Monthly Archives for July 2020.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz was photographed yesterday flying an American Airlines regional jet, without wearing a mask.
Cruz is holding a cup of coffee in the photo. And while American Airlines and other U.S. carriers require masks to be worn by passenger, they aren’t required to do so while eating or drinking.
Early in the pandemic I warned you to be indispensable in your job, that we were in recession and work from home couldn’t be an excuse to let up at work. A lot of jobs would be lost and you needed to position yourself so that yours wouldn’t be one of them.
In normal times performance matters at work. That’s not true at airlines, and certainly not true during these times. Non-union workers are being let go en masse, and at a scale where it’s difficult to separate the poor performers from the stars. And union employees mostly see jobs preserved or lost based on seniority alone – performance and value creation for the company have literally nothing to do with the decision.
The 70,000 point per night Kimpton Seafire Resort on Grand Cayman offers pretty good award availability, but you’d better not have an emergency while you’re there and have to leave early – or get fed up with service failures either and decide to leave – because the hotel’s rules say they impose a $10,000 early departure fee.
On June 21 an Emirates flight attendant was arrested in Dubai while on a first date.
UAE police raided the man’s apartment while they were both there, and found two joints of marijuana. Police took them both into custody, and she’s been held ever since. Reports are that the 23 year old British expat, Derrin Crawford, has fallen ill with septic tonsilitis while in jail.
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.
15% rebate on a purchase of $100 or more from United, up to a maximum of $57 back (which means maxing out with a $380 purchase).
An announcement was made for people to keep their distance from each other at the gate, but no one did.
United told her that she should just “push your way through” when it was time for her to board, she says. She objected, everyone is supposed to be social distancing to reduce contact and limit the spread of COVID-19. And the airline is supposed to have procedures to make sure travel is safe. She says she was told, “if you don’t like it then don’t board.”
United Airlines made big news this week by announcing they could lay off as much as 39% of their employees (which some media exaggerated as half).
Now American Airlines is preparing to send out WARN Act notices, too according to the TWU-IAM association which represents mechanics and fleet service workers at the carrier.
Travel doesn’t just face risk from COVID-19, but from the response to COVID-19, and more importantly from changes in that response. In other words regime uncertainty.
The Lt. Governor says the August 1 re-opening date will be pushed back, even though people have bought their tickets and made plans. Instead he says it’ll be postponed indefinitely, until a time that gets announced two weeks prior to re-opening. But it’s ultimately the governor’s decision, and he may or may not have made it yet.
It was big news this past week when American Airlines responded forcefully to a complaint about shutting down a member’s account for opening various frequent flyer accounts in different names as part of a technique to generate several Citibank credit card signup offers.
Now the person filing the complaint has done two things in response to American’s filing.
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 »
