Monthly Archives

Apr 05 2016

Last week I wrote that American changed its fare rules to charge you more on many connecting itineraries and on trips that include stopovers. In fact, United and Delta have done the same thing, though I also explained how to beat the practice.

In one example I showed you how to save as much as 74% on a ticket. Multi-segment itineraries may now be more expensive than buying each segment separately on these three major US airlines. However you can beat the practice by pricing out each flight segment separately, and if cheaper buying the series of one-way tickets instead of a roundtrip, open jaw, or circle trip.

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Apr 05 2016

Chris Guillebeau, who has visited every country in the world and has spoken at Frequent Traveler University, is out with his new book Born For This.

His Art of Non-Conformity was about building work to support lifestyle, and inspired a generation of of people who worked and traveled and didn’t even distinguish between the two. His $100 Startup helped people get beyond barriers to starting a business, to figure out what they’re best at and how to take the leap.

But this may be his most ambitious and important project — to help you figure out what you want out of work, whether working for yourself or someone else, and find it.

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Apr 05 2016

A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.

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Apr 04 2016

A flight attendant onboard this morning’s United flight 1246, a Boeing 737 from Sacramento to Houston, deployed the plane’s emergency slide on arrival, slid down, and walked off.

The flight attendant who exited the aircraft via slide has been removed from duty, though I think the United crewmember was the horse and United needs to be introduced to the barn door. Popping the slide would seem to be the crewmember’s declaration that they’re no longer working flights.

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Apr 04 2016

Richard Brason blogged that he “isn’t happy about” Alaska Airlines buying Virgin America. While it’s true that Branson doesn’t have a veto over the deal, as he says, he doesn’t say he would have opposed it if he did.

And while there may be some amount of ‘sadness’ Branson is almost certainly very happy with the sale for two reasons.

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Apr 04 2016

Air France is scheduled to restart Paris – Tehran service in two weeks. Their flight attendants objected to having to wear headscarves when disembarking as well as the airline’s ban on skirts for the flight.

They asked for the ability to opt out of working the Tehran flights on the basis of conscience. France is largely secular, and attitudes towards Islam are in many ways quite negative. France, and Air France, is also quite unionized. So imposing working conditions that subjugate women to the demands of Islam as imposed by Iran is naturally unpopular.

Air France had threatened penalties against crew not observing the dress code suggesting that “air crew were ‘obliged like other foreign visitors to respect the laws of the countries to which they travelled’.”

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Apr 04 2016

Just sign up to receive emails and Hotels.com will give you a 15% off coupon code. You can unsubscribe from e-mails right away if you wish.

The coupon is valid for prepaid hotels booked by May 31 for travel through November 30. Using the coupon precludes earning credit in Hotels.com’s own loyalty program.

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Apr 04 2016

As of this writing United, American, and Delta shares are up so far early in the trading day.

With Alaska’s announced purchase of Virgin America for $2.6 billion, a roughly 90% premium over the airline’s market value just two weeks ago, there was an immediate reception to the deal at the New York Stock Exchange.

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Apr 04 2016

Alaska Airlines and Virgin America held an investor call this morning to walk through the deal that came together over the weekend.

Regarding the Virgin America brand, Alaska “want[s] to learn more about it.” You ‘d think they’d have some idea the value of the brand and how (if) to deploy it before spending $2.5 billion — $600 million in cash and taking on $2 billion in debt (while picking up half a billion in cash from Virgin America). Currently Virgin America pays 0.7% of revenue off the top to Virgin for the brand.

Alaska claims they initiated the deal, and JetBlue got into the bidding after they started negotiating.

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Apr 04 2016

With the Anbang saga presumably behind us, shareholder votes on the Marriott acquisition of Starwood scheduled for April 8, we can return to a discussion of what the future of Starwood — and Marriott — will look like. And as they say, ‘where you stand depends on where you sit.’

The deal should be approved at the shareholder meeting April 8. The transaction should close during summer. And the big hairy work to figure out what Marriott wants to do with Starwood, now that they’ve won her, will really begin — strategic decisions, then massive IT projects. Eventually some hotel brands will disappear though not for awhile. And some Sheraton hotels will be stricken from the earth as a cancer on the brand. So that part at least is for the good.

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