United has soft launched a meet and greet airport assistance program with Global Airport Concierge that so far is available at Newark and Chicago O’Hare.
At departure they’ll meet you curbside. On arrival they’ll meet you on the jetbridge. They’ll monitor your flight and assist with rebookings. You get priority check-in and premium security line access. You’ll get escorted to and from your gate.
Hyatt Gold Passport has my absolute favorite hotel benefit: Diamond members get to confirm a suite at booking 4 times per year (up to 7 nights at a time). Instead of hoping for an upgrade close to arrival or at the check-in counter, you throw down one of your trump cards and your base-level room reservation confirms into a suite, provided that the hotel has base-level suites for sale.
Hyatt’s Jeff Zidell tells me that they’re going to be announcing a change to the way that Diamond Suite Upgrades work later today.
There’s been a great deal of speculation about the announcement that American Airlines would make today in Los Angeles.
American has been building up Los Angeles, with a real play to the entertainment community to be the preferred carrier there. It’s a highly competitive market. United has retrenched somewhat, but Delta’s made a strong play for the city.
They have a new Sydney flight, and are adding Auckland and Tokyo Haneda. There had been strong speculation they’d announce Hong Kong service. But they didn’t. They didn’t announce plans to consolidate operations currently spread across 4 terminals, either. Instead we got…
United spokesperson Rahsaan Johnson just shared with me a new policy, in effect starting today: 1K and Global Services members receive both a complimentary beverage and complimentary food item when seated in economy.
The snack and drink benefit, I can say as a top tier elite with American, is something that really improves the coach experience. It takes it from mass transportation (‘cattle car’) and helps to personalize it, because even when you don’t get upgraded there’s still a benefit to your status and individual recognition. Together with a complimentary extra legroom seat, flying coach as a top elite really isn’t bad.
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.
Avianca LifeMiles just became a whole lot more valuable and useful. They’ve solved the limitation on booking ‘mixed cabin’ award tickets. That makes the price at which they sometimes sell miles even more tempting.
There are those who would argue that awards are earned One Mile at a Time and so 100 miles should seem like a really appealing reward. I’ll certainly earn my 100 miles here and there, from the smallest online purchase to the occasional online surveys (most useful for extending the life of miles, or generating partner activity in all-too-rare partner earning promotions).
Starwood’s first quarter promotion was really disappointing when it came out — but they’ve made it better with additional threshold bonuses for staying 15 and 25 nights during the promotion period.
Register of course, because earning double points if you happen to stay 2 nights at a Starwood hotel during the promotion period — or at a 250 bonus point per night participating hotel — is better than not earning those points. And if you’re spending a bunch of nights with Starwood the quarterly promo got reasonably rich.
What is the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program? Miles used to be thought to be worth 2 cents. I think that conventional wisdom developed out of the idea that a cross country flight cost about $500… or 25,000 miles. 20 years ago that was generally true, and award availability wasn’t really a problem either.
I’m going to share my own rough and ready number for several different programs. And I’m going to explain how I think about the value of miles — why they are different for different people, and for different circumstances of how you plan to use them.
Here’s how to think about the value of miles and points by airline, hotel and credit card program.
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.
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 »
