President Biden’s nominee to head the FAA, Denver airport chief Phil Washington, has withdrawn from the nomination process. I was, frankly, surprised to see him re-nominated in January after a Democrat-controlled Senate saw him as too vulnerable to move forward with a hearing in 2022. And though he led the Biden Presidential campaign’s Department of Transportation transition, he hardly seemed the best fit for the role.
The Marriott Key Bridge was the second Marriott hotel ever, and was the oldest Marriott hotel when it closed in July 2021.
Originally opened in 1959 as the Key Bridge Motor Inn, it was located in Rosslyn just across the river from Washington D.C. It featured a fantastic view, as a result, and in its history hosted both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. In recent times it played host to the homeless.
When Marriott launched the Bonvoy program in 2018 the most expensive redemption for any hotel was 60,000 points. Then they introduced ‘high and low season’ pricing and a new more expensive category 8, pushing up the most expensive reward to 100,000 points.
A year ago they abolished award charts altogether and promised only that price increases would be muted in the first year of the new system. Now that the first year has passed, gloves and constraints are off, and properties can cost up to 150,000 points per night.
Etihad’s Airbus A380 is returning to the skies, and with it their “First Apartment” which are among the most impressive inflight suites in the world. And award space is currently wide open on the London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi route with as many as 9 award seats per flight in some cases (book the whole cabin), and up to two daily flights on the aircraft.
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.
At an internal employee ‘Crew News’ question and answer session, American Airlines Vice President of Network Planning Brian Znotins shared that the airline is looking at Singapore as a new destination.. This service would become possible once the airline begins taking delivery of new Boeing 787-9s it has on order, currently slated for next year.
A 71 year old deaf Florida woman was connecting in Austin enroute to Seattle. She was a nervous flyer traveling alone for the first time in her life. Her hearing aid wasn’t working well, and wound up spending 3 days in jail and having her arm broken by police after she was unable to hear instructions from a gate agent – and asked twice to get on an earlier flight.
DFW airport’s access road has a toll and driving through in under 8 minutes costs $6. They don’t want people cutting through the airport,
Boston studied it a few years ago in exchange for environmental groups dropping objections to building more parking. One push for the fees is anti-car. And, of course, revenue-raising.
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.
It’s especially galling to see United Airlines selling the option to receive a refund when they cancel a flight during the booking process on their website. A customer is entitled to a refund when United cancels their flight for any reason however United makes it appear that this is not the case when a flight is cancelled due to weather, unless the customer pays extra.
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 »
