Airlines frequently offer elite status buy back (pay to get this past year’s status) or buy up (pay to get a higher status) offers. On their face they seem expensive. Here’s how to know whether they’re right for you.
There are two questions to ask about the elite status you’re considering.
While acknowledging that Sapphire Reserve caught them off guard and needing to respond aggressively, American Express claims to be way ahead of Chase.
Here’s how American Airlines scores its customers. American Airlines has a system called Helix that it uses to tell employees when to go ‘above and beyond’ for a customer. It’s used by reservations, agents at the airport, customer relations, baggage services and others as a way to know when it’s ok to spend more on a customer.
The goal of the system is to accommodate high value customers who are at risk of defecting to a competitor. Helix will display an Eagle ranking from 1-5 for each customer. This ranking is updated each day and depends on a combination of revenue and how badly you’ve been treated by the airline. You’re only going to get special treatment if your ranking is 3 or higher.
A hotel program books your room on points. They take the liability on their books for your point balance, and use it to pay the hotel.
Since hotels are mostly independently owned, they need to get real cash from the chain for your stay. Hotels actually benefit by filling unsold rooms with reward night guests, getting revenue from the loyalty program for a room that would have sat empty.
I don’t have an issue with limited-participation hotels, and it makes sense for timeshare hotels not to offer complimentary breakfast as an elite benefit. However it’s not really fair to say that Hyatt is growing and delivering more value to members by adding hotels where redemption is not possible.
And I think we can assume that moving five Destination Hotels into category 8 is just the beginning. We’ll eventually see more at the inflated 40,000 points per night level.
A new matching services hopes to connect passengers who need to travel with their kids with nannies to help them inflight in exchange for travel assistance or cash.
The business is called AirPair (pairing up people for air travel, and sounds like au pair).
CEOs of American and United are pumping their fists in the air with news that the Association of Flight-Attendants-CWA has launched an effort to unionize Delta flight attendants. Finally, they’re thinking, their more profitable competitor may be saddled with the same onerous work rules that United and American face – and perhaps the better service flight attendants provide will go away in the long run, too.
Delta flight attendants can choose a union, with the costs and job protections that provides. However they can expect profit sharing to fall, the raises they’re getting without negotiation to go away. They won’t keep these things because the higher cost of unionization will trade off with wages (the value of the wage can’t exceed the value of marginal product) and because Delta will have to signal to mechanics that unionization doesn’t deliver benefits.
Synchrony bank has introduced The Norwegian Reward Card, a co-brand Norwegian Air Mastercard for the U.S. market. This creates a new income stream for the struggling airline that has seemed to turn a corner lately.
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.
At the American Airlines ‘State of the Airline’ meeting with employees following Thursday’s earnings call, CEO Doug Parker explained why he believes American’s shares have performed horrendously.
He’s a momentum investor and he believes the market is backward-looking.
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 »
