Monthly Archives for July 2022.
A mother complains that her 14 year old son, traveling as an unaccompanied minor on American Airlines, had his Miami to New York flight cancelled and he was forced to spend the night in the airport. This seems to me to be the parent’s fault, and not American’s. Don’t send your child as an unaccompanied minor right now, on a connecting itinerary, if you can possibly help it.
Some programs offer ‘saver awards only’. Award space is available or it isn’t. You get a ‘decent’ price, or no option to book at all.
Other programs offer last seat availability, or access to most seats for points. But when fares are exorbitant, the algorithms can lead to some absurd results, like over a million miles for a one-way flight on peak travel days. That makes the program look bad, and even if members like “last seat availability” offering these seats costs too much to the program’s reputation.
As airlines work through the backlog of lost bags, not everyone on staff is well-incentivized to reunite people with their luggage. Instead they may just be expected to clear the backlog. And what is the quickest, easiest way for an employee to do that – an employee who doesn’t see the customer?
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.
>Le Meridien Essex Chicago warned guests not to stand in the windows of their room or open the windows, because they’d be treated as an active shooter by Chicago Police.
United Airlines appears to be planning a new club lounge concept in Denver for the ‘B East’ concourse addition there, between gates B61 and B63.
This spring Chase revealed that they would launch ChaseTravel.com this year. They are still on track and fleshing out more detail about what it will look like.
They’ve expected the product to generate $10 billion of sales in 2023 and $15 billion by 2025, making it the third largest travel agency behind Expedia and Booking.com. Already Chase generates 25% of total leisure travel spend on its cards.
When your travel plans include a connection, but you miss your connection and you’re forced to spend the night in a city you hadn’t planned, you may expect the airline to provide you with a hotel room for the night. Good luck with that.
Passengers were patted down by officers on arrival, mug shots taken, and bags searched. Everyone was then held in a hanger for hours. Around midnight they were allowed to decamp for hotels before returning to the airport six hours later to fly on to Seattle using a different aircraft. No actual threat existed.
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.
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 »
