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.
The Premium Flights site flags that all three alliances – airlines with Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and oneworld – are running great fares from New York to Europe. I’m seeing $1943 roundtrip in business class, though Premium Fares suggests some fares as low as “starting at 1635$.”
These are available to Brussels; Amsterdam; Barcelona; Madrid; Milan; Rome; Lisbon; and Vienna.
HNA Group has been under pressure from China to divest itself of assets and pay down debt. It had racked up over $100 billion in borrowing as it went on a worldwide acquisitions spree. However it has lacked cash to invest in its businesses. And some businesses have found it difficult to make interest payments or even – like Hong Kong Airlines – to pay employees and for fuel.
Hong Kong regulators have been inspecting Hong Kong Airlines for safety every couple of days, given its financial struggles, and finally gave them mere days to come up with cash or risk having the government shut them down. The deadline is Saturday.
The Department of Homeland Security, along with several airlines, have been testing ‘biometric boarding’ at airports around the country. Error rates are significant as are system outages.
A year ago we learned DHS planned to require all citizens to have their photos taken in order to leave the country. Now it’s become officially part of the agency’s regulatory agenda.
United’s new PointsPlus upgrade program – which replaces regional and global confirmed upgrade certificates – is scheduled to launch on Wednesday.
Overnight on Tuesday nights the ability to confirm upgrades with existing regional and global certificates will be frozen in preparation for this launch. Then upgrades should re-open on Wednesday with a bank of points replacing existing upgrade certificates, and the ability to use those points in a more granular manner.
On Friday American Airlines flight 3508 from Pensacola to Miami returned to the Pensacola airport when a passenger on board said she had a medical emergency. Only there was no medical emergency. She just wanted an upgrade.
I’ve been a BankDirect checking account customer since July 2003 and I’ve earned hundreds of thousands of American Airlines miles from the account as a result. While some people have used the account to earn miles as an investment return in a low interest environment, I’ve just used it as a… checking account.
SkyTeam member Kenya Airways is running a one day business class sale between New York JFK and Mumbai, India with pricing less than $1450 roundtrip which is incredible.
The long flight from New York to Nairobi features fully flat seats in a 2-2-2 configuration.
Hong Kong’s government gave the troubled airline just 5 days “to find new cash or last-minute investors, or face having its operating licence suspended or even revoked.”
Without a new cash infusion, customers certainly shouldn’t be buying tickets on the airline, which creates its own self-fulfilling challenges.
Delta flight 405 from Paris to Boston arrived 34 minutes early on Sunday – despite pushing back 15 minutes late. That wasn’t the only thing notable about the flight, however.
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 »
