Monthly Archives for April 2016.
Alaska Airlines announced that it is acquiring Virgin America at $57 per share or ~ $2.6 billion in a transaction expected to close by January 1, 2017.
Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan will be the surviving loyalty program. They’re being non-committal about the Virgin brand at this point, although it seems inconceivable they would continue to pay to licensing.
Virgin America’s market cap was about $1.15 billion a week and a half ago. Speculation began about a buyout and the company closed worth closer to $1.5 billion on Friday.
Last Monday JetBlue and Alaska Airlines were revealed to be the leading contenders to buy Virgin America. Yesterday it looked like Alaska would seal the deal at about $2 billion.
Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Alaska will wind up the victor — but at a cash price of $2.5 billion.
Some banks will unofficially give a grace period to meet minimum spend requirements towards a bonus. I sure wouldn’t want to test that theory. Know how much you need to spend to earn a signup bonus, and when you need to spend it by.
Know also what spending counts towards the bonus and what spending doesn’t.
Mid-last week Alaska Airlines made no-notice changes to their Emirates award charts for business and first class travel, raising prices by as much as 100%. Overnight the price of business class and first class awards went up — a lot. A first class roundtrip between the US and Africa on Emirates went from 200,000 to 400,000 miles.
Alaska offered an explanation. It turns out that Alaska Airlines has changed their mind about why they did it, and is offering a new and different explanation.
Designer Seymourpowell has come up with a new ‘First Spaces’ interior for the Airbus A380 that could rival the most revolutionary and luxurious first class seat in the skies.
It doesn’t quite offer as much space as Etihad’s ‘beyond product’ The Residence which even offers a private shower onboard.
The idea is akin to the First Apartment onboard Etihad’s Airbus A380s, but instead of a separate seat and bench that folds out into a bed — with some passengers complaining that the seat doesn’t really recline much — the seat here does turn into a bed so offers an in-between lounging mode.
Qantas and Tesla raced a Boeing 737-800 against a Model S P90D in ludicrous mode on a runway at Avalon airport Southwest of Melbourne.
I drove a Tesla last summer at a Hyatt event. It was super cool, I loved it, but would never buy a $100,000 car even factoring tax breaks and savings on gas. (I also wouldn’t pre-commit to a cheaper model with a quarter million preorders, that’s too much demand outstripping supply and despite the price won’t be a ‘good deal’.)
An Air China co-pilot going by ‘Andy’ attracted a social media following of 72,000 on Weibo under the username 90000xiaobao posting videos of himself performing his duties. His posts went viral and he’s been suspended.
One criticism of the pilot? Use of prohibited electronic devices inflight.
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.
A passenger successfully sued Lufthansa Group for failing to provide his pre-ordered kosher meal. Those of us in the U.S. consider would consider it a ‘man bites dog’ event.
Lufthansa argued that he paid for and received transportation. The court rejected this.
Air France is scheduled to restart Paris – Tehran service in two weeks time. However, there’s a backlash against rules imposed on Air France crews who will be operating the flights.
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 is naturally unpopular.
Air France is threatening ‘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’.”
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 »
