Monthly Archives for December 2016.
Korean Air offers the best first class award space between the US and Asia of any airline. And there’s very little competition for that space — because Korean Air partners like Delta and Alaska can book business class awards on Korean, but cannot book first class awards.
They also offer fantastic value partner awards, like US-Europe for 80,000 miles roundtrip in business class. And you can now book SkyTeam partner awards online.
On Monday takeoff of Spirit Airlines flight NK440 from Fort Lauderdale to Cleveland was delayed 2 hours 5 minutes and then as it neared its destination diverted to Detroit due to weather.
Spirit decided to bus passengers from the Cleveland airport to Detroit Metro. The buses arrived three hours late. Then it gets worse.
American has several changes to the AAdvantage program going into effect January 1. More changes to the program will come later in 2017. And there have been hints of airline changes that will influence elite benefits further still.
My general approach is that ‘it’s the internet’ and that what someone writes reflects more on their own character than on anyone else. I’ve been a denizen of the internet for more than 20 years, and I probably have too pollyannaish a view of what kind of free speech community it was supposed to become that derives from a mindset formed in the early 1990s.
More importantly though I question my ability to be particularly Solomonic in my approach to moderating comments. It’s too easy to let distaste for a commenter’s truly offensive posts become a slippery slope into dislike for someone who thinks I’m deeply and morally wrong on some issue.
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.
The Christmas Day departure of British Airways subsidiary OpenSkies flight BA8004 from Newark to Paris diverted to Shannon, Ireland for a bathroom break.
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.
When transfers from Starwood to Virgin America briefly disappeared from the Starwood website a week ago it looked like a change without notice, the elimination of a partnership driven by Alaska’s acquisition of Virgin America. After all, it was separately announced that Citibank would lose the ability to transfer points to Virgin America as well.
Fortunately the ability to transfer points to Virgin America return to SPG.com and always remained available by phone. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, of course, that Starwood’s partnership with Virgin America is ending however.
IHG Rewards Club has posted a .pdf of hotels that will be changing rewards redemption category on January 15.
About 650 hotels are changing category. Of those, about 75% are going to cost more points to redeem starting January 15th. Two-thirds of the hotels that are changing category are in the U.S. Over 90% of those are going up in category and price.
On Christmas Eve, American’s flight from Dallas to Buenos Aires ran into trouble on final approach. As it prepared to land in Buenos Aires, weather forced it to divert to Montevideo.
Turbulence was so bad as the plane tried to land in Buenos Aires initially that perhaps half the passengers on the plane threw up and the aircraft ran out of airsickness bags. And there was reporedly a lightning strike as well.
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 »
