I don’t care about being thanked. The interaction is usually perfunctory and awkward. I care about a hotel honoring elite benefits. I care about receiving an upgrade if possible, and having the way the hotel’s status benefits explained – such as what is the breakfast offering?
Missing a thank you might even be preferred.
Qatar Airways has a new interactive ad, where you can put yourself in a promotional film using AI. You upload your photo, and get inserted into a romantic travel adventure.
Management dropped rates below $100 on some nights – but that attracted a different clientele, “a rise in drunken and disruptive guests.” With reduced revenue, the management company HEI pushed out long-time employees who delivered the high quality service the property was known for. Then “[m]ore homeless people entered the hotel and fentanyl contamination showed up in lobby bathrooms.”
The property blames the pandemic for reduced staffing in 2024. Remaining employees have been told they “no longer work for a hospitality company” but “for a real estate company” instead.
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.
If passengers are getting delayed, cancelled, and diverted – and if their bags are lost, or they’re turned away from flying completely despite having a ticket – it’s probably happening on American Airlines, according to Department of Transportation data.
The airport security checkpoint is now the stage for a viral social media trend: the “airport tray aesthetic.” Passengers curate and photograph the contents of their TSA bins.
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.
A passenger wants to know what sort of compensation they should receive after buying a full fare business class ticket to travel Qatar Airways from Miami to Doha, experiencing a lovely flight in most ways, but finding their rest disturbed by “exotic birds being transported in cargo directed below us.”
JetBlue’s seat back entertainment map now calls much of Israel “Palestinian Territories. It does so in “significantly larger text” than Israel “to the point where it is overlaid on the entire state of Israel.”
Meanwhile, all of Nav Canada facilities went electronic 15 years ago (and all control towers and TRACONs even earlier). Their solution is used in Australia, Italy, the U.K. and Dubai. We could license the Canadian solution, or other commercial ones, but instead the FAA has been working contracting for their own solution since three years before the Beastie Boys were fighting for your right to party.
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 »
