News and notes from around the interweb:
- From my award booking partner Steve Belkin, aka beaubo, comes a new project.
- Was Citibank able to obtain the Costco co-brand relationship because it had lost so much darned money in the recent past?
- Abercrombie & Fitch’s private jet.
Mr Jefferies, who was pushed out in December amid slumping sales, once had near 50-page “Aircraft Standards” rulebook for those who worked as his crew. Male staffers had to be clean-shaven, wear a uniform of Abercrombie polo shirts, flip-flops and boxer briefs. They also had to have a “spritz” of the company’s cologne. It specified which music to play and stipulated staff will wear black gloves when handling silverware and white gloves to lay the table.
- Several airports are rolling out comfort dogs… that you can pet to relieve the stress of travel.
Interesting Gary on Citi possibly winning the Costco deal due to government “credits.” I actually agree with this take. And, let’s take that a step further. Citi also just won the AAdvantage card portfolio. It could be implied that it won that business over Barclaycard due to government “credits” which are basically subsidies to Citi. The big 3 US Carries, as you have been pointing out, are complaining about subsidies received by the Sand Carriers from their governments. However, it can be inferred that AA’s deal with Citi for it’s co-brand portfolio was a backdoor US government subsidy for AA.
First link is busted.
@Chris Staab – in fairness, Citi was in a much stronger position to win the AA business given the bigger installed cardmember base — the portfolio is worth more to them than to Barclays, who hasn’t ever spent nearly as much as Citi has on a co-brand deal.
Fair enough, Gary. I agree with you. But that does not negate the fact that if Citi is subsidized by the government than AA is benefiting from that subsidy. The Citi AAdvatage portfolio may be the biggest profit center in the airline. And the issuing bank enabling that profit is government subsidized because it was “too big to fail.” So, it seems slightly hypocritical to me that AA is complaining about the Sand Carrier’s government subsidies.