Category Archives for Commentary.
The FBI interdicted Representative Perry at the airport to seize his cell phone one day after the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Proving once again: there is a travel angle to everything.
Here’s how to think about monkeypox. If you have it you should isolate. Take precautions if engaging in close contact within high risk groups and absolutely get vaccinated if you can. But if you don’t have monkeypox and aren’t engaging in high risk activities with people who might have monkeypox then you don’t have to think much about it. That could change, it could cross over into other communities, and if that happens you should update your priors.
Right now I am taking zero precautions against monkeypox. I hope that doesn’t change. But any change that I make will be based on scientific evidence.
Some programs offer ‘saver awards only’. Award space is available or it isn’t. You get a ‘decent’ price, or no option to book at all.
Other programs offer last seat availability, or access to most seats for points. But when fares are exorbitant, the algorithms can lead to some absurd results, like over a million miles for a one-way flight on peak travel days. That makes the program look bad, and even if members like “last seat availability” offering these seats costs too much to the program’s reputation.
Since MBS owns the planes, at least he doesn’t have to pay extra for checked bags.
Uber’s public relations disasters were myriad five years ago. Drivers hated them. Story after story came out about their hubris, their regulatory problems, and their toxic workplace culture.
They’ve turned around that narrative, but the narrative now is that they’re just no longer a great product. They’re on demand transportation that’s often more expensive than a cab. They’re deliver for cold food that takes too long and now often makes stops between picking up your meal and bringing it to you. And they’re very little else.
One common point I’ve seen made since the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling is that pregnant women shouldn’t travel to Red States. But some Red States have constitutional protection for abortion!
Are travel warnings common for Europe, where abortion laws are generally more restrictive than in the U.S.?
The U.S. takes longer to build projects, and spends more to build similar projects, than other countries. A new example from the FAA is a great illustration of why. Here’s what the FAA has required from SpaceX to move forward with its Starship rocket program – and the government is actually bragging about it in a press release.
It’s easy to forget how awful taxis were when Uber burst onto the scene. You couldn’t request cars by app, you couldn’t see where they were or know when they’d arrive, and you couldn’t track your rides. Cabs were usually in terrible condition (with regulated prices and limited numbers of cabs, it made no sense to invest in the product because doing so didn’t help a business earn more). And you had the whole payment process thing at the end of the ride rather than just getting out of the car.
Frequent Miler writes that he accepted complimentary Diamond status from IHG and Spirit Airlines Gold status. Those companies wanted to influence his coverage, but the perks helped him cover those experiences. He was offered free IHG One Rewards points and Milestone Rewards so he could better cover the new program as well.
I figured this was a good opportunity to re-iterate my own position.
Sometimes when you talk to airline or hotel employees that work in loyalty fraud they seem to think that a customer benefiting ‘too much’ (being unprofitable) is the definition of fraud. They’re in their own bubble, and they’re probably doing their own programs a disservice.
Too much is often considered – or a flag for – fraud within the loyalty industry. But that doesn’t mean there’s not real fraud.
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 »
