A week and a half ago American Airlines suspended most of their catering at LAX after trace amounts of listeria was found at Gate Gourmet, which catered most of their flights (along with Delta, and several international airlines).
That’s a smart precaution to take, but it created big operational problems.
When Delta and Northwest merged, the combined Delta became the largest airline leapfrogging United and American. Then United and Continental merged and took over the number one spot. And of course American and US Airways merged, to become the biggest single airline.
Except that Delta continued to grow organically, and surpassed United.
Of course we all love it when mistake fares happen and they’re honored and we get to travel the world at insanely cheap prices, especially in business or first class.
For some readers booking a $28 ticket to Paris presents a moral challenge: should you take advantage of something you know is a mistake? My own view is that I’m happy to book it, airlines will choose to honor it or they won’t, but if they’re going to fly people to Paris for $28 I’d like to be one of those people.
On October 26, a Qatar Airways business class passenger from Doha to Manchester, U.K. was arrested on arrival for throwing mints.
The man drank 2 whiskies on the flight but reportedly appeared already drunk prior to departure. Cabin crew managed to get the man to return to his seat — but then he started throwing mints and that’s when he “had to be restrained with cable ties.”
I still have a Hyatt Credit Card. It’s great for the signup bonus which used to be 2 free nights at any Hyatt property, but is now 40,000 points after $2000 spend within 3 months. Of course a Hyatt property can cost up to 30,000 points per night for a standard room, but points are more flexible to split up across more room nights or to be used towards suites or on cash and points awards. And points can be transferred to someone else for free. Park Hyatt Hadahaa, Maldives I keep the card, the annual free night up to category 4 is more than worth the card’s $75 annual fee. But the reason to *get* the card is the signup bonus and because Chase doesn’t limit approvals to folks with fewer than 5 new…
American Express opened a Centurion lounge in Hong Kong several weeks ago. While there are American Express lounges in several locations around the world, such as Sydney and Mexico City, this is the first Centurion Lounge outside the United States.
And the interesting thing is that this one, while accessible by both Platinum and Centurion cardholders, is the first one that’s really far more geared to the Centurion card set.
American Express has a Centurion Lounge popup in London for two weekends: Friday, November 24th through Sunday the 26th and Friday, December 1 through Sunday the 3rd.
They’ll be offering snow globe making, make your own home fragrance, beauty services and brunch with Santa Claus on Saturdays taking photos with guests and handing out gifts. There will be a gift wrapping service with personalized calligraphy tags, photo booth, family area with movies and games, and semi-private work space with wifi.
Qatar already flies 5 times daily to Bangkok, twice daily to Phuket, and will be daily Krabi service December 1 and four times weekly Chian Mai service December 12.
However I find new Pattaya service the strangest.
A passenger was “manhandled, dragged and beaten on the tarmac” at Delhi’s airport by employees of IndiGo airlines.
The man had been unable to obtain even an apology from IndiGo, however now that the incident has gone viral, IndiGo is publicly apologizing. They’ve apparently already fired the employee who took the video exposing the incident, saying he was the instigator.
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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 »
