Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson, writing for The Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. experienced net negative migration—an estimated loss of some 150,000 people—in 2025, and the outflow will likely increase in 2026, according to calculations by the Brookings Institution, a public-policy think tank. The number could be larger or smaller because official U.S. data doesn’t yet fully capture the number of people leaving, Brookings analysts noted. The total in-migration was between around 2.6 and 2.7 million in 2025, down from a peak of almost 6 million in 2023.

Trump is part of the why, but that’s not the full story:

Do these émigrés personify a loss of faith in America’s future and way of life? Across dozens of interviews, U.S. expats described their motivations as a tangle of economic incentives, lifestyle preferences and disenchantment with the trajectory of America, citing violent crime, cost of living and turbulent politics. Trump’s re-election was a factor for many—although others voted for him. But the structural and societal shift runs much deeper. When Gallup asked Americans during the 2008 recession how many wanted to leave the U.S., the answer was one in 10. Last year: One in five.

“It undercuts this American exceptionalism, ‘we have the best quality of life, we’re the best country in the world, everyone wants to move here,’” said Caitlin Joyce, one of two researchers at Temple University who have spent years studying the trend. “Well, Americans move abroad and find they like life better abroad. They like the social democratic policies.”

Qantas overhauled its Frequent Flyer program yesterday with these major changes:

1. You’ll need to earn more status credits to keep Silver, Gold or Platinum
2. You can earn up to 140 status credits on the ground, primarily by making purchases with partners
3. You can roll over some status credits when you reach more than the number required for your tier
4. Points Club and Green Tier are gone

Minor changes include an additional lounge pass for Silver members, a new reward seat finding tool, and a lifetime ‘milestone’ system.¹

The first item is what matters most for members, and as Qantas announced, it’s about to become harder to retain most tiers. Here’s the table the airline provided to the media (headings and percentages mine):

Published Tiers

Tier	Current credits to retain	New credits to retain	Percentage change
Silver	250	300	20%
Gold	600	700	17%
Platinum	1,200	1,400	17%

(The credits needed to upgrade to each of these tiers will stay the same, which is why Qantas is framing all of these changes as a “single target” for each tier.)

But those tables don’t quite tell the full story. In a section about status credit rollover, Qantas also said that benefit would replace the loyalty bonuses that are offered to “some” members.²

The existing loyalty bonus gives members 50 status credits for every 500 they earn, as long as they’re earned on Qantas or Jetstar. Reach 500 credits on those airlines, for example, and your total becomes 550. As long as you’re regularly flying on those airlines, it lowers the effective number of credits required at each tier.³

Apply that to the credits table, and the three major tiers get even harder to keep:

Effective Tiers

Tier	Current effective credits to retain	New credits to retain	Percentage change
Silver	250	300	20%
Gold	550	700	27%
Platinum	1,100	1,400	27%

Ouch.

Qantas wants to split its customers into two camps: those who are more loyal than their tiers need them to be, and those who do just enough to get into each tier. The former group gets rewarded, the latter gets punished. That’s their decision to make, but let’s be clear: this is a steeper hill to climb for what I’d bet are many members who want to keep Gold or Platinum.

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1. The lifetime milestones give members a year of Platinum for every 10,000 credits they earn above Lifetime Gold. The idea must be to incentivize lifetime flyers to keep pursuing credits, since the 75,000 credit threshold is so absurd that members are giving up the chase. It’s a shame these milestones are no less absurd. ↩︎
2. I think “some” is an understatement when it comes to the members for whom this matters. I read “some” as “not many,” and I doubt there are “not many” Qantas Gold or Platinum customers who receive these bonuses. ↩︎
3. Without the loyalty bonus, there’s also less of an incentive to fly Qantas or Jetstar metal. That means more flexibility to fly with other oneworld airlines or take a codeshare flight. ↩︎

Some thoughts on what Ole Orvér will want to accomplish now that he’s in the top job:

Hawaiian

oneworld will become a 16-airline alliance for the first time on April 22, when Hawaiian Airlines joins as a full member.

It will also be the first time any alliance will have three US-based members. While American has struggled in New York and Chicago, the alliance is collectively carving out a strong position in the west: once Hawaiian joins, oneworld will have powerful global hubs in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Honolulu.

Tech

Orvér’s predecessor, Nat Pieper, spoke extensively about a “common digital platform” during his time at oneworld.

Right now, traveling with more than one airline in the alliance means getting familiar with multiple booking codes, websites, and apps. Plus, in a multi-city trip, ‘Airline A’ doesn’t know you’re connecting to a flight on ‘Airline B,’ which makes everything from bag tracking to delays a headache.

The goal is to make traveling across oneworld airlines feel just as seamless as traveling with one of them. Here’s Pieper on Airlines Confidential:

What we’re shooting for is, it shouldn’t matter which oneworld airline you’re traveling with. If you are most comfortable with one specific airline’s app, you ought to be able to track and use that app for your experience across the entire journey.

That’s been a project at oneworld for a long time. Per Pieper, it started several years before he took over in 2024.

Upgrades

oneworld has also been trying to get its airlines to offer points-based upgrades to each other’s customers. It’s a simple concept: allow members of one airline’s program to use their points for an upgrade on a different oneworld airline, even if the home airline wasn’t involved in the booking.

