Prince William’s Family Flew Private After All, But It Was a Crappy Regional Jet Cut Them Some Slack

by Gary Leff

Aug 26 2019

On Saturday I wrote about Prince William and Kate Middleton taking a coach FlyBe trip. The royals are no stranger to flying commercial, and as I noted even flying economy. At times it’s been because there weren’t any first class seats available, and other times because the best seats from a security standpoint are at the back of the aircraft.

This time, however, blog commenter Pete points out that the aircraft they flew turns out to be a substitute Embraer ERJ-145 brought in just for them.

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TSA Cracking Down on Known Crewmembers

by Gary Leff

Aug 26 2019

Airline crew can frequently show an ID and avoid being accosted with nude-o-scopes and metal detectors. Occasionally that’s been tempting for drug smugglers, but drugs aren’t the TSA’s purpose anyway. Still as a result crew do sometimes go through checks.

The Known Crewmember program, “a joint initiative between Airlines for America (A4A) and the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA),” has become more liberalized and useful over time — four years ago crew started being allowed to go through even when traveling personally and out of uniform. That was subsequently limited a bit. And this week it’s being significantly curtailed.nnnn

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New Hilton Double Points Promo is Even Better for Credit Card Holders

by Gary Leff

hotel room
Aug 25 2019

For the past several years Hilton has almost always been offering double points. That’s necessary, because without double points the program’s rebate value is lower than competitors. That’s also what we should expect.

The road map for where Hilton has gone with their program was laid out by Jeff Diskin, now Hilton Executive Vice President, back in 2010.

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Customers Are Giving Themselves Elite Status at Businesses Without Loyalty Programs

by Gary Leff

Aug 25 2019

Loyalty marketing is a near-universal. It has two components, recognition (elite benefits) and rewards (rebates). Different elements move the needle more for different customers, different businesses can authentically utilize each in varying proportions, and some products can truly replace traditional awareness advertising with loyalty marketing while others need to first generate broad attention.

When a business develops a relationship with a customer it doesn’t always realize it.

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Prince William Spotted Carrying His Family’s Luggage in Coach

by Gary Leff

Aug 24 2019

Though Prince Harry and Megan Markle came under fire recently for flying private they’re also known to fly commercial, and even flew coach for a New Year’s getaway. Sitting in the very back of an aircraft may be the best position where there are security concerns.

Prince Harry is also known to fly British Airways intra-European business class which is like flying coach. His grandfather Prince Philip, however, once remarked that air travel can be quite nice “provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”

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