Monthly Archives for March 2023.
In the fall former President Donald Trump had dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Several Republicans denounced the meeting. The white supemacist views of Fuentes are so outside the mainstream of conservatism that he was denied a platform at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), so he set up his own meeting around the corner… at the Residence Inn by Marriott National Harbor.
JSX planes have StarLink internet which I’ve found to be crazy fast, with low latency. That’s not just great for checking email and web browsing. It also works for video conferencing. And they’re the first carrier certified by FAA to allow it.
So when you fly JSX you can use Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, or your other app of choice – to participate in a meeting at work, call home at dinner time or bed time, and to… annoy your fellow passengers?
want to see Spirit Airlines continue as a standalone company. I think that is better for airfares and for diversity in business models. I also don’t think buying Spirit is a good idea for JetBlue. They are operationally challenged to begin with and the complexity of a merger and integration won’t make air travel better. JetBlue is massively overpaying.
As a result I’ve maintained that the JetBlue deal to acquire Spirit is bad for customers and bad for shareholders. However bad business decisions are not in themselves, illegal.
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.
Bilt Rewards has introduced a new partnership with Lyft. All Bilt members can now earn 2 points per dollar spent with Lyft by linking their account. Bilt credit card members separately earn 5 points per dollar on Lyft spend. So you can earn 7 Bilt points per dollar spent with Lyft.
Last month I broke the news, based on an Austin city permit that Chase would be opening a space in the Austin airport. Then I shared further details that it would be an indoor-outdoor space next to the Delta Sky Club taking over the public outdoor deck, opening in March and likely offering grab and go food.
Chase is now offering more details on the space. The “Sapphire Terrace” will open March 20.
With tensions rising among pilots at American Airlines, management has put out a message directly to cockpit crew – rather than staying quiet in negotiations with its union – letting them know just how generous an offer they’re making: by the fourth year of the company’s proposed deal, a narrowbody captain would make as much as $475,000 – and a widebody captain up to $590,000 per year.
Hyatt has a Disney hotel. It’s not ‘on property’ like Marriott’s Swan and Dolphin, but being off-property is a plus for many. And the remarkable thing is that it’s actually an excellent hotel. I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress at the end of 2019, and again last month. In a key way the hotel isn’t as good as it used to be, but it would still be my preferred ‘off-property’ hotel for a Disney trip. And everyone loves the macaw in the lobby named Merlot.
I’ve been warning that there was no way this award would last. Virgin Atlantic’s miles are, on the whole, otherwise not very valuable. Awards that are several standard deviations better than average never last. Virgin also has a history of making changes without notice whatsoever.
Throughout the pandemic I was a proponent of the individual choice to mask. I favored airlines imposing their own mask requirements in spring 2020, long before the federal government made existing airline rules a legal requirement. I liked, though, that some airlines handled their exception policies differently, for instance Delta was more flexible with young children and so wasn’t kicking two and three year olds off of planes.
I’ve been a fan of properly wearing a high quality mask. These are no longer necessary as a Covid-19 precaution as such, but remain helpful against airborne spread of viruses generally.
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 »