In June 2024, oneworld’s Gerhard Girkinger told Executive Traveller:

Cross-airline upgrades are “a core element to the customer proposition and what we want to provide our customers… it’s going to be in a smaller scale initially, and then grow from there.”

It’s been a slow journey. As of today, only American and Qantas offer integrated reciprocal points upgrades.¹

Lounges

Airlines with a limited presence at an airport can’t justify the cost of operating a lounge individually, but they can collectively. That’s why oneworld started opening its own lounges in 2024.

The first two are in Seoul and Amsterdam, and more are on the way. Pieper told Head for Points the same year that another lounge could come “anytime within the next 6 to 12 months,” and the goal is to open up to 10 over the next few years:

I think, from our perspective, we want to have another three to five to ten lounges over the next five years. We have a good couple folks within the oneworld team allocated to that task, flying all over the place, meeting with airport authorities.

Diplomacy

Orvér spent four years at Qatar during his career, so he’ll be well aware that airlines don’t always get along. His time at the Doha-based airline came just before American’s CEO accused it of competing unfairly in the US market; a few years later, Qatar went to war with Qantas over flight rights into Australia and its partnership with Emirates.

Qatar is back on good terms with American, but their relationship with Qantas is in rough shape. Last year, Qatar bought 25% of Virgin Australia, and the two airlines began a partnership that sees Virgin use Qatar jets and crews under a five-year wet lease deal and offer deep reciprocal loyalty benefits.

You have to wonder what Qatar’s vision for Virgin is, and whether that will ever conflict with Qatar or Qantas’ membership in oneworld. Qatar has threatened to leave the alliance before, and it tried to get Qantas kicked out in 2022; a threat the airline took seriously enough to ask for other members’ support.²

The 6%

Then there’s new members. With 16 airlines, oneworld is the smallest of the three alliances (Star Alliance has 26, SkyTeam has 18).

I’ve always gotten the sense that oneworld would rather have the largest share of premium traffic than a larger share of all traffic. Here’s Pieper saying a version of that with Business Traveler last year:

“It’s easier to coordinate across 15 than across 28. And we have a strong concentration of premium carriers. That’s our differentiator,” he said.

Emerald status, which unlocks first-class lounge access globally, is an offering no other alliance matches. “It’s a halo benefit that helps our members attract and retain high-value customers,” Pieper noted.

That doesn’t mean membership is closed. According to oneworld, the alliance covers 94% of what it calls “global air travel demand.” If you’re looking to join oneworld, you’ll want to cover the 6%.

Pieper said just a few months ago that the airlines had a collective interest in finding a partner in India. That would almost certainly mean IndiGo,³ which partnered with four SkyTeam members last year, but also has ties with American, British, JAL, Qantas, and Qatar.

The alliance also has holes in South America and Africa.

Qatar might help with the latter; their former CEO said in 2022 that the airline would do “everything within our ability” to bring RwandAir into the alliance.

Taiwan’s Starlux has also expressed interest in joining oneworld, and both Condor (Germany) and Porter (Canada) are reportedly considering it.

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1. Alaska and American have their own partnership, allowing each other’s customers to get free upgrades where available, and the Avios airlines have varying degrees of upgrade integration, but AA and QF are the only two who’ve integrated in the way oneworld described it. ↩︎
2. As reported in Joe Aston’s The Chairman’s Lounge. According to the same book, American’s Robert Isom eventually intervened to keep them both in the alliance. ↩︎
3. The only other major airline, Air India, is a Star Alliance member. ↩︎

oneworld, today:

oneworld today named seasoned aviation leader Ole Orvér as its new chief executive officer. He will join the alliance on 1 April, 2026. 

A Swedish national, Orvér brings more than 20 years of industry experience to the role. He most recently served as Chief Commercial Officer at oneworld member airline Finnair, where he transformed the airline’s commercial and network strategy and introduced major new revenue and loyalty initiatives. 

Before Finnair, Orvér was in network management at Qatar, and per oneworld, served in leadership roles for Air Berlin, LOT Polish, and SAS.

Qantas has an update on Project Sunrise. Yesterday, on LinkedIn:

The second Qantas Project Sunrise A350-1000ULR has entered the final assembly line at Airbus in Toulouse, with the fuselage sections and wings now joined and the tail installed this week. The first Project Sunrise aircraft is in the advanced stages of ground testing, preparing to take to the skies for its flight test programme in the coming months.

First half of 2027 is still the plan for direct flights from Sydney to London and New York, but we don’t know which route will launch first.

Before then, Qantas told Executive Traveller that it will run test flights between Sydney and New Zealand.

(via Australian Aviation.)

If you’re in the US, and in the market for AirTags, now is a great time to pick up a pack. Previous generation model, but for luggage tracking purposes, the difference between them isn’t significant.

4 packs are $64 (down from $99) at Walmart. The other big retailers have them for $70.

Jessica Kozuka, writing for Travel + Leisure:

When signaling for the check, miming signing a bill will sometimes work, but the more standard gesture is to cross your index fingers in an X, indicating you don’t wish to order anything else.

Nine other tips on traveling in Japan in the article, covering everything from resting disposable chopsticks to getting out of a taxi gracefully.