Monthly Archives for March 2020.
Hyatt can’t just unilaterally make non-refundable bookings refundable, and they have owners to answer to. But they can give you points, show they’re doing something, and incentivize you to return to the chain once fear and risk subside.
China appears to have their coronavirus outbreak largely under control. However they’re now encouraging – even subsidizing – a return of international flights. I’ve worried that they would bring back infected passengers.
Naturally they’ve thought through this problem, and with the current low volume of international flying they are examining each passenger entering the country. Even at the current low volume of international travel to China, though, that’s backing up arriving flights by several hours in some cases. And that can cause unruly passengers.
Florida health officials asked all arriving international travelers to self-quarantine for 14 days. Now they’ve retracted the recommendation.
This recommendation no longer applies only to people who have been in (or in contact with people arriving from) Italy, China, Iran and South Korea. Miami is a primary gateway for flights to and from Latin America, where there are relatively far fewer cases so I’m not sure arriving off a flight from Colombia or Panama is a current risk factor.
Last year American Airlines and Hyatt announced a new partnership offering bonus points and elite status challenges.
Both Hyatt and American are back with elite status challenges for 2020.
There’s little benefit to cancelling a trip now that you aren’t going to take versus waiting until much closer to scheduled departure to do it, and there’s an upside to waiting. You may be able to get a refund later that you cannot today.
United has slightly walked back its crazy policy published this weekend not to provide refunds to customers in the event of a schedule change less than 25 hours.
After a swift backlash in social media, United will now let customers cancel and retain a travel credit without a change fee in the event United changes flight schedules 2 or more hours. They’re still applying new rules retroactively to already-purchased tickets.
Already we’re seeing a massive slowdown in travel. It’s scaring travel providers like United to do crazy things. Eventually they’ll need their customers when people travel again but for now United’s customers are the enemy.
How bad could things get for the travel industry? No one is certain, we’re taking stabs in the dark, but one scenario is that worldwide hotels could be down 65% in the second quarter.
One airline appears to be reneging on their promise to waive ticket change fees – and it’s not even United Airlines. It’s Frontier.
Frontier had said “customers with existing reservations between March 3 and 16 would be allowed to change their flights or cancel them for a flight credit valid for 90 days, free of charge.” A 90 day credit isn’t very helpful if things progress on a medium- to bad trajectory, but this was something.
Here’s a note shared by an American flight attendant on Saturday who boarded her flight to find that there were no gloves yet she’s expected to pick up trash from customers. It seems to me that if a flight can’t meet its safety standards it shouldn’t operate until it can, D0 notwithstanding.
It’s not just flight attendants though. Did you know that American’s airport employees aren’t permitted to wear gloves with the carrier’s new uniform standards?
There’s a theme developing at United: all your money belongs to us. Customers exist to serve the airline, the airline doesn’t exist to serve customers. From refusing refunds to customers even when flights don’t operate the same day, to telling customers they’ll still have to spend as much money on the airline this year if they want elite benefits next year the message is clear: loyalty is one way.
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 »
