I really like the Pittsburgh airport. There’s a Hyatt hotel on the grounds, and they pioneered allow people to go through security even when not traveling same day, something we lost in this country after 9/11. The program meant people could meet arriving passengers, shop and dine, and planespot.
Now they have something new to like: on-demand Covid-19 testing inside the terminal.
Former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, who recently failed in his bid with fiance’ J. Lo to buy the New York Mets, will invest in and front a $650 million hospitality fund which plans to acquire 20 hotels – largely in New York, Miami and Seattle but potentially also the Caribbean – and turn them into Hiltons. He’s already acquired the Curio Collection hotel in Miami.
American Airlines is making the AAdvantage program friendlier for new members, who are the people that are flying today. They’re introducing better boarding just for joining the program, after eliminating telephone booking fees for award redemptions for all members and eliminating mileage redeposit fees, too.
Frontier Airlines announced today that their 156 Airbus planes on order, which begin delivering in March, will receive Recaro’s slimline SL3710 seats. Slimline seats are known for passenger discomfort. They have less padding, and therefore take up less space. That lets airlines squeeze more passengers into the same amount of space. Frontier claims the sufferiing, though, is good for you because it’s good for the planet. Is that true?
One of the most annoying features of hotels is the resort fee, a mandatory charge that’s not included in the room rate in order to deceive customers – to make a hotel look less expensive than it is. The practice spread beyond resorts to city hotels, and became known as a ‘destination charge.’ Even with many of the supposed-inclusions the resort fees pay for suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, the charges persist.
Las Vegas is a city where resort fees play a hugely distortionary role. Hotels cut prices to rock bottom levels to fill rooms. And there’s a way to get an even further discount – and skip the resort fees. Hotels that want to compete in the future need to pay attention.
Hyatt points for opening up their app on December 9th and playing a brief Headspace recording are posting. I’m surprised by the IT that made this work as there was no registration or indication on the app that they’d be bonusing this, just separate communication from Hyatt.
A passenger with Covid-19 died yesterday on a domestic flight, as reported by a fellow passenger on twitter. The passenger is LAX-based, and the other flight I’ve found to or from LAX which diverted yesterday was UA591 from Orlando. United confirms it diverted for medical reasons.
When Southwest Airlines extended elite status back in April, and made it easier this year to earn both status and a Companion Pass, they extended the validity of travel vouchers.
There’s been discussion for months about being able to convert travel funds into Rapid Rewards points and that functionality is finally available. The rate is reasonable but I won’t be taking them up on the offer. Here’s why.
Six men were charged with “stealing millions of airline frequent flier miles” in the Northern District of Texas. While the Department of Justice doesn’t say this, the court in which charges are being brought includes Dallas and almost certainly means they’re prosecuting a theft of American AAdvantage miles.
The lead defendant was arrested in Poland in May and extradited, arriving in FBI custody on Friday after weekend travel from Warsaw to Dallas. I’ve been involved in several criminal trials involving miles and points as an expert witness. This is the first one I’m aware of that involved an international arrest and extradition.
Right now there’s a stronger likelihood of a second round of airline subsidies from the federal government than at any time in the past several months. It appears that $17 billion more for airlines is included in the next scaled-down federal stimulus bill, and legislative leaders in the House and Senate plan to bundle it with must-pass funding measures to keep the government running and avoid a shut down. Now legislators have a Friday deadline.
Airlines have deployed the argument that the vaccine means they need subsidies because they’ll have to scale up operations to be prepared for cargo shipments, and even though they’d be paid to ship cargo somehow they are unable to prepare for that on their own. This is, to put it bluntly, a lie. Here are 10 reasons why.
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 »
