Monthly Archives for November 2020.
Virgin Atlantic is running a fantastic business class sale from the UK at $1334 roundtrip on pretty much any route. Delta codeshares on Virgin may be even cheaper (from US$1083).
And incredibly Virgin Atlantic is running 50% off of award travel, too. That’s important because with taxes and fuel surcharges a roundtrip award ticket can still, at normal pricing, cost almost as much as a paid business class ticket under this sale.
Revenue-based frequent flyer programs have always been less generous. These programs were long popular with ultra low cost carriers, with low margins, where awarding customers little made sense.
When planes were full, rewarding customers less made some sense. Airlines didn’t need to spend as much marketing to fill empty seats when there weren’t many empty seats. The problem now is that revenue-based programs reward customers less in a low fare environment precisely when airlines need to invest more in marketing to fill empty seats, and it’s cheaper to offer award inventory than ever.
Heads of State rent out entire hotel floors for security reasons but several hotels now, at lowest-ever occupancy, are offering to rent out entire floors for people looking for Covid safety. That seems entirely unnecessary.
There haven’t been any documented cases of spread between rooms either in hotels or office buildings. The virus doesn’t spread through walls.
I have absolutely no qualms flying a Boeing 737 MAX once it returns to commercial service in about six weeks. This plane is safe to fly.
That doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to flying the 737 MAX on American Airlines! This is because of the interior of the cabin and not because of the safety of the aircraft.
The head of world airline trade group IATA says so far governments have provided subsidies to carriers totaling $160 billion. But that’s not enough and they believe governments need to hand over more.
And what’s the terrible thing that will happen if they don’t? Something that is entirely and completely normal and happens all the time during normal times: some airlines may go out of business. That’s ok.
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.
The story made the rounds initially when the incident first occurred. The woman doesn’t necessarily deserve her second 15 minutes, but for some reason it took an inordinately long time for video to surface. Since so many readers asked ‘where’s the video’ Ms. McClinton gets a second round of attention. In all likelihood it will be her last.
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.
It’s been some time since there have been generous offers just to sign up for a frequent flyer program, essentially to start a permission marketing relationship. Maybe 16 years ago United Airlines was giving out 1000 miles to new members referred by an existing member, and rewarding the member that referred them to. But usually new member bonuses have required some kind of activity – proof of a customer’s value to the airline – before being triggered.
Thanksgiving air travel is going to set 2020 records, and the confidence level for that can be adjusted up significantly after 1 million people cleared TSA security checkpoints yesterday.
We’re now at a place where intertemporal substitution makes a great deal of sense. We’ll travel less now, and travel more in the summer. We’ll go out to eat less now, and go out to eat more in the summer. I simultaneously cannot wait for travel to recover and also hope it waits until 2021 to do so.
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 »
