I receive compensation for many links on this blog. You don’t have to use these links, but I am grateful to you if you do. American Express, Citibank, Chase, and other banks are advertising partners of this site. I do not write about all credit cards that are available — instead focusing on miles, points, and cash back (and currencies that can be converted into the same). How Useful Are Chase Ultimate Rewards Points? Chase Ultimate Rewards are probably the most valuable mileage currency, and certainly one of the top three. Along with American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest points they have the flexibility to be transferred to a wide variety of programs. The value proposition here is that you get to decide later which miles you want — you can top off…
About Gary Leff
United Names a New Chief Information Officer: What Advice Would You Give Them?
United announced a new Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. “Linda [Jojo]’s significant experience leading IT organizations and running complex business and consumer systems will be a tremendous asset to United as we advance our technology to become more efficient and better serve our customers and employees,” said Jeff Smisek, United’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. Jojo joins United from Rogers Communications, Inc., where she served as executive vice president and chief information officer. Previously, she served as chief information officer for Energy Future Holdings Corporation, Flowserve Corporation and GE Silicones. Goodness knows technology has been a weak spot for United. All things equal their mobile app is pretty good, but: The reservation system is fraught with problems. From the day they combined systems between Continental and United, moving onto the smaller platform,…
Everything’s Bigger in Texas: Qantas and Emirates Bring A380s and John Travolta Adds to the Excitement in Dallas!
Yesterday Qantas arrived at Dallas Fort Worth with an Airbus A380 for the first time, three years after they began service with a 747. They’re going from 7 day a week service down to 6 (dropping Tuesdays), but in the process: Adding 10% more capacity to the market Bringing a better in-flight product Eliminating the required stop in Brisbane in one direction This is the longest flight in the world. Tomorrow, Emirates brings an Airbus A380 to Dallas for the 12th longest flight in the world. The Emirates flight brings a first class shower and great award availabiltiy this winter. (Not entirely surprising as they weren’t filling premium cabins on the 777 they’ve had running the route.) To book Qantas A380 first class awards, certainly to get two seats, you nearly always have to book…
Up to Half Off Redemptions to Europe Booked in October!
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program should be interesting to U.S. frequent flyers for several reasons. They offer one-way awards, which Delta won’t have until next year. They are an American Express Membership Rewards and a Citi Thank You points transfer partner. They have access to award space that Delta won’t let you have. They have most of their partners available for online booking Unfortunately their call centers are frustrating, their website can be too (and has been known to show ‘phantom’ award availability, seats that look available but aren’t really here to book). And they add fuel surcharges onto award tickets. One of the great values, historically, has been their ‘promo awards’. Award tickets discounted as much as half the cost of their regular award chart can be a great value, for a relatively…
Delta Gets Pushed Out of Dallas Love Field by the Federal Government
Southwest was born out of Dallas’ Love Field. They built their identity around it. Their stock ticket symbol is LUV. Their flight attendants, in the 70s, wore hot pants and they introduced automated ticketing machines called “Quickies.” But Dallas’ close-in airport was hobbled. The local area built up Dallas-Fort Worth and in exchange all of the incumbent airlines agreed to serve only DFW. When Southwest wanted to start service from Love, they sued. They wanted all airlines barred from the airport, not just those who had entered into an agreement as part of the DFW construction. Future Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher started as the airline’s attorney. Their President was Lamar Muse, who was ultimately kicked out of the company by the board and with his son started Muse Air (colloquially dubbed “Revenge Air”). Southwest eventually…
American Delays Implementation of its Ban on Interlining Baggage on Separate Tickets
American is eliminating the ability to through check baggage between different airlines outside of oneworld on separate tickets. They informed travel agents of the change going into effect October 1 just last week. And already the implementation date has been put off… to October 15. Two more weeks. Maybe they could use the time to inform customers of the change. You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
Thoughts on the Chicago Air Traffic Control Disaster
I was fortunate not to be flying through or to Chicago over the past several days. And I’m certainly not an expert on the situation. So I’m not going to try to speculate on the man who did it, who is presumed to have been trying to commit suicide and in the process brought down a chunk of the nation’s air traffic control system. And I’m not an expert in the technology or processes involved. The way this all unfolded was surprising, and I do have some non-expert thoughts. Whatever situation that led to the presumed suicide attempt which touched this off is, no doubt, tragic. And yet I am grateful that the person attempting suicide wasn’t a Muslim. I can only imagine how that one detail would have changed the national response to things,…
Hilton HHonors Wants You to Vote for their Next Promotion – and What Charity They Should Support
Hilton HHonors has narrowed their next promotion down to two options, and members can vote for which one they want to see. The one that gets the most votes will run November 1 through January 31. The choices are either: Double HHonors Points, beginning with second stay, or 1,000 Bonus Points for every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday night stay Both promotions are extremely weak. Hotels are doing extremely well, and programs don’t need to do a lot to put heads in beds currently. But this promotion runs during the period of the year that tends to be the weakest, so I would have expected something a little bit stronger… at least when they’re looking for member involvement. Double points is better than not having double points, but it doesn’t even start with your…
Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Tips and Competing Theories of the Amex Financial Review
News and notes from around the interweb: The biggest gathering of frequent flyers ever will be held at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City near National airport in the Washington DC area. Here’s a new review of the property. Anthony Bourdain’s travel advice I’ve got family in South Florida and have stayed at many hotels there many times (such as the Hyatt Place Delray Beach, Renaissance Boca Raton, Marriott Boca Raton, Westin Diplomat, Hyatt Regency Coral Gables and Hyatt Pier 66). But I’ve never stayed at Hilton’s classic Boca Raton Resort & Club. JohnnyJet reviews it. Marathon Man’s conspiracy theory about American Express financial reviews. And the truth. Air Berlin cancelled a $5 billion aircraft order from Boeing. (Wall Street Journal article so if the link doesn’t work for you just Google “Air Berlin Cancels Purchase…
Lufthansa Long Haul About to Go Low Cost: Big Mistake?
Lufthansa is considering a new low cost long haul subsidiary that may fly Airbus A330s. The yet-to-be-named subsidiary, which is part of the Wings concept, would operate up to seven Airbus A330-300s. It will begin operations in fall 2015 with three aircraft in Munich, Düsseldorf or Cologne to take advantage of above-average growth in the leisure travel segment and round out the Lufthansa Group of airlines’ current route networks. ..Lufthansa is building on a new strategy to expand its LCC platform, Wings, which could include Germanwings, Eurowings and the new long-haul LCC returning to A320 operations to focus on direct point-to-point flights within Europe. I’ve never seen a wholly owned low cost carrier subsidiary that has actually worked, outside of Asia Pacific. (Think TED, MetroJet, Continental Lite.) In fairness, Jetstar (Qantas), FlyDubai (Government of Dubai…
