News and notes from around the interweb:
- Bank of America ending the ability to redeem Worldpoints for flights at a higher value than cash back effective November 1
- Alaska Airlines announced job cuts for 8% of Virgin America’s workforce and the deal hasn’t even closed yet.
- Star Alliance member Brussels Airlines briefly stopped serving West Bank-produced halvah as an inflight snack because of complaints by the anti-Israel BDS Movement. However they’ve backtracked and will serve the delicious treat after all. An airline controlled by Germany’s Lufthansa Group probably shouldn’t be taking anti-Israel foreign policy positions.
- Delta evaluating results of new inflight snack test.
The test on certain flights out of Atlanta and Minneapolis included Emerald cashews, Snyder’s pretzels, NatureBox yogurt bars and the old stand-by Biscoff cookies.
That’s a bigger focus on brand-names than Delta’s long-standing lineup of peanuts, pretzels and Biscoff — with a notable switch of nut variety.
- Asiana credit card signup bonus increased to 30,000 miles after $3000 spend within 90 days. The card has a $99 annual fee and is issued by Bank of America. Asiana is a Star Alliance airline with great routing rules and a great award chart, albeit with fuel surcharges.
- Google expanding Waze-based competitor to Lyft and UberPool in San Francisco. Lower prices and they don’t take a cut (yet) or do background checks.
- Affluent travelers are brand loyal to hotel chains. Better not risk devaluing those hotel programs!
I agree with you about the halvah.
Fact is, I support the creation of a Palestinian state, but cannot abide this kind of hypocrisy. As a gay man, I could be killed by the governments of Saudi Arabia or Uganda, but nobody is pressing for a boycott of Saudia Airlines or Entebbe Airport. My safety isn’t important enough?
Taking an anti-Israel foreign policy position is not equivalent to anti-semitism, so I see no reason why a German airline should be more sensitive to such things than anyone else.
Israel eh? BDS eh? Palestine eh? *Grabs popcorn, eagerly anticipates comments*
I fucking love both halvah AND Biscoff cookies. Any airline that ditches either is no friend of mine.
dbeach – the job of an airline is to get its passengers from A to B offering the best all round product, not take foreign policy positions. For that reason the original decision was ridiculous.
I’m allergic to sesame, and it’s the 4th highest cause of anaphylaxis in Israel because parents have fed it to babies and they became sensitized.
So, giving it to airline passengers is …..not too bright. I’d assume adults would know what it is , but in Israel they often mix ground sesame in chocolates. It’s on the label …in Hebrew.
I’ve found it in such weird places as packaged sliced turkey.
Now, Korea is another story. Even with a fluent translator I was served sesame with just about everything.
The whole boycott/ divestment thing is pretty stupid. It isn’t going to work. Israeli Arabs are sort of second-class citizens despite having the same rights. But, this isn’t apartheid–not even close.
As to Gaza and the West Bank, you have a bunch of rabid people on both sides.
At the rate of growth of the Arab Israeli population (about 20% now, 6% in the 70’s), in about 50 years the populace may be predominantly Arabic unless Israel negotiates a separate state agreement and it succeeds well-enough that Israeli Arabs want to move there. They sure don’t want to move to Gaza or the West Bank now. The average life expectancy of Israeli Jews is 82 and Israeli Arabs 81. That’s the second highest of any OECD country.