Monthly Archives for July 2017.
A month ago the US declared that not only wouldn’t they extend the ban on electronics larger than a standard cell phone to European flights, but they’d remove it from flights coming from Mideast airports, provided each airport around the world changed its security procedures to U.S. specifications.
Supposedly there’s a concrete plot to blow up planes with electronics and that’s the top secret information President Trump disclosed to Russians in the Oval Office.
American Express has updated credit card application terms for their Delta card with a warning to customers who would just sign for a card, pocket the bonus, and cancel.
This underscores that American Express is paying attention to their costs as they invest heavily in their products. They’re happy to spend significantly to acquire customers, but want to limit the number of unprofitable customers they’re bringing in at the same time.
Last month I wrote about a free 3 month trial membership that lets you fly private jet positioning flights for free. Here’s my experience doing exactly that this morning — with friends!
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.
Three weeks ago Hyatt changed their terms and conditions to say that category 1-7 free nights are not valid for any property “not included by Hyatt (in its sole discretion) in the category 1-7 classification system.”
We can therefore surmise that without such a change uncapped free nights would have included Miraval, which so far is the only hotel Hyatt has outside the classification system.
I received a pitch for a consulting firm’s new study, Premium Travel Reward Credit Cards: High Profile but Unsustainable, which argues that high reward, high fee cards are an unsustainable business.
In some ways this is important because it counters the Joe DeNardi claim that airlines are worth substantially more than the market values them at because the frequent flyer programs are so profitable. I’ve argued that rather than being able to expect 4% annual growth or higher it’s more likely that programs will face both revenue and cost pressures in the future.
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.
American Airlines partner Royal Jordanian has some fantastic fares between their U.S. gateways — New York JFK, Chicago, Detroit — and the Mideast.
You can fly to Amman, Jordan for $499 roundtrip — this is a $130 base fare in each direction plus taxes and fees. Or you can fly to Tel Aviv, Israel for $529 — a $161.50 base fare in each direction.
In my entire life though I’ve never wanted into an airport lounge — let alone a U.S. airline’s lounge — as badly as this passenger desperate to get into the American Airlines D/E Admirals Club in Charlotte after closing.
Sometimes the police respond to an incident and it’s the airline crew they’re forced to remove.
Six Port Authority police with guns responded, interviewed crew in the jetway, but made no arrests. However the employees who fought were ordered off the aircraft and the flight was delayed two hours — which just means that it was departing LaGuardia.
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 »
