Monthly Archives for November 2018.
United Airlines President Scott Kirby tried several passenger-unfriendly innovations when he was President at US Airways that he ultimately had to roll back like elimination of free water in coach and elimination of elite bonus miles for flights.
There are airlines that managed to successfully move to a policy of charging for water. They don’t charge for lavatory use, is water a similar basic necessity that airlines should provide for free?
I’ve been on flights where an announcement was made at the start of flight that the internet didn’t work — only to find that it worked just fine. That worked out great, not only was there internet but no one else was trying to use it so I had plenty of bandwidth.
I’ve also been on plenty of flights where internet doesn’t work and the crew was aware of this from the prior flight but didn’t say anything until we were up in the air. That’s frustrating because I’d have treated the half hour I was on the plane (on the ground, still with connectivity) differently.
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.
Flight crew are responsible for our safety during travel, and they’re usually highly responsible. We trust them.
Because flight crew are trusted they get less scrutiny at security checkpoints and at immigration and customs. That makes them ideal mules.
Marriott combined their Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott Rewards, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs into a new unified program with the same currency and benefits on August 18th. All accounts were merged onto Marriott’s IT platform. However they retained separate program branding for legal reasons, I’m told related to their timeshare contracts.
In 2019 two major things are happening with Marriott Rewards: devaluing points and renaming the program.
The anonymous passenger who found a wallet left on an earlier Frontier flight may not be the hero that we deserve, but is certainly one we need to hear about this Thanksgiving weekend.
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.
Two months ago oil reached the level it had been at in November 2014 — which itself was one-third off its May 2011 high. However since then the price of oil has been falling — down about 20% in the past two months.
Oil prices began falling within days of US airlines raising checked bag fees claiming this was due to high fuel prices.
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 »
