There are some incredible hotels in the SLH portfolio, and it’s cool to be able to use Hyatt points for stays (though elite benefits don’t apply). Be careful on paid stays that you don’t overpay booking through Hyatt.
American Airlines announced this morning several new routes, the biggest of which are from my home airport in Austin. They also announced several one-off services to major events like the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting and Augusta National Masters Golf Tournament.
The Austin flights in particular are exciting because they’re a departure from American’s usual strategy. These are point-to-point flights that don’t touch hubs, instead they’re aggressively competing with new flights between Delta focus cities.
When residents complain about airport noise I’m not usually sympathetic, the airport was there before you were and planes aren’t as noisy as they used to be. And when you see thousands of noise complaints about an airport it’s frequently just one to three residents making them all believe it or not (the complaints process has been automated).
But what about when the FAA redirects air traffic overhead?
American Express is running a 30% bonus on transfers to Virgin Atlantic through December 28. You have to be logged into your Membership Rewards account to see the bonus.
There are some great uses for Virgin Atlantic’s miles.
The new Aeroflot business class has been revealed. Aeroflot’s Airbus A350’s will feature new business class suites with doors. Aeroflot is a partner of Delta, and member of SkyTeam.
Here are photos of the new suite, routes where it will be featured, and tips for booking award travel.
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.
Air France KLM makes great award availability to members using their Flying Blue miles (more than what’s offered to partner airlines). Fortunately all the major bank currencies transfer to Air France KLM Flying Blue.
This space is useful if you want to connect anywhere in Europe, travel onward to the Mideast or India or even Southeast Asia (115k miles from the US East Coast).
The Kansas City Chiefs clinched the AFC West last night and stopped the New England Patriots’ home winning streak at 21 games. But the real drama was lost luggage leading up to the game.
The Kansas City Chiefs took a United Airlines-chartered aircraft to play the New England Patriots. When they arrived some of their equipment was left on board. The plane then went to Newark, and the equipment didn’t reach them until two hours prior to kickoff.
Right now saver awards are available for Singapore Airlines new suites on the longest route where the airline operates the Airbus A380: London – Singapore Right now there are about 80 saver award seats between the two cities over a two month period.
Kirby definitely gets in the weeds, including in the management of frequent flyer programs, and he’s known to overrule the executives below him. It may be that the sense is he doesn’t listen to investors (which is good, the growth plan that’s benefited United was unpopular with investors) but my sense is that he’s less likely to listen to his own teams.
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 »
