I’ve been saying we’ll start to see travel incentive programs investing in generous promotions, though frankly didn’t expect to see any this soon. American Airlines Business ExtrAA will give you points for a free roundtrip if you sign up for the program and take a single flight by June 30.
A month ago I wrote that credit cards might soon become tougher to get as banks tightened lending standards. In a down economy there’s more risk that banks won’t get paid back, so it’s logical they’d become careful about extending credit. Already we’ve seen what appears to be a tougher approach to new small business cards at Chase.
When banks expect an increase in defaults, they take steps to limit their exposure. During the Great Recession we saw banks unilaterally cut credit limits, especially where cards were going unused or underutilized.
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.
We do not need a vaccine to travel again. Widespread availability of a vaccine is probably two years away even if it’s developed in a year, since it has to be manufactured and distributed at massive scale. However a gimmick like an immunity passport, given our limited knowledge of the virus right now, isn’t likely to get us back in the sky.
So don’t get infected just because you think recovering from the virus will help you to travel, because it probably won’t.
The state has had just 55 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the past week. Perhaps they benefit from warm, humidity, and a tendency to spend time outdoors. Perhaps the quarantine for arriving passengers put in place April 1 has helped as well.
But what happens when visitors to the Islands violate the quarantine order?
President Trump has an idea to help the airlines make it through to the future, while getting a deal for taxpayers: pay up front for several years of travel, but get a bigger discount from the airlines for doing it.
You can cancel an American Airlines award ticket online – there’s a cancel link in your account’s itineraries. Cancelling, through, doesn’t put miles back into your account. To get miles redeposited you’ve had to call American – until now, under certain limited conditions.
While there’s no doubt that airlines are struggling in the face of a sudden evaporation of demand for their product, what’s especially striking about this moment is the success airlines are having at the political game given that public health concerns might take budgetary priority – such as prioritizing funds for hospital beds, protective equipment, ventilators (which don’t appear to do much good) but just as importantly for treatments and ultimately vaccine research.
The advice with LifeMiles – which has a good award chart, no fuel surcharges, and sells miles cheap – has long been to buy what you need to use right away, not to invest in the program long term.
Italy has been pumping cash into perennial loss-maker Alitalia for years, despite European Union rules against subsidizing a national carrier. Other airlines have burned through capital with ownership stakes in the airline – Air France and Etihad – but they’ve been burned and other carriers were gun shy to take over given losses of 2 million euros a day even before things began going down hill for the entire aviation industry.
The Italian government wouldn’t stand up to the airline’s unions, and without lowering costs no one was willing to come to a deal to take over the failed airline. Now they’re going to nationalize the carrier and they claim that will make it profitable. They will also consider dropping their partnership with Delta.
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 »
