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Hyatt Credit Card Customers Can Now Earn Points Referring Friends

by Gary Leff

road going to houses over water
Nov 09 2017

I still have a Hyatt Credit Card. It’s great for the signup bonus which used to be 2 free nights at any Hyatt property, but is now 40,000 points after $2000 spend within 3 months. Of course a Hyatt property can cost up to 30,000 points per night for a standard room, but points are more flexible to split up across more room nights or to be used towards suites or on cash and points awards. And points can be transferred to someone else for free. Park Hyatt Hadahaa, Maldives I keep the card, the annual free night up to category 4 is more than worth the card’s $75 annual fee. But the reason to *get* the card is the signup bonus and because Chase doesn’t limit approvals to folks with fewer than 5 new…

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Review: American Express Centurion Lounge Hong Kong Including Centurion Card Sit Down Dining

by Gary Leff

Nov 09 2017

American Express opened a Centurion lounge in Hong Kong several weeks ago. While there are American Express lounges in several locations around the world, such as Sydney and Mexico City, this is the first Centurion Lounge outside the United States.

And the interesting thing is that this one, while accessible by both Platinum and Centurion cardholders, is the first one that’s really far more geared to the Centurion card set.

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Centurion Lounge Popup in London Late November/Early December

by Gary Leff

Nov 09 2017

American Express has a Centurion Lounge popup in London for two weekends: Friday, November 24th through Sunday the 26th and Friday, December 1 through Sunday the 3rd.

They’ll be offering snow globe making, make your own home fragrance, beauty services and brunch with Santa Claus on Saturdays taking photos with guests and handing out gifts. There will be a gift wrapping service with personalized calligraphy tags, photo booth, family area with movies and games, and semi-private work space with wifi.

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Airline Employees Beat a Passenger on the Tarmac, Airline Fired Employee Who Caught it on Video

by Gary Leff

Nov 08 2017

A passenger was “manhandled, dragged and beaten on the tarmac” at Delhi’s airport by employees of IndiGo airlines.

The man had been unable to obtain even an apology from IndiGo, however now that the incident has gone viral, IndiGo is publicly apologizing. They’ve apparently already fired the employee who took the video exposing the incident, saying he was the instigator.

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Talk About Point-to-Point Travel, Uber Says It Will Introduce Flying Taxis in 2020

by Gary Leff

phone with uber on it
Nov 08 2017

Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel famous expressed disappointment in the revolution of tech saying something to the effect of, ‘we wanted flying cars and all we got was 140 characters.’

We’ve been expecting self-driving cars to eventually replace people — drivers are to Uber what DVDs in the mail was once to Netflix. But planes?

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The Airline Executive of the Year Wants to Create a New Mega Carrier

by Gary Leff

Akbar al Baker meeting Trumps
Nov 08 2017

Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al Baker was just named Aviation Executive of the Year by the CAPA Centre for Aviation. Which is kind of like when he was the French Legion of Honor.

I’m not sure I agree with CAPA’s assessment of the man but there’s no more interesting or colorful person in aviation. I can’t wait for his next followup to claims like ‘Delta flies crap airplanes’ and that the major US airlines’ executives ‘are sitting around smelling glue’.

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