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.
Hilton’s current promotion, great for short stays ends May 5. Not missing a beat their new promotion runs May 6 – September 8. Hilton is continuing the theme of their most common bonus, double points, but they aren’t interested in bonusing only occasional guests. They’re only offering double points starting with your second stay during the promotion period.
Doubling down, as it were, on the focus on bonusing the most frequent guests they’re adding a component to double points…
The TSA’s latest screening system, part of their ‘Future Lane Experience’ turns out to show images that are way too revealing. What these documents reveal is that the TSA “nude-o-scope” is back.
In the American Airlines internal podcast Kurt Stache, American’s Senior Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Loyalty talked about the airline’s new Airbus A321neo, on board entertainment, the airline’s new mission, and getting customers to want to recommend the airline.
He’s a legacy American Airlines executive who once ran the AAdvantage program, and AAdvantage reports up to him.
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.
In our post-9/11 world airlines have quickly turned customer service problems into law enforcement problems. A customer creating a “disturbance” might really be creating a “distraction” for bad people to do bad things. It doesn’t matter how unlikely this is, especially prior to departure while still on the ground. The culture of precaution and ‘not being too careful’ has granted huge deference to the judgments flight crews make in the instant. And it’s allowed prejudice and ego to trump good sense.
How many times have we seen a passenger act concerned with a flight attendant moving their carry on bag in the overhead, and being asked in response, “Are we going to have a problem?”
I told you that ‘simplicity’ was the direction American was headed with their catering, and I’ve also written that the option to pick a good meal seemed too generous. So it shouldn’t surprise that there are significant cutbacks in the special meal program.
The Asian Vegetarian, Hindu, and Muslim meals are all the same thing, they just list the options separately. No more meat, then, with Muslim meals. The diabetic meal won’t get steak anymore, now it’s chicken. And meals will be frozen rather than fresh with a one year shelf life. Yum!
Two months ago I wrote that American would be introducing ‘seat coupons’, so that non-elites and Gold members could earn preferred seat assignments on American Airlines instead of having to pay for these seats.
Seat assignments — even the most undesirable ones, if a non-elite wants them in advance — can come at a premium. So ‘coupons’ to get them without cost or at a discount at some level have value.
At some level if a US airline cannot compete against an Italian one, a ‘government-controlled’ one no less, they probably shouldn’t be in business. And shouldn’t they worry about how about half of their passengers feel when they’re flattering the President as election season heats up?
What they’re so worried about – and running to the President for protection from – is an airline in Italy with 15 planes that’s just suspended winter service from Los Angeles and San Francisco – and that cancelled Chicago service before it even began.
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.
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 »
