Monthly Archives for June 2017.
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.
Airlines sometimes miss that the key question for a lounge isn’t “are there enough seats for passengers?” but “is there enough space and enough empty seats so the lounge doesn’t feel full?”
If a lounge feels just as packed as the gate area, it isn’t a peaceful escape from the terminal. I’ve been to too many lounges that feel like refugee camps during peak times. You have to hunt for a place to sit. Staff can’t keep up with the turnover and trash piles up. Food and drink go unreplenished.
Most air redemptions — even if you don’t maximize value by redeeming at the upper end of a redemption tier — will get you 1.6 cents apiece or more for your points. So fixed value 1.5 cents a point redemptions are a devaluation.
The official signup bonus for Hyatt’s co-brand credit card has changed from earning 2 free nights at any participating property to earning 40,000 bonus points. But if you’ve recently gotten it, or you act fast to do so, there’s a real way to leverage the free nights.
Two people staying at Miraval is normally 65,000 points per night. The stay includes “enjoy a $175 resort credit per person, per day along with unlimited meals, snacks and over 120 wellness activities and classes each week.”
Four hotels are going up in maximum award price, which since they no longer have award charts.
All of the specific changes they’re making seem on-face reasonable, but I replied asking if they would “reconsider posting a standard award “maximum price” chart” since that would foster the kind of transparency they appear to be seeking in sharing changes like this.
The Supreme Court lifted parts of the injunction against the Trump administration’s travel ban on Monday, pending oral argument and a full decision.
The Court, however, explicitly ruled that the injunction remains in place — the administration cannot enforce its ban — against “foreign nationals who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”
My language skills are quite poor. I was never very good at Hebrew, though I studied it sat in class clueless over it for several years. I was never very good at Spanish, though I took it in school for six years. I was always better at reading it than speaking it, and once someone got into a conversational pace I was done for.
The good news is you can travel effectively almost anywhere in the world without speaking anything other than English (go ahead – flame me!).
There’s a new award chart, it’s published, and the changes to saver awards aren’t draconian.
There will be some price increases, and some modest decreases, and a new way for United to avoid offering outsized value when members redeem seats that the airline could have sold for cash.
One of the things that vexes me about United’s internet — and believe me it’s only one of the things — is that they seem to have a very odd sense of how fast their planes fly, or how far.
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.
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 »
