News and notes from around the interweb:
- The much-better DO & CO will permanently cater American Airlines out of London Heathrow, flyers rejoice!
will take somewhere around 4 months to complete the transition. New catering trucks will be arriving starting in August and September.
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) August 4, 2026
- 40% bonus on Citi transfers to Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles through August 31, 2026, up to 50,000 bonus miles.
This is offered by Turkish not Citi and the bonus posts at the end of the promotion. This can be a good deal for Turkish redemptions, with better availability on their metal. After a series of devaluations they’re no longer the sweet spot they once were for several partner awards, but 40% bonus still helps. (HT: One Mile at a Time)
- If this isn’t reason enough to skip college and do a startup
So many students yall putting them in la quintas!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/UmIttfydmX
— TheeMarketingMamí (@WizMonifaaa) August 3, 2026
- Marriott’s cobrand card fee economics get a boost (and owners are displeased because Marriott is basically selling their inventory at a discount and pocketing money from Chase and Amex for it).
Capuano confirmed that Marriott has finalized new long-term co-branded credit card agreements with JPMorgan Chase and American Express, and put a number on what the deals are worth long-term.
By 2028, the new deals could add between $100 million and $125 million in additional annual credit card fees at Marriott’s current royalty rate of 26%, with the partial-year impact for 2026 coming in at approximately $30 million in the second half.
Marriott is now guiding for credit card fee growth in the “high 30%” range for the full year.
Marriott’s co-branded credit card fees were $716 million in 2025, up from $410 million in 2019 — a figure that is set to grow considerably faster under the new agreements. That revenue is reported within Marriott’s franchise fee line.
- I’ve seen far worse. I’ve done far worse.
- Chase Sapphire Lounge Phoenix is eliminating reservations. That’s too bad – I’d rather see them open up reservations at the rest of their lounges! I broke the news a month and a half ago that this lounge would be doubling in size but it will still be small!
PHX lounge will stop taking reservations 9/1/26
by
u/kiwi619 in
sapphirereserve - Business class suite doors on United Boeing 787-9s are certified, so the doors are now permitted to close:
Flew the 789P with American in the new Flagship Suites (recommend the ‘Preferred,’ front row, if you can snag it, and good news, the doors closed!) from LHR-JFK, and the food was decent, so I’m assuming it was DO&CO. White fish, sundae, sandwich prior to arrival. If it wasn’t them, it was fine.
They need digital waitlists so you can join when you get to or land at the airport and save 15 minutes from the wait. That’s a big competitive advantage for Amex. Reservations cut both ways and probably a pain to manage.
Do&Co is good (and was tasty for me on the route). The dead mouse or whatever they found with their old caterer should be praised for the upgrade.
@Peter — Sir, his name is/was “Mickey”… LOL.
Do&Co is what brought BA from one of the worst in onboard food to one of the better ones, and it certainly makes a difference to me, though I recognize that everyone values different things. However, flying mostly out of DC at this point, I fly AA mostly on domestic routes.
Thank you so much for showing the sign for transportation to the other terminals at Austin. This is a huge relief and next time I’m in AUS, I know where to snag the bus to the other terminals. Thank you so much for posting this! It’s a life saver!!!
Is the problem with the American Airlines sign just that it says “in available” instead of “is available”? If so, that’s an error but not really worth commenting on as it doesn’t change the meaning or at least isn’t confusing.
The problematic typos are the ones that change the meaning significantly. You don’t want to have a display that says that a flight is “NOT BOARDING” when you mean “NOW BOARDING.”
Probably Philadelphia public school graduates. F10 is where PHL shuttle buses dropping off passengers including AA buses to other airports.
@Gary – If Turkish is still a huge PITA to book award flights, what booking service would you suggest?
@Christian — The least TK could do is throw-in a little hummus to go with all that PITA…
*ba dum tss*