News and notes from around the interweb:
- Wyndham is looking for a new Senior Director of Loyalty to manage the program.
- The European Union will test some airline crew on arrival for alcohol
- Hyatt Centric coming to downtown Austin next year with 8th floor outdoor lounge.
- He hasn’t smoked in decades. But Hertz is hitting him with a $400 smoking fee
- Hawaiian Airlines introduces reciprocal points transfers with Boyd Gaming B Connected Since Amex points transfer to Hawaiian, they also transfer by extension to the gaming program.
While HawaiianMiles isn’t a very good program, they’ve been surprisingly innovative recently, for instance they were the first airline loyalty program to let you redeem miles for a Covid-19 test.
- The Points Guy sent team members on a cruise to see whether they’d catch Covid. I guess with 100 full time staff, some are expendable?
- Government sells 51% stake in post-bankruptcy South African Airways
Interesting story about Hertz. May I suggest using ride-share companies like Uber & Lyft instead of rental vehicles?
Hertz’s behavior here is absolutely appalling but not surprising considering their desperate business model and “recovery” from bankruptcy.
I’m waiting for someone to rent from Hertz, return the car cleaned and smelling good – and then get charged a smoking fee since it was obvious the customer smoked and then cleaned the car to cover it up.
FWIW I go with Enterprise every time and I’ve never had a problem.
the real take-away here is that The Points Guy has 100 full-time staff. What?
Few notes about the cruise report by a blogger from The Points Guy:
1) Why she is wearing a mask while posing for a photo with a dinner plate she received in isolation?
2) That cruise has 500 passengers with 95% of them fully vaccinated. None of the vaccines promise more than 90% effectiveness against Covid-19. This means, that if a vaccinated individual comes in a close contact with someone carrying Covid-19, there is 10% to get infected. So it is not a surprise that out of 500 on board (+crew) one individual got infected (I would actually expect more if all restrictions would be lifted). Now, that second person in the same cabin would be in 100% a close contact with the one infected and his/her chances to get Covid-19 would be 10%. So it is rather unlikely for both people in the same cabin to get Covid.
3) The whole story exemplifies how ridiculous the “cruising” during Covid-19 is.
@Kuloko “That cruise has 500 passengers with 95% of them fully vaccinated. None of the vaccines promise more than 90% effectiveness against Covid-19. This means, that if a vaccinated individual comes in a close contact with someone carrying Covid-19, there is 10% to get infected.”
That’s not the math, actually. A 90% effective vaccine means that someone who is vaccinated has a 90% reduction in risk compared to someone who is not vaccinated. Someone who is not vaccinated doesn’t have a 100% risk of contracting the virus from close contact with someone carrying the virus (they need to have a high enough viral load, be shedding the virus, and close contact needs to be long enough and under the right circumstances … plus some people may have natural immunity or cross-immunity from other infections or even other vaccinations).
I have flown with F.As that had a few glasses of wine and there are F.As that need to be drug tested too- especially on India flights.
Hertz at ORD tried to hit me with the same smoking cleaning fee years back…ridiculous as I have never smoked, and had that care smelled of smoke when I first got in, would have switched to a different one right away.
Was able to get it reversed with just a bit of effort though.
It doesn’t take 4 days to clean a car that’s been smoked in. Just a good vacuuming and wiping down followed with a 30 to 60 minute treatment with an Ozone generator with the A/C running will get rid of most smoking odors.
I confess to renting from Hertz a few times in the period leading up to the pandemic. I certainly won’t now. The cigarette fee is the least of the news items.
I’ve also been a victim of a franchisee for another chain screwing me over on a rental (I’ve told the story before, so no need to repeat it). I don’t do business with them anymore, nor do I hold the credit card that sided with them.
In short: I’m the customer who always smiles and is understanding when problems develop. But screw me, and I’ll use every legal means to make you pay tenfold. I shudder to think what the boundless sea of jerks would do.
Cabin Crew and Pilots are always subject to a random drug test. It’s part of the job. How is this news?
@Gary
Great clarification/correction on the misconception of what the 90% means. Thank you.