American Express Membership Rewards points now transfer to Qantas. Points transfer 1:1 in 500 point increments instead of the usual 1000. Qantas is also a transfer partner of Capital One and Citibank, so there are plenty of ways to get and pool points into Qantas Frequent Flyer for US customers.
Ultimately Qatar’s QSuite isn’t going to be beat by anyone, and it comes with top notch catering and service. An admittedly unpopular opinion but after that I’d probably take EVA Air (Air Canada and Virgin Australia fall into this same grouping). The Japan Airlines Apex Suite window seat is a great seat, and you don’t have a foot well boxing in your sleep style, but as a side sleeper I prefer EVA.
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.
There’s a report of a project underway with a target completion date of July 31 that involves further development of dynamic award pricing and changes to upgrades.
My advice: don’t panic. Here’s what I think it means.
I don’t recall American publicly acknowledging this before. Yet speaking at the Bernstein 35th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, American’s Senior Vice President of Revenue Management Don Casey said dynamic pricing of awards is a strategy they’re using to drive higher revenue from the loyalty program.
Thai Airways is planning to sell frozen Thai food to consumers mostly under the Royal Orchid Gourmet brand, “new ready-made sauces, basil stir fries and pad Thai via the Eurng Luang brand to the market.”
One of the biggest things I gave up moving from the Washington DC area to Austin is good Thai food like Elephant Jumps in Merrifield and Kao Sarn in the Eden Center. I’m not sure I’d resort to Thai Airways Royal Orchid Gourmet frozen meals, at least unless they offered Thai’s duck rick soup.
On May 23 a 42 year old Japanese man flying from Bogota to Mexico City and on to Tokyo Narita on Aeromexico caused his transpacific flight to divert to Hermosillo, Mexico when flight crew “noticed a person suffering convulsions and requested to make an emergency landing.”
An autopsy determined the man died of a drug overdose. His stomach and intestines contained “246 plastic packets of cocaine..measuring 1 by 2.5 centimeters each.”
British Airways announced they’d be devaluing their award chart for partner flights with one month’s notice, but refused to tell customers what the new chart would look like. It wasn’t hard to sort out, to a close approximation what the new pricing would be — since it was already loaded into agents’ computers. The final numbers for what flights on partners other than Iberia and Aer Lingus (which are owned by the same company as British Airways) are close to what was expected, but there are some divergences. British Airways used to price premium economy, business, and first class as multiples of coach award prices. That no longer holds exactly. BA charges based on distance of each flight. If you are connecting, then each segment is priced separately based on its distance. Here’s the new…
Between Hyatt and American this new partnership should net me an additional 25,000 points per year and I’m impressed by the speed at which these partner points are posting.
Video was posted on Chinese social media network Weibo where the delayed passenger isn’t getting much sympathy. One commenter suggests he be banned “from taking planes for the rest of his life, then get him to kneel if he wants the ban to be lifted.”
Customers certainly ‘have a choice of which airline to fly’ on this domestic hop with 16 peak daily departures offered by six different carriers. None however are likely to make staff kneel in apology when delayed by weather.
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 »
