United Airlines has updated its ‘contract of carriage‘ to double the amount of time you have to show up in advance at the airport, though they aren’t enforcing this yet.
When the government considers you for Global Entry there are really two separate things they are evaluating. The program makes you a ‘trusted traveler’ and that comes with expedited airport security (less scrutiny, you don’t take off shoes or take out liquids, and don’t have to go through body scanners) and expedited immigration and customs. They want to know that you aren’t a security risk, and also that you’re not likely to violate customs rules.
That can lead to some odd things in your history keeping you out of the program, or getting you kicked out of the program.
It’s not enough to go to a place once and develop more than a contingent view. Every city has both positives and negatives, and you may experience more of one or the other on a given visit but that doesn’t mean you have a full sense of the place.
If you don’t like someplace, other than Chicago and Boston, you should probably go back! That way you can discover more about it, and find the things that are good there and that others appreciate.
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.
A pipe leak in the Miami airport caused fluorescent green fluid to pour out the ceiling around 9 a.m. Eastern on Thursday morning. Cleanup took about 90 minutes and the airport assures that the contents weren’t ‘dangerous’.
British Airways has raised the price of American Airlines and Alaska Airlines award travel up to 3,000 miles. Redemptions now cost as much as 11,000 points more each way – and that comes after a price increase that was put into effect just seven months ago.
American Airlines flight 3921 from Chicago O’Hare to Manchester, New Hampshire near Boston diverted to Buffalo on Wednesday when a passenger urinated in the aisle of the Embraer E-170 aircraft operated by wholly-owned regional carrier Envoy Air.
IHG has its Holiday Inn breakfast manual for managers on the web. It sometimes amazes me what hotel chains leave open and ungated. And there were some fascinating insights in it about guest preferences and also how to get guests to spend more in the morning. 30% – 50% of Holiday Inn guests eat breakfast on property, and they serve approximately 27 million breakfasts per year.
On busy travel days flying can be profitable. Your seat has value, and you can sell it. One Delta passenger found themselves on an overbooked flight, and took $2,000 as compensation to take a later flight. That later flight wound up overbooked, too, and they took $3,000 to volunteer for a bump from that one. That’s $5,000 in a day.
A United Airlines passenger thought he was having a horrible travel day. He didn’t know how good he had it – because he was flying United.
The man was connecting. His first flight was delayed for maintenance, but he made it through the airport while his next flight was still boarding.
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 »
