The CEO of Red Lion hotels slammed loyalty programs pretty hard but I’m not sure the actual lessons come through in his thinking.
Red Lion acquired Knights Inn from Wyndham, blocking Wyndham’s attempt to own every bad hotel in America. And Red Lion CEO Greg Mount threw some shade at Wyndham Rewards, suggesting that ‘only Hilton and Marriott’ get traction from their loyalty programs.
Along with American’s decision to order new Boeing 787s to replacing aging 767s, 777-200s, and A330s, they’ve deferred delivery of 40 out of the 100 Boeing 737 MAXs they’ve ordered. These now aren’t scheduled to be delivered until 2025 – 2026.
One employee commented on American’s internal message board that “Maybe AA is really listening to the customers and decided the MAX isn’t all too popular!” Unfortunately that’s not how this will work.
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.
Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker loves to ‘rub salt in the wounds’ and said that’s why he launched Doha – Atlanta. The airline loves to pick up awards, and so does the man himself. So it’s a double win for them to be Atlanta airport’s cargo airline of the year. There’s little question though that Qatar Airways is a tool of Qatar diplomacy. That’s why they struck a deal go give up nothing while settling complaints from United, Delta and American that they’re subsidized. It not only puts the issue behind them at little cost it put the UAE’s Emirates and Etihad in an awkward spot. Qatar agreed not to operate fifth freedom flights to the U.S., something they have zero interest in doing. Meanwhile Emirates does already operate fifth freedom flights. Their agreement…
Several Hyatt hotels are currently charging less than they are ‘supposed to’ for cash and points awards.
The Escape Lounge Reno airport is way better than I expected, in fact considering modest expectations I might even say it blew me away. It’s just past security, turn left to head down towards the C concourse but before any of the gates so accessible no matter whom you’re flying.
I’ve been a critic of American Airlines domestic first class meals, though I’ve had multiple people tell me that the current chicken meatballs aren’t bad and the short rib is better than some of the other choices.
American Airlines lets you pre-select your meal up to 24 hours prior to departure. That’s not like Singapore Airlines where you get a wide variety of choices. Instead you’re mostly just choosing from among the options that would be available onboard. But…
American Airlines has ordered 47 Boeing 787s. 22 Boeing 787-8s will replace their 24 Boeing 767s, and 25 Boeing 787-9s will replace their 15 Airbus A330-300s and older 777-200s.
American’s CFO recorded a podcast to talk about the reasons for the big Boeing order.
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.
There has been a lot of buzz about a Washington Post piece suggesting that high risk dogs are the ‘real reason’ more dogs die onboard United. But that is a substantial overclaim of what is actually in the data.
Understanding which breeds constitute the greatest risk is a good first step in reviewing the pet shipping program. 18 of the 24 cargo pet deaths in 2017 were on United, while United carried about one third of pets. Drilling down into what’s going on with different types of animals may help to identify some of the problems, but it isn’t the entire story and doesn’t begin to excuse United’s poor performance in this area. And it doesn’t speak to the instances of lost/mis-routed dogs either.
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 »
