The United Business Card’s best offer is back: 100,000 bonus miles plus 2,000 PQP after $5,000 in purchases in the first three months. With a $150 annual fee but a $125 United travel credit, two United Club passes, and additional PQP earning on spend,. The headline bonus and the ongoing perks both pencil out.
Delta hosted a fundraiser for Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s son-in-law as he runs for Congress—a move with painfully obvious “regulator optics.” Also: Visa’s swipe-fee messaging, a jaw-dropping St. Barts approach video, Southwest’s new boarding turning passengers into baggage handlers and more.
American squawked 7700 over Cuba and reversed course on the Miami–Quito run after the crew described the cabin as being “in lockdown” over a violent passenger who had to be physically restrained. The jet returned to South Florida about 74 minutes after departure, and after landing the aircraft underwent a brake inspection consistent with an overweight return when a long-haul flight turns back with much of its fuel still onboard.
Citi’s new premium Strata Elite card delivers far more first-year value than its $595 fee suggests — credits stack twice, bonuses are huge, and the math almost feels like a mistake.
Alaska Airlines sold a customer a paid first class seat for an 8-hour Liberia–Seattle flight — then called them to the podium at boarding and bumped them to coach because two pilots were deadheading. Pilot contracts can require premium cabin seats, and Alaska’s language is unusually aggressive about it compared to how United, Delta, and American handle “pilots over passengers.”
American’s new color-coded banners are supposed to make irregular ops easier to understand—red for canceled, green for self-service rebooking. But after back-to-back cancellations on my trip, both the app and website stayed stubbornly “green” while the flight that would actually get me to my destination was canceled. Weather isn’t the airline’s fault; confusing customers with a UI that won’t turn red is.
American canceled more than 9,000 flights during winter storm Fern — and as the operation unraveled, flight attendants wound up sleeping in airports, stuck on hold with scheduling, and waiting hours for hotels and transport. In a post-earnings employee meeting, CEO Robert Isom called it “unacceptable” — then brushed it off as something that “comes with the kind of business we run.”
Newly released video shows a man charging through the main TSA checkpoint at Atlanta’s airport, knocking people down and injuring three screeners as officers yell “Breach!” and “Everybody freeze!” A former professional baseball player in the line grabs him and slams him to the floor — and when the man tries to surge forward again, he’s subdued and hauled off in a wheelchair, later charged with interfering with security measures and simple battery.
If you still have the legacy Bilt card, this weekend is your last chance to switch “seamlessly” to one of the new cards before the window closes Feb. 1 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. Bilt says the transition keeps your same card number with no hard credit pull, and Apple Pay/Google Pay refresh automatically
Citi is surveying a refresh of the American AAdvantage small business card that looks meaningfully better than what’s sold today — even with a higher annual fee. The two hooks: authorized-user spend would earn Loyalty Points too, and the card would add a simple flight-based bonus (4 qualifying flights = 4,000 Loyalty Points, up to 12,000 a year), with credits used to sell the higher fee.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
