Monthly Archives for January 2022.
Marriott snuck a change into their terms and conditions saying that they’re eliminating hotel and airline mile ‘travel packages’ from the program. These haven’t been useful in several years because of price increases and the elimination of 5-night packages. Except those 5 night packages still exist and you may have a short window to claim them.
The Carambola Beach Resort St. Croix is a sad tale. Marriott has 30 brands, but this hotel is an unbranded Marriott. You see, it used to be a Renaissance. It’s fallen into such disrepair that they don’t show that name any longer.
How this happened is fascinating because it’s a tale of incompetence and, in my opinion, likely corruption on the part of the government employee pension fund of the US Virgin Islands. This story is insane.
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.
Virgin Atlantic award space to Tel Aviv, Israel is outstanding right now. And it can be booked for just 85,000 Delta SkyMiles. On routes like New York JFK – London – Tel Aviv it’s available for at least two passengers nearly every day through mid-December. But it’s also plentiful out of Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Orlando.
You’ll find additional availability from other cities, especially those where Virgin flies but also cities where Delta offers connections (it’s the Delta domestic flight that can be hardest to get).
As American Airlines prepares to bring real meals back to domestic first class, they’re having supply chain issues even catering the products they currently offer customers on board.
If you book an award stay and your flight diverts on the way to your vacation, and you can’t check in as scheduled, call your mortgage broker for a second or third lien on your house – quick!
Hyatt, like Marriott, charges you cash in an undisclosed amount (rather than points) if you have to cancel an award trip inside of the cancellation deadline for your stay.
At an internal company meeting, American Airlines CEO described airlines’ ‘hair on fire’ resulting from the FAA’s plan to impose flight restrictions as a result of the FCC allowing 5G C-band rollout.
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.
Marriott offered the non-sequitur that it’s easy to request retro credit for points that don’t post correctly, that it’s “no more than a two-step process,” which is funny because the form literally lists three steps.
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky took to twitter to crowdsource priorities for improving their product. He reported back on the top six priorities that came out of the project.
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 »
