Jun 04 2016

Skift has developed an amazing piece on the birth of online travel, collecting stories that help shape our understanding of how we got to where we are today, at least from a business perspective.

At a macro-level, online booking put the traditional brick and mortar travel agencies out of business. There’s still a significant role for travel specialists in high end trips. But there has to be a large margin to cover human intervention in travel, something that doesn’t make sense for basic air or hotel bookings.

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Jun 04 2016

In April a passenger on an Indian domestic flight had his cell phone confiscated and was arrested on arrival for shooting video of flight attendants. The passenger was charged with “assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty.”

Last week on a Flybe hop from Dublin to Cardiff on an ERJ190 regional jet a passenger took “inappropriate pictures” of a flight attendant during her safety demonstration.

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Jun 04 2016

They aren’t asking for an online statement to even demonstrate stay activity in the program with which you have status. So presumably free hotel status, such as Starwood Gold or Hilton Gold that comes with the American Express Platinum card or Hilton Gold via the Citi Hilton Reserve Card would suffice provided you have a membership card to send them (although even without a card I’d still suggest submitting a screen shot showing your status, and mentioning the program didn’t send you your membership card — which could be a frustrating reason you’d want to switch).

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Jun 03 2016

You’d think you could type in where you’re flying from and where you’re going and get a list of available flights. In fact, most customers think this because it’s perfectly logical. But it’s often not the case.

Most airlines don’t show availability of awards on all of their partners on their own websites and don’t show all options even for their own flights.

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Jun 03 2016

The FDA issued a warning last month to Alaska Airlines Chairman and CEO Brad Tilden that flight attendants on Horizon Air Q400 aircraft should not be serving drinks with ice.

Since the lavatories in Horizon Air’s 52 Q400 turboprops don’t have sinks flight attendants aren’t able to wash their hands inflight. Thus they aren’t permitted to serve any food or beverages which aren’t prepackaged.

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Jun 03 2016

There are three great international first class flight products. There are many airlines which are very good. But the first class offerings in Airbus A380s of Etihad, Emirates, and Singapore Airlines are better than the rest.

And Etihad’s first class Apartment is better, even, than the first classes of Emirates and Singapore.

Photos are one thing. Etihad has produced a 360 degree virtual reality film with Nicole Kidman that takes you through their Airbus A380, including inside The Residence. You can drag the screen to change your viewing angle in this video.

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Jun 03 2016

Credit card signup bonuses have bounced around a lot over the years. Normal when I started was 15,000 miles. Bonuses surged tremendously around 4 and 5 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon to see 100,000 mile bonuses at least for less popular cards or in the form of targeted offers.

For the most part things have settled down, where 50,000 miles is a good offer and sometimes offers fall to 30,000 miles. Miles are more expensive to issuers than they were in the depths of the Great Recession, and they’ve gotten more sophisticated figuring out what it takes to earn back revenue from portfolios of customers to cover acquisition costs.

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Jun 03 2016

Improved inflight internet was one of the five priorities I outlined for the airline now that they completed customer-facing integration of US Airways and American. Another was offering a consistent product.

American is going to go with ViaSat for domestic high speed inflight internet. For some planes. Starting over a year from now. So they will have 3 different internet providers, and fast internet only on a small portion of their domestic fleet.

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Jun 03 2016

Scott Mayerowitz, covering yesterday’s launch of a new United Airlines premium product, shared this interesting tidbit about United CEO Oscar Munoz’s health having returned to the job after a heart transplant shortly following his being appointed to the role.

The CEO of United has been under doctor’s orders not to even fly commercial. We certainly wish him – and United – continued recovery!

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Jun 03 2016

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.

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