Monthly Archives for May 2019.
United MileagePlus has had issues booking awards on several Star Alliance partners this year, some of which have been resolved.
A new one that’s arisen is an inability to book Lufthansa first class awards.
It was only just October that I broke the news that Hyatt would acquire Two Roads Hospitality and the Thompson, Destination, Joie de Vivre, Alila and tommie hotel brands.
Already Hyatt has been integrating properties. Most of Thompson Hotels joined World of Hyatt March 28th. Hyatt has just announced that the previously excluded Thompson Playa del Carmen and Thompson Beach House in Mexico will join effective May 15, 2019.
Today Hyatt integrates a second of the acquired brands — Joie de Vivre — into the World of Hyatt portfolio.
United Airlines has launched a marketing partnership with the new Spider-Man: Far From Home movie being released July 2. The airline has a new Spider-Man safety video, will let you redeem miles for movie tickets, and has a new Spider-Man business class amenity kit.
The airline sent me one of their new amenity kits. If you’re really into Spider-Man or the broader Marvel universe you’re going to want one.
Hilton and Lyft have launched a new partnership. Just link your Hilton and Lyft accounts and earn 3 points per dollar on Lyft rides and 2 points per dollar on Lyft shared rides. This appears to stack with earning Delta miles and JetBlue points for Lyft rides, with credit card rewards earning, and with free ride credits earned paying with a World Elite Mastercard. Together that makes riding Lyft lucrative.
Back in September United threatened to pull out of Newark over $20 million in fuel taxes targeted at its operations. They were never going to leave, but made their (perfectly reasonable) point about New Jersey trying to extract revenue from just them.
United has also complained that Newark airport is overcharging them, and the FAA agrees. This past fall the FAA found that the Port Authority of New York New Jersey which manages the airport “routinely diverted airport revenue to non-airport activities.” There’s a law that lets them do this, but the airport appears to be going well beyond it.
Due to mechanical problems with her plane, German Chancellor Angela Merkel flew Iberia business class to the G20 Summit in Argentina in December.
It seems, though, that this wasn’t a one-off and the German government is unable to keep their fleet of military executive planes in the air.
Two months ago American AAdvantage and World of Hyatt announced a new partnership. Registration is now live so that elites in each program can double dip with the other, and fast track elite status is offered too.
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.
In 1984 a California man was tossing his toddler up and down in his living room. The kid loved it, and the father went higher and higher. Until the kid’s head hit the ceiling fan. Which was on. And the man sued the ceiling fan manufacturer for failing to warn him that walking with a child underneath a ceiling fan could be dangerous.
In that vein a Qantas flight attendant is now suing the airline after slipping on air stairs, saying the Australian carrier should have provided training on how to use stairs.
Last summer I found that the worst airline in America, Via Air had an F-rating from the Better Business Bureau and 71% of their TripAdvisor reviews were poor or terrible, compared to 27% for Allegiant, 26% for United and 6% for Southwest.
Now, though, they aren’t just stranding customers. Their cutting flights. And they haven’t even shown up at one airport — and is ducking the airport’s calls and emails trying to find out why.
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 »
