American Airlines will let you buy back your status if you aren’t going to requalify. On the one hand it’s expensive. On the other if you were going to mileage run to reach the status level, this saves you time.
American may realize their prices are too high, or at least that they have plenty of time to market to members in different ways. If a member doesn’t buy, why not put elite status on a clearance sale?
A US citizen is suing Customs and Border Protection because when he returned to the U.S. from his native Nigeria, where he traveled for his late father’s memorial service, he was put through extreme measures.
Here’s why the federal government says they suspected him of smuggling drugs (which has since been proven false).
Iberia is offering transatlantic redemptions on sale for just 17,000 miles each way.
This is useful because Iberia is a transfer partner of both Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards, and you can move British Airways points over to Iberia provided your Iberia account has earned miles and been open for 90 days.
What’s Alaska’s path forward? It’s interesting to see their survey about what their customers want in airport lounge partnerships.
The airline is having customers compare features and membership price points for combining an Alaska Lounge membership with access to United Clubs, American Airlines Admirals Clubs, and Delta SkyClubs as well as with an unnamed partner lounge network.
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.
United has announced a significant increase in international flying from San Francisco. Since CEO Oscar Munoz was talking to press, and it was being touted as ‘historic’, speculation abounded.
Several new routes and additional flights have been announced — but not even a single new destination for United.
American Airlines hosts a ‘state of the airline’ event for employees after its earnings calls. There senior management shares their vision for the company and employees can ask questions. In addition to those questions that are asked live, there are followup questions that get asked – and answered – in writing.
The airline has shared written responses to several employee questions, and some of those contained information I did not know (although in some cases may have assumed).
Where do they want to fly bigger planes? Will they be updating business class seats on certain aircraft? How far along are they installing satellite wifi?
There are reasons to be skeptical that the breach took place in 2014, rather than there were records in the data warehouse which could have been taken that dated to 2014.
Regardless of what did or didn’t happen, and whom to blame, we’re clearly not getting the full story from Marriott. And since it’s our very sensitive personal information they failed to safeguard, we should be demanding it.
Two weeks ago IHG Rewards Club launched a promotion to give you free points for posting a selfie. The photo of yourself was supposed to be ‘at home’ or ‘at an IHG hotel’.
Back in June I wrote about the class action settlement over fuel surcharges imposed by British Airways on U.S. customers between November 9, 2006 and April 17, 2013.
Sadly British Airways stopped calling these member taxes ‘fuel surcharges’ (which legally have to be related to the cost of fuel) and started calling them ‘surcharges’ (money for nothing) and they can keep on penalizing Avios redemptions to their heart’s content.
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 »
