Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for November 2020.

New Student Frequent Flyer Program Points To A Renaissance In Loyalty

by Gary Leff

qatarplane
Nov 16 2020

There’s a long history of loyalty programs targeting people while they’re young, hoping to build a lifetime relationship with a customer. And some of those ideas are resurfacing today.

Seeing more efforts along these lines is a sign that loyalty matters again. When planes were full airlines didn’t have to work as hard building relationships with customers or marketing to fill empty seats. That’s all changed, and we’re beginning to see a renaissance of the frequent flyer program. Hopefully that spirit lasts even once we’re back to normal times and traveling again.

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Michigan Is Back Under Lockdown, But People Can Still Drink At The Detroit Airport

by Gary Leff

delta skyclub
Nov 16 2020

The same rules allowing Delta’s club lounge to serve alcohol despite the Michigan governor’s order closing bars should apply equally to restaurants in the airport for those who don’t have club membership and are willing to pay for a drink.

However it seems a lot easier for people to drink alone, as Michigan’s governor seems to prefer people in her state do, than make a trip out to the airport just for liquor. It would be fascinating to see Delta’s internal data over the next three weeks about whether alcohol consumption continues to track with passenger numbers, or whether it increases on a per-admittance basis in to the club.

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15% Bonus On Transfers From Chase, Amex, Citi And Capital One To Singapore Airlines

by Gary Leff

Nov 16 2020

Singapore Airlines is offering offering a 15% bonus on points transferred into KrisFlyer miles from credit card programs through December 27, 2020. Nearly all of their bank partners are eligible for the bonus, including Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citibank ThankYou Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards and Capital One miles that are trasnferrable to airline miles.

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AAdvantage Raised Unpublished Anytime Award Prices, And I Never Noticed (450,000 Mile One-Ways!)

by Gary Leff

Nov 15 2020

American AAdvantage still has award charts, although the awards you book may not be based on chart pricing. They’ve increased the price of ‘unpublished any time’ award levels and a one way business class ticket on an American flight to Tokyo may now cost as much as 450,000 miles – but there’s something to look for that could cut the cost of the same redemption by 84%.

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How Important Is Business Travel To The Airlines Anyway?

by Gary Leff

Nov 15 2020

We know that business travel is almost non-existent these days, but airlines in the U.S. have consistently reported that it’s more or less tripled off of a very low basis – it was down 95% and now it’s down ‘only’ 85% (so up from 5% of last year’s levels to 15%).

The business travel that has recovered has been small businesses, often in the Midwest and Sun Belt, as well as critical logistics and health care businesses. But how much of an airline’s total revenue did this account for, anyway?

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Silvercar Closing All Airport Locations

by Gary Leff

silver audi with driver door open
Nov 15 2020

Silvercar was my favorite company to rent cars from. They rented only Audis and had a generally all-inclusive model. For $5 they refilled your gas at market prices. You paid actual cost of toll tracking, no extortionate daily fee. However the Audi-owned rental car company is shutting down all airport locations in the U.S. in early December. They will retain Audi dealership locations.

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