Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays will open a new departure ‘lounge’ next year in Barbados. It’s a departure beach that includes check-in and baggage dropoff.
If your cruise terminates in Barbados or you have to check out of your hotel at noon but Virgin Atlantic’s London flight leaves at 5 or 6 this gives you a place that’s not the airport to spend your last few hours of holiday.
If you have Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer miles you can fly beyond Singapore to Darwin or Cairns in Australia, Siem Reap in Cambodia, about 8 destinations in China and 9 in India, and many more (like a dozen airports in Indonesia).
Fortunately Singapore Airlines loves the U.S. bank money, and their KrisFlyer program is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. And they regularly discount awards.
Last summer Priority Pass added the club lounge at the Sofitel hotel at London Heathrow’s terminal 5 to its roster of lounges that cardmembers could access. This was a really creative play, it’s not a traditional airport lounge, but provided a very unique option for travelers.
Business travel dries up over the holidays. British Airways has inordinately large premium cabins.
So there are plenty of unsold seats.
These are often discounted for paid tickets, and made available as awards. They’re highlighting that their inventory management folks have dumped extra seats six months out, as is common.
The US Secretary of Homeland Security has a list of demands for countries around the world, and unless those demands are met he’s going to impose an electronics ban on their flights to the U.S. — even though many of his demands have nothing whatsoever to do with an imminent threat of passengers hiding explosives in their iPads.
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A woman says that she was kicked in the head by a United employee while sleeping in the Houston Intercontinental airport chapel across from gate 33A.
When Marriott acquired Starwood Bill Marriott explained the purpose of the deal as giving them scale to have greater leverage — with online travel agencies for lower commissions (and presumably better placement) and with suppliers for lower costs.
Now it appears they think they have greater leverage with customers, too.
President Trump on Friday will speak at Manuel Artime Theater in Miami — named for the leader of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba — and announce a rollback of President Obama’s liberalization of relations with the island nation.
At the American Airlines annual stockholders meeting yesterday, airline Chairman and CEO Doug Parker noted that they earn less revenue for flying similar distances than their two largest competitors. That means, he suggests, they have low hanging fruit to improve their financial performance. All they have to do is catch up.
That’s why, he says, they’re moving from a strategy of producing the most available seat miles at the lowest possible cost to one where they earn a revenue premium by investing in their product.
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 »
