the bus and it was…. quite the experience!  Find out what we did and how that could help you.

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Other news of the week

• I had a good stay in Dubai, but I was definitely disappointed with the supposed “luxury” hotel Radisson Blu Dubai Deira Creek
• You might think that having your flights go through a schedule change is a problem, but I say Schedule Change…. TO THE RESCUE!

• We got to the Dubai Airport a little (a lot!) early for our flight back to the states.  I tried to check in when we got there and the airport staff told me DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO CHECK IN AT 6PM!
• US Citizen (and Cincinnati native) Otto Warmbier was just sentenced to 15 years hard labor in North Korea for… WHAT?
• Here’s a lounge review of the Japan Airlines first class lounge in Narita Airport
• Back in November, Marriott made an offer to purchase Starwood hotels.  Now a rival offer led by Chinese insurer Anbang has been deemed “a superior offer” – what happens next?

• Help me!  I’m WASTING days of my life in airports!
• Your “TSA approved” luggage locks can now be 3D printed by ANYONE!

If you’re still up for more travel reading, here’s last week’s recap: Why does this luxury hotel make me sign out my pool towels?!?