A Conservative Party Senate candidate in Colombia was dragged away from a Viva Air Colombia flight over carry on bag fees. She was outraged over being charged 150,000 pesos (US$39) to bring her bag aboard the ultra low cost carrier.
Russian scammers may be pocking some of the money, and in any case you’ll want to focus on individual hosts with single listings rather than corporate hosts (some of whom may even be based in Russia).
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.
Most premium Amex customers live in New York city – more than double the number in second city LA. And, it appears, on average they make quite a lot of money even though I’ve nott found it difficult for readers without such high incomes to get approved for Platinum cards.
With the pandemic hopefully winding down, the federal government is sending out tests at no cost to recipients (‘free’). They’re using the US Postal Service to distribute them and perhaps not surprisingly many report not getting the tests they ordered. (Oddly, the first time around they actually sent me too many tests.
However with much less need for testing now – The 7 day moving average of U.S. reported cases are down 94% from their January 16th peak – only half of the 500 million tests the government ordered have been spoken for. Each household was permitted to order (4) tests previously, no matter how many people lived at a residential address. Starting this week households can order a second set of four tests.
One of the major drawbacks of the ‘low cost carriers’ has been that they didn’t set up the ability to put you on another airline when your flight cancels. However Spirit Airlines and Frontier, which are merging, have been flipping the script. And Frontier may have the best cancelled flight approach of any airline now.
Your ‘free breakfast’ as a Marriott Platinum, Titanium, or Ambassador member is allowed to come off of a special limited menu. And it does not even have to include juice or coffee.
And here’s the important context. Hotels can get away with virtually anything at Marriott, and hotels in this particular ownership group usually try.
Qatar has one of the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’. These are revolutionary suites with doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space. Right now there’s fantastic award availability booking for October through January.
Marriott’s top tier Ambassador status requires 100 elite nights and $20,000 spend to earn. And they’ve failed to deliver benefits consistently to Ambassador members, and reduced the service provided as well over the past two years. Now they’re surveying members to see what’s important to them as they consider whether to invest more in their best members.
According to internal American Airlines documentation issued to coincide with the official launch of ‘Loyalty Points’ as the new way that frequent flyer tier status is earned, customers will no longer be called elite. Instead “[t]he term “Status” replaces Elite.”
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 »
