Delta has increased its stake in Korean Air to 11% and may buy more if it needs to. They spent $49 million for the additional 1% stake. It was only last June they made their first 4.3% investment.
There’s currently a power struggle for the airline, with dissident shareholders controlling 37.08% of the company.
American Airlines announced a new strategic partnership with Qatar Airways that involves restoration of codesharing and exploring flying to Doha. This pretty much puts to rest speculation about Qatar Airways leaving oneworld
TripActions is a corporate travel management and booking tool that travelers seem to like a lot more than suffering through Concur. They’ve just announced their second product, which is a company credit card aimed at business travel and called Liquid. Companies using it in beta include Zoom, Lyft and letgo.
This isn’t a co-brand credit card, they’ve actually raised a $500 million debt facility to finance payments for the TripActions Liquid Visa themselves. This way they’re able to offer seamless integration between payments and travel without a bank getting in between booking, payments, reporting, and control.
There are awards where a panel of experts gets together to give out an award based on their own opinion. There are awards where companies pay sponsorship fees and keep winning their sponsored award. And then there’s the oldest and largest consumer-driven awards in airline, hotel and credit card loyalty: the Freddie Awards.
Voting in the Freddie Awards is now open and runs through March 31st. The Freddie Awards are the voice of the frequent traveler. Each year millions cast their ballots for the very best in loyalty, and the industry comes together at the awards ceremony.
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.
Trans States Airlines, which currently operates 50 seat Embraer ERJ-145 regional jets for United Express, informed employees that they will go out of business at the end of the year.
The Austin airport was supposed to be getting a new lounge accessible by American Express Platinum cardmembers. The airport solicited bids to run a new independent lounge, and selected MAG (“Manchester Airport Group”) USA which runs Escape lounges. A rendering of the lounge even suggested it might be a dual Escape Lounge-Centurion lounge which is the setup in Phoenix. However the Austin City Council balked in a dispute over minority contracting rules.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker explains why when he sees something wrong he doesn’t insist that fixing the problem should be a priority.
United flight 363 from Newark to Honolulu was supposed to be operated by a Boeing 777 on Saturday. The airline swapped the plane for a Boeing 767-300, and that meant fewer business class seats. The airline needed ten volunteers who were willing to downgrade.
These ten passengers each received $10,000 in travel voucher compensation for volunteering, or $100,000 total for the one flight, and they still got to fly in premium economy seats.
I think I’ve figured out why Chase and Visa would agree to give United $400 million more a year – starting right away – for a credit card deal they already had in place for several years.
Much of United’s explanation why made no sense. This new deal isn’t likely to lead to a lot of “portfolio growth” (more cardmembers). They already were introducing new cards, new benefits, and have been running aggressive acquisition bonuses. However 5 words in United’s SEC filing seem to give away the plot.
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 »
