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.
Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America during the financial crises. It was effectively a bail out. Of course that put Bank of America on the hook for a good deal of liability. It also means that they issue the Merrill Lynch credit card, and they apparently want new cardmembers because they’ve got an aggressive sign up bonus for the product: 50,000 points after $3,000 in spend within the first 90 days.
Priceline was a brilliant innovation because of the combination of price discrimination and spoiling inventory.
Travel providers have seats on flights or hotel rooms that can be expensive, but once a plane takes off with an empty seat or a night passes with an empty room the asset generates absolutely nothing for them. The inventory ‘spoils’ like expiring milk.
U.S. immigration is done outside the U.S. at 16 places around the world. When you arrive at the airport you go through US customs and immigration before getting on your flight.
That’s great for non-US citizens because the lines are usually shorter and they can make quicker connections on arrival. That’s great for the US, which is requiring that foreign governments or airports pick up the cost of immigration processing. And it’s not so good for US citizens who may face delays they wouldn’t otherwise with standard immigration.
And they may be expanding immigration preclearance to 11 new airports.
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.
American Airlines ConciergeKey is the ‘super secret’ level that George Clooney had in Up in the Air, in some sense equivalent to United Global Services and Delta 360.
ConciergeKey began mostly for corporate travel buyers and folks in their old VIP program back in 2007, and gradually expanded to individual high revenue customers.
Starting in 2017, you’ll have to meet minimum spending requirements in addition to miles (or segments) flown for American Airlines elite status.
This more or less copies United which copied Delta, both of whom already have such a requirement in place. They even copied the minimum 12 cents per mile dollar threshold.
Elimination of the ‘stay’ method of qualifying for Hyatt Diamond status has ruffled a lot of guest feathers, there will be many people who lose status because they can’t meet the new criteria for top elite status with Hyatt under changes going into effect next year.
That’s not the feature of the new program I dislike the most, and indeed those who do qualify still for top elite will be treated even better than before.
I’ve always said that a program decides who they consider to be a customer they want to reward, but once they do they should provide those rewards consistently every time they interact with that customer. And that’s going to change.
Every time in the past two years that a co-brand deal switched banks they also switched payment networks, That underscores the surprising role that Visa and MasterCard play in putting together your rewards card deals.
If you have a lot of money sitting around, or investment assets, you can earn miles. Basically just about anyone will reward you with miles for your business and when a lot of money involved so are a lot of miles.
Here are three ways your money can work for your mileage balances.
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 »
