A Captain for Russian government-owned low cost carrier Pobeda, a subsidiary of Aeroflot, demonstrated real bravery by announcing to his flight that his government’s invasion of Ukraine is a crime and must be stopped. Caveating that he was speaking for himself and not the airline that had brought passengers to Antalya, Turkey, he asked passengers to do everything they could to bring the war to an end. Passengers cheered.
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.
British Airways has followed the lead of some other U.K. carriers in announcing the end of its mask mandate effective March 16, except where they’re required to continue imposing one such as flights to the U.S. and to Italy.
Most Turkish Airlines routes between the U.S. and Istanbul are wide open for business class award redemption between October and January – for four or more passengers! – with some routes having availability starting in May.
Turkish is a Star Alliance airline, which means you can use United miles to book. Or you can transfer Citi, Bilt, or Capital One points directly to Turkish for some amazing award pricing. You can also transfer from Chase to Aeroplan or United, Amex to ANA, Avianca or Aeroplan, or Citi, Brex, or Capital One to Avianca as well.
The new Curve card is beginning to roll out. It lets you link other credit cards and choose which one you pay with, and it can give you rewards on top of the card that you’re charging to and lets you change which card you’re charging after the fact.
However they are saying that re-assigning charges won’t retain merchant codes for category bonuses.
Donald Trump no longer has a 747 flying under the Air Force One call sign. He no longer has his Boeing 757 in flying condition either. It has fallen into disrepair needing maintenance and missing parts.
He recently had a well-publicized incident where the plane he was in – not his own – had to make an emergency landing. The Dassault Falcon 900 which was taking him from an event in New Orleans to Palm beach suffered an engine failure. His team used the opportunity to fundraise for a new plane.
A man posted to Reddit and literally got branded an ‘a-hole’ on the site (with flair!) after sharing that he upgraded himself on a 12 hour flight while leaving his wife in economy, and expressed surprised that she was upset by this.
The 25 year old US expat living in Japan said his 24 year old wife was traveling with him to the U.S. for a month and they’d booked seats together. He spent miles for his own upgrade. He asked if he was being a jerk and the internet said yes.
The U.K. has strong laws that taxes and charges must be shown in the headline rate for hotels. They cannot advertise a price plus resort fee or service charges. The price cannot even be advertised excluding VAT (tax).
Yet many hotels in London and the surrounding area have a workaround for this. They’re adding a 5% ‘service charge’ to bills on top of the room rate which isn’t advertised or even disclosed during the booking process. The trick is that it’s a discretionary (optional) fee, which is to say that the guest can ask to have the charge removed.
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.
Disney World is the happiest place on earth, right? I’m not so sure. I recently took my toddler there, and she loved it – she was most excited to see Buzz Lightyear. She also didn’t want to get leave rides when they ended. I know I’ll make several more trips there, and my daughter will love it. At the same time Disney just costs a lot of money and isn’t actually that good.
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 »
