I’ve cancelled American AAdvantage award tickets and Delta SkyMiles tickets for travel in the next month and neither program charged their usual mileage redeposit fee. These fee waivers are normally in place for top tier elite frequent flyers, but where a ‘no change fee’ fee waiver applies to travel, the redeposit fee for mileage tickets has been waived as well.
Not so with United, although that finally seems to have changed.
The airline bailout passed last week requires carriers taking the money not to furlough employees through September, and to maintain air service to all of the cities they serve. However that’s going to mean ghost flights, that don’t make cost sense (or environmental sense).
So they’ve already come up with a way around it that will be broached with the Trump administration. It basically calls for waiving anti-trust rules so that airlines could codeshare with each other, and have those codeshares count as retaining service.
Everything has changed. You may have opened a new small business credit card, and your business is temporarily closed under a ‘shelter in place’ order. Or you’re just pending less in light of uncertainty in the economy.
Maybe you’re stuck at home, buying groceries but you had planned for big expenses you’re putting off (like travel!). I’m sure there are many readers wondering how they’re going to meet the minimum spend requirement for those credit card bonuses.
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.
Texas isn’t requiring quarantine of everyone traveling into the state. However a new executive order from the Governor has expanded the quarantine order for airport arrivals and imposed its first quarantine order for drivers as well.
We don’t want people to travel from highly infected areas (because they might be infected) to areas where the virus isn’t spreading (because that could bring it in).
Having someone with the virus traveling to an area where there’s already significant spread doesn’t really change anything. If you don’t have COVID-19, you won’t make other people sick. And with so few people on planes, social distancing is easy, the actual travel itself is fairly low risk for passengers – though higher risk for flight attendants.
The Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security Act of 2020 (CARES Act), which contained a nearly $60 billion bailout of the U.S. airline industry, has a curious affect on the value you will get for your airline miles and points.
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.
The saying ‘not all heroes wear capes’ has become trite and is frequently used ironically. But how else are you supposed to describe a Southwest Airlines plane full of doctors and nurses flying into the hardest hit region for the novel coronavirus?
Each of these women and men are taking on real personal risk to help the people of New York. There’s not enough personal protective gear. Over 50 doctors have died of COVID-19 in Italy so far. And yet they’re all smiling, even knowing what’s in store.
This aircraft was used to bring German patients suffering from COVID-19 out of Italy and home for care. The aircraft is a 30 year old, ex-Lufthansa Airbus A310 belonging to the German Air Force with “the medevac kit installed.”
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 »
