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News and notes from around the interweb:
- “Datapoint: The New Chase Ink Preferred Business Card is Subject to the 5/24 Rule” Here’s Chase 5/24 explained and why the Ritz-Carlton Rewards® Credit Card is the best card to get if you’re over 5/24.
Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, credit: Ritz-Carlton - Delta Miles Calculator find the cheapest SkyMiles redemption options.
- Review of the Trump Hotel DC. I genuinely expected this would be where Donald Trump would stay when he traveled to DC, rather than the White House. That’s largely because I expected him to underperform Mitt Romney with women and minorities, so was surprised when he overperformed with Hispanic voters.
- How to find a place to work from if you’re traveling or work from home
- In yesterday’s earnings call Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson noted that there was only a 16% overlap between Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott Rewards members. That’s actually not surprising given the experiences of recent airline mergers. Meanwhile my commentary on linking program accounts made a cameo appearance in Sorenson’s introductory remarks.
Within minutes after the merger closed, we linked three enormous loyalty programs, Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest, further announcing that we would match member status between the programs. We immediately enabled our loyal travelers to earn points in one program and redeem in the other. In fact, over 3.3 billion points were transferred between the programs in the first month alone, while the first transfer and redemption reservation occurred just 15 minutes after we closed the transaction.
That effort did not go unnoticed by customers and commentators. Blogger Gary Leff, who writes View from the Wing, noted to his readers that no program has ever set up a mechanism to link accounts this quickly.
- Park Hyatt to open in Kyoto in 2019. Also in 2019 Ritz-Carlton will open in Auckland.
- Kuwait Airways plans to transition out of its current model of inflight entertainment and reveal several enhancements,
Kuwait Airways’ plans include a substantial improvement for inflight service, including state-of-the-art inflight entertainment and Wi-Fi systems. A new reservations system is also scheduled to be introduced by the middle of 2017, together with better processing of passengers at Kuwait International Airport.
Gary,
I know people generally give you a lot of flak for self-promotion, but a shout-out in an earnings call is genuinely deserving of kudos. Nicely done.
Need help. Have Gold Status on AA. Have Ciitbank co-branded AAdvantage Executive World Mastercard-which if I have understood the news flashes will NOT allow its spend to be counted towards status starting in 2017.
Question what card should I apply for and should I drop the CBWEMC?
Thx
@Carolelee – need to know more about your goals, the card you have lets you get access to american lounges and lets you spend for elite qualifying miles. do you need to be able to earn qualifying *dollars*? The Barclaycard products, which you can apply for come January, will offer that. But what are your reward goals?