Monthly Archives for August 2022.
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.
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.
United Airlines hasn’t been showing award seats that are being offered by their Star Alliance airline partner Air New Zealand. Air New Zealand publishes the award availability, and it can be seen by other airlines. But you won’t find the seats at United.com and the airline’s agents will tell you there’s nothing available.
Fortunately United claims this is a glitch, rather than intentional, and one they hope to resolve quickly.
Not only does it take more base points to become a Diamond, those base points are going to become harder to accumulate.
A TikToker booked a night at an Airbnb in Bali for her anniversary. She’d found a ‘villa’ with an infinity pool that overlooked a rainforest. It was part of a larger property with amenities (plenty of hotels sell rooms through Airbnb!). There were good reviews.
She showed up and found an abandoned villa, a pool filled with algae, a restaurant that was shut down – the entire property abandoned. Broken windows abounded.
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.
Australia business class awards are some of the toughest around. That was true before the pandemic. It’s even more true now, with flights full generally and with not all service restored yet. For instance, American Airlines isn’t flying to Sydney again yet. Add in that Australians were banned from even leaving their country for a year and a half, and demand has been unprecedented.
I managed to score Air Canada business class saver seats for my trip Down Under in June, but that was one of a couple of times when availability seemed to pop up as a glitch. If you want to travel in a premium cabin to Australia it is very very hard right now. But there is one way. And some of you will find this amazing.
The FBI interdicted Representative Perry at the airport to seize his cell phone one day after the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Proving once again: there is a travel angle to everything.
The CEO of IHG says that the revamp of the chain’s loyalty program, IHG One Rewards, is starting to pay off. Every company says the bets they’re currently making are great, and they’ll marshal out of context numbers to prove the point.
Here all we know is that travel is rebounding broadly, and IHG has historically gotten less mileage out of loyalty than competitors, so there’s nowhere to go but up.
On your next trip to Thailand, if some have their way, you could smoke pot, gamble, and pay a bar fine all in a single visit. Funny, all I want to do when I go there is eat great street food.
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 »
