Monthly Archives for December 2019.
It took nearly a decade for Southwest Airlines to inaugurate Hawaii service from the time they publicly advertised for someone to manage certification of their planes for long flights over water. When Southwest does something new, it seems to take awhile.
However with Hawaii firmly under their belt, could Europe be next?
The American Express Centurion Card (a.k.a. “Black Card”) has a $7500 ‘initiation fee’ and just raised its annual fee to $5000.
What if a card issuer, though, said “hold my beer – those fees are for pikers” and came out with a $10,000 fee card and an up front charge as high as $200,000?
If the U.S. government is watching the skies, and if Santa is real, then the U.S. governnment knows it and should be tracking his every move. In a Snowden-level plot to keep the public believing both of these things simultaneously, or in a fun move to engage the public and especially small children, U.S. air defense command tracks Santa each Christmas Eve – and has every year since 1955.
Alaska Airlines is offering buy one get one free tickets (you pay taxes only on the second ticket) but you have to purchase today and travel January 7 – February 12, 2020
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 is discounting premium cabin awards between the U.S. and Hawaii doesn to 28,000 – 30,000 miles per person each way, a discount from the normal 55,000 (saver) and 67,500 (lowest AAnytime) award price. Use the new award search availability calendar to find dates where the lowest prices are available.
As Qantas retires its fleet of Boeing 747s, Boeing 747 – ‘Sydney’ (VH-OEF) will fly its last flight from Sydney to Los Angeles on February 9, 2020.
And notably there are award seats available in economy, premium economy, and business class on this nostalgia flight.
Several days ago I flagged the possibility that Marriott would be eliminating the great annual offer of 10 elite nights for booking a meeting at a hotel. Before the Marriott and Starwood programs were combined Marriott used to let you earn 10 elite nights per meeting with no annual cap.
Word on the street was that this offer would be going away entirely. And indeed a leaked internal communication from Marriott bears this out.
Earlier this year a new airline standard was rolled out no longer requiring passengers to declare a gender to fly. Several states provide an ‘X’ option on their IDs for gender.
United Airlines was first to offer both U(undisclosed) and X(unspecified) as a gender option this spring. Since on or about December 10th American Airlines has adopted this 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.
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 »
