Hyatt and American Airlines have new offers to fast track towards elite status for current elite members of the other program. Hyatt even gives free temporary status while you work on your challenge. They aren’t super easy, or with American necessarily the best way to achieve status we’ve seen in the market, however.
The Hilton Burlington Lake Champlain is charging guests a surcharge to pay by credit card, and appears to be calling it a tax. Hilton has a brand standard against this. Imposing this fee on the standard method of payment is drip pricing. And mislabeling it a tax is fraud. Surely American Express won’t be pleased, either, to learn a Hilton is charging their cardmembers extra to pay with a Hilton co-brand.
Last month I covered the passenger lawsuit to overturn the federal transportation mask mandate. Some of the arguments in the suit are legally persuasive, but included a lot of unpersuasive claims as well. I expected that the suit would be made moot by the expiration (and non-renewal) of the mask mandate on September 13, 2021 – before the case gets adjudicated.
However a couple of things have happened since then.
Texas Democratic legislators left the state in order to break quorum during a special legislative session and prevent Republicans from passing new voting legislation. This is the special session that was supposed to pass the bill the legislature ran out of time on when Democrats broke quorum last time.
They took two chartered flights on Monday from Austin to Washington D.C. to “apply pressure to Democrats in the U.S. Senate” to pass federal voting legislation to trump moves by Texas and other states.
United Airlines introduced map-based flight search last year for revenue flights. And the increasingly revenue-based MileagePlus program now has this new feature as well. This allows filtering awards by non-stop vs. connection, dates, one-way vs. roundtrip, along with an “interest filter.”
CLEAR is expedited airport security. You use biometrics instead of a drivers license to identify yourself, and you skip to the front of the security line. If you’re eligible for PreCheck, you skip to the front of the PreCheck line. And you can leave your ID in your pocket or carry on. They’re also used at some entertainment venues.
Capital One is building out a lounge network. The first lounge will be at Dallas – Fort Worth opening this year. Washington Dulles has been announced for 2022. And now they’ve announced plans for a Denver lounge, as well as two mileage transfer bonus promotions.
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 family visiting Maui rented a car for 2 days and it cost them $1100. But an $1100 rental was only just the start for the Agors. Someone hit their rental car. So they called the police to file a report. And the police cited them.
When their home was raided they were held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and not allowed to use the bathroom for hours. You might say ‘but they were at the Capitol on January 6th’ and if they were convicted of activities related to the riots that day I might not be sympathetic. But they haven’t been charged. Many people there were innocent of wrongdoing. And there doesn’t appear to be any reason to suspect they’re a threat to aviation. Indeed, they’ve flown successfully and their behavior on those flights proves it.
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 »
