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.
Hyatt just announced several modest program changes to award members after fewer nights starting next year, and some tweaks to qualifying for elite status including requiring 5 extra nights to re-qualify for top tier status in 2020.
Here’s what’s changing and what they’ll mean to you.
If you leave something behind at a security checkpoint you’re better off searching for it on eBay than at lost and found.
At American no one will retrieve your missing items because helping customers gets in the way of their operation.
Apparently the reason you don’t get your stuff back if you leave valuables on a Delta flight?
Lion Air flight JT610 from Jakarta to Pangkal Pinang crashed 13 minutes after takeoff on October 29. 189 passengers and crew were killed in the disaster.
The aircraft’s flight data recorder was recovered last month, and provided useful information to allow for a preliminary report. The cockpit voice recorder has not yet been recovered. Unfortunately investigation of the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX crash is stalled.
Two months ago Qatar Airways threatened to leave the oneworld alliance, a threat that their CEO Akbar al-Baker has repeated several times.
Qatar’s CEO did not attend the alliance’s annual meeting in New York where their existing partner Royal Air Maroc announced its pending entry into oneworld. Any exit would logically have been announced at that meeting, though Qatar has mentioned a Christmas deadline for a decision.
Right now SkyTeam member and Delta partner Aerolineas Argentinas is promoting an aggressive new status match offer. They will give you a year of elite status based on the status you have with another airline (that is not a part of the SkyTeam alliance) or a hotel chain. Willingness to match against, say, Hilton Honors is unique, easy, and aggressive.
SkyTeam elite status makes travel easier on Delta.
With Singapore aggressively growing service in the U.S. and with their Los Angeles and Newark non-stop flights not offering regular coach there is a glut of premium seats, especially premium economy seats. That’s great for award travel.
Right now Singapore is discounting award redemption on their U.S. non-stop flights which means San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Newark to Singapore (in each direction).
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 strange reason why Air France operated a flight from Casablanca to Lisbon in the famous 1942 Humphrey Bogart film.
United Airlines is reducing flight attendant staffing in their international widebody Polaris business class. Starting February 1, 2019 there will no longer be a dedicated flight attendant to work the galley preparing meals, and more meals will be pre-plated.
In the spirit of United no longer assigning a ‘mid-Galley’ flight attendant to cook meals, United is making their Polaris cookbook available for sale. That way you can cook your own meals!
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 »
