Category Archives for Commentary.
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.
Tyler Cowen’s new book coming out April 9, Big Business: A Love Letter to an American Anti-Hero contains this passage final its chapter “If business is so good, why is it so disliked?”
It’s not about loyalty programs per se, but loyalty marketing is one of the key ways that businesses attempt to trascend the transactional and make us loyal. Brand positioning, charitable giving, along with recognition and reward, can temporarily make us see the business as aligning with our values and integrating with our life. And then we’re disappointed:
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.
In February a man downed 4 bottles of Stella Artois at London’s Gatwick airport before a 9 a.m. easyJet flight to Egypt for his honeymoon.
He boarded the plane smoking an e-cigarette and was told he had to stop vaping. He responded to the flight attendant’s instruction with a homophobic outburst — before “knock[ing] out one of the cabin crew..with two punches” and sending him to the ground and then proceeding to attack a second flight attendant who responded to the situation. He’ll be spending 7 months in jail, will his new spouse wait for him?
It’s a fools errand for airlines like American or United to offer a lowest common denominator product. When a business produces a commodity product, the lowest cost producer wins. Spirit is at a great advantage because American and United will always have higher costs.
Given their cost structure legacy airlines need to earn a revenue premium. And customers are already beginning to make buying decisions on more than schedule and price a trend that is only going to become more pronounced as passengers are presented with information during the booking process on what to expect from their flights like seat power and high speed internet.
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.
“Resort fees” are extra charges, on top of a room rate, that aren’t optional. In other words they’re part of the price of a room, but the hotel advertises a lower price instead. That’s on face deceptive.
I understand the logic of charging a resort fee in a market where everyone else is doing it. If a hotel charges a $250 room rate and a $30 resort fee, that’s $280 a night. If another hotel charges $270 a night they’re actually $10 cheaper — but appear at first glance to the consumer to be more expensive. Once resort fees are standard in a market, a hotel loses by not charging them.
What’s become especially egregious in recent years is the spread of resort fees to new markets, under different marketing. City hotels aren’t resorts and instead they promote “destination fees.”
Testifying before a Nigerian Senate committee last week the country’s Minister of Agriculture called out wealthy Nigerians whom he says are ordering pizza from London.
The daily British Airways Boeing 747 from London Heathrow to Lagos, Nigeria departs London at 11:20 a.m. and arrives at 5:55 p.m. — just in time for dinner.
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.
There are any number of ethical choices we all make on a daily basis. I don’t have a staff to bounce things off of, no editor, I’m just me and I do the best that I can to write content that interests me (the only way I could possibly still be doing this after 17 years) and hopefully engaging content and do it in a way that let’s me sleep well at night.
That doesn’t make me any more ethical than anyone else, and I’m sure readers will find fault with plenty of things I write, but here’s how I generally think about the blog.
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 »
