News and notes from around the interweb:
- Death spiral: The American Express ‘coalition loyalty program’ Plenti is now losing Macys as a partner.
- Consumers book hotels through OTAs like Expedia because they trust that they’re getting the best guidance on what hotel to book — they see all their choices, not just a single chain, and metasearch OTAs give them prices from various sites not just one. Direct booking rates aren’t OTA killers because consumers don’t know that they want to stay at a Hilton or a Marriott when they begin their search, and they still feel they need to shop around for best pricing (after all best rate guarantees are mostly bull.
Expedia Dancers Flickr: Juggernautco - Nepal is looking to work with Lufthnasa to turn around its national airline.
- Mexico is sucking up to President Trump by being open to placing air marshals on US-bound flights even though the air marshal program is a useless pathetic joke.
- Do market conditions warrant Marriott’s commission cuts?
- Emirates first class flight attendant standards. Not surprising, I’m blown away by the rigorous service training Singapore Airlines flight attendants receive though the grooming standards make me slightly uncomfortable.
Expedia also wins when their rate is better and calling the hotel directly to match it is an exercise in pain.
Marriott has a powerhouse collection of desirable brands and now that they own most of the most compelling brands they will stick it to everybody.Travel agents ,leisure and business travelers
i predict that they will be shooting at fish in a barrel with many of those willing to pay anything
Travelers will be paying 200k Mr Points for a single night in a courtyard
just wait and see what they do once they merge the programs
I give it less than 2 years and watch out
Calm before the storm
Plenti has always been a joke but since very early on I had been earning points for my ATT bills each month. And I quickly forgot about Plenti. I tried to redeem points at ATT as that agreement ended last fall but had no luck since I auto pay. So I decided to try my local Exxon station. I have no idea where my Plenti card is so I tapped my entire card number into the pump…and wow, $45 in free gas for my points! I’m down to nearly zero points but that was a nice payoff for a rewards program I never even thought about!