Monthly Archives for December 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.
I’ve always said that if you’ve never missed a flight you’re spending too much time in airports, so I tend to cut it close more often than not.
Yesterday I wrote about my problem transferring points from Starwood to Aeroplan.
Only Starwood (and apparently Aeroplan) says the points were transferred.
Protectionism – imposing tariffs, keeping out foreign goods – raising prices on consumers. You transfer wealth from citizens to domestic businesses.
Delta admits the goal of their campaign against Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar is to raise prices on consumers and limit options.
Based on an analysis of 600,000 twitter complaints containing the phrase “on hold with” airlines are the second worst industry for keeping customers on hold, behind your cable company.
A full 20% of the complaints logged were about airlines, and it could be that the issue is even worse than this. Many people don’t complain about being on hold with airlines because they expect to be. For instance, Apple is at the top of the list of complaints. That doesn’t mean Apple’s hold times are the worst, just that customers are shocked enough to be on hold that when they are they complain.
Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood closed in September and they immediately made it possible to match status across the programs, and to move points back and forth at a ratio of 3 Marriott points to 1 Starpoint.
They’ve begun to align their programs in some subtle ways. One of the first things, even before the merger, was Marriott offering 4pm late checkout to Gold and Platinum elites, introducing experiential redemptions in the vein of SPG Moments and testing a concierge program for top elites similar to Starwood Ambassador.
Barclaycard used to issue US Airways cards, and those became American AAdvantage cards with the merger. But Citibank had the exclusive right to issue new AAdvantage cards. So once the US Airways Dividend Miles program ended in March 2015, existing cardholders got to keep their cards but no one else could sign up.
Today is the first day that new Barclaycard American Airlines AAdvantage cards are available.
There are two things you need to do to avoid jet lag. Adjust to the local time of your destination as soon as possible, generally as soon as you board your flight. That means eating on your new local time, and sleeping on your new local time. And stay up until bedtime at your destination the day you arrive. If you go to sleep at noon, you’re going to be off for days. You need to force yourself to power through.
I couldn’t use the shower, but I used the sink, washing my hands by pouring some water over soap to lather my hands and then pouring bottled water over my hands.
And I was able to use the toilet, I got one flush only so I used it… judiciously.
Last month I wrote about a unique Starwood Platinum benefit that lets you keep airline miles from expiring. Starwood has a wide array of airline points transfer partners, and Platinum members can transfer as little as one point to most of them.
So where any activity is enough to keep a mileage account active, moving one point over is almost free.
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 »
