Ultimately “ask[ing] the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security to come up with new protocols for security, boarding and other routines to minimize risk” will be health security theater, more designed to make people feel like the government is doing something to protect them than actually doing something to protect them, an airline marketing expense as it were.
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.
American Airlines is extending its change fee waiver for tickets purchased in June – but only for itineraries to travel by end of September.
American seems to be saying that the lull in travel, while to some extent long lasting, is likely to bounce back. That’s at least true for leisure travel, since business travel wouldn’t be booking past September anyway. At a minimum there’s some chance that they won’t need to offer flexibility indefinitely into the future, so they’d rather offer this a little bit at a time. That makes sense, from a certain point of view.
Over the weekend police stole $138,980 from a passenger departing from Boston’s Logan airport.
The man had missed his flight and bought a new ticket. The cash was spotted as he went through the TSA checkpoint. And the cops took it. There’s no insinuation he was involved in any crime. In fact, he was allowed to go on his way – just $140,000 lighter.
What Represenative Posey wants to do is require the federal government to overpay for lodging – not to reduce allowable hotel rates – even though market rates may be falling. The federal government spends billions on travel, and the hotel lobby shop AHLA thinks this will “allow hotels to be fairly compensated for the services they provide.”
In reality it’s a backdoor subsidyto hotel chains and owners. Although it wouldn’t work the way the hotel industry thinks.
When the first airline credit card was introduced in 1986 (the Continental TravelBank Gold MasterCard from Marine Midland Bank, now HSBC) things were much simpler. You earned one mile per dollar spent. You paid an annual fee for the privilege of earning miles.
Increasingly over the past couple of years bank issuers have sought out the no annual fee market for airline cards. There’s been a lot of competition for rewards card signups, including from the banks themselves. So this is a new market to reach for growth.
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.
A fantastic documentary on Pan Am, Across the Pacific is streaming online from PBS. The first episode ‘Airborne’ is now available.
Emirates has imposed some of the highest surcharges on award tickets in the world. Taxes and fees flying New York – Bangkok in business or first class were recently has high as $1736 roundtrip – and that’s in addition to paying with miles.
All of a sudden, though, that’s changed.
There’s a better offer than I’ve ever seen before for the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard®. It’s a card I picked up myself for the bonus miles, which is useful because there’s no longer a great way to earn miles through another credit card and transfer those miles to American. And for all of my criticisms, there’s no mileage currency I wind up spending more often than my AAdvantage miles.
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 »
