Monthly Archives for October 2019.
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.
Willie Walsh, the former CEO of British Airways and now head of IAG, parent company of BA, Iberia, Aer Lingus, and Vueling, has gone public that he’d do a better job than current BA CEO Alex Cruz at resolving the airline’s contract dispute with pilots.
Public efforts to throw his handpicked British Airways CEO over the side and lay blame at his feet for the failure to get a deal done aside Alex Cruz doesn’t even outsource a single IT job without Willie Walsh blessing it first.
Make no mistake, a Gol partnership is a second best. Remember that when Delta announced its deal with LATAM American’s response was to claim a LATAM joint venture wouldn’t have been that valuable to them anyway because it wouldn’t be permitted to include Chile. What mattered when making excuses for losing LATAM was Chile. Was matters when promoting a deal with Gol is Brazil. The narrative changes with the opportunity.
However it’s certainly better than giving up connecting feed in Brazil entirely. And if they could put together a secondary deal, and grow their own presence in the region, they could fight back effectively after losing LATAM. They just need to get control of the narrative quickly.
United Airlines has declared that miles no longer matter at all – a strange position for MileagePlus to take. Distance flown no longer matters for earning miles. Redeeming miles is more revenue-based with the elimination of award charts. And now even qualifying for elite status will be based on spending starting next year.
You can earn status by spending more than before and counting up the number of flights you take, or just based on spending alone. Here are 11 takeaways from this historic change.
United will stop counting how far you fly for earning elite status. United will no longer have 25,000 mile, 50,000 mile, 75,000 mile and 100,000 mile status.
Instead – starting in 2020 for customers earning status for the 2021 program year – United will count how many flights you take and how much you spend. And if you want to earn status without taking a lot of flights, just spend more.
Marriott and IHG have already announced that they’re getting rid of single use toiletries and replacing them with wall mounted bulk shampoo, bath gel, and conditioner.
Now customers in California won’t be able to vote with their feet looking for a more hygienic or luxurious alternative.
The Hyatt Centric Waikiki says they have ‘fewer than 20’ standard rooms, which means that less than 9% of their rooms are standard rooms and eligible for World of Hyatt redemption. However I couldn’t find a single date where they were making rooms available at all.
I reached out to Hyatt to see whether the property was in compliance with program rules for making standard rooms available on points whenever they were offered on cash. I also asked whether Hyatt has rules for any minimum percentage of rooms that must be considered standard?
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.
None of this represents change for the airline, instead it’s a shuffling of roles and reporting. Interestingly this announcement of changes to leadership does not include the words Doug Parker. I might have expected Parker, under normal circumstances, to have a quote included in the release.
I submitted a new status challenge request around 4 p.m. on Sunday and then before 8 a.m. on Monday I had already been approved for another status challenge. They’ve added a quirk I don’t recall from the challenge last time. Fortunately there’s a way around it.
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 »
