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.
JonNYC tweets about American considering a change to their systemwide upgrades that are provided to Executive Platinum and ConciergeKey members: that they would only be usable by the member themselves (and presumably other passengers on the same reservation) and could no longer be gifted to family or friends. American says no such change is imminent.
This would be all about breakage, making upgrades cheaper to offer because more of them would go unused if they cannot be given away. And by the way they’d be taking away benefits and scaling back costs at the same time they are requiring more revenue from a customer to earn these in the first place.
IHG reported its year-end results and noted the importance of their loyalty program to drive direct bookings (no commissions to online travel agencies) and higher revenue (“Loyalty members 7x more likely to book direct, and deliver a 25% stay premium.”).
They also noted that they’re testing variable redemption pricing.
There aren’t many big online travel booking websites anymore. For instance Priceline owns Booking.com and Kayal. Expedia owns Travelocity, Orbitz, Hotwire, and CheapTickets.
So it’s concerning when one of the online travel giants decides to blacklist a destination but that’s just what’s happened to Haiti.
Basically all we know is that there will be a new loyalty program, probably mostly marketing changes but I believe some unspecified improvements too, and new partnerships that won’t be super relevant to folks in the US.
Over time we’ll see them better integrate their hotel investments and their non-hotel investments through the new program. For now though the program announcement seems… premature.
Marriott’s new program doesn’t just require 100 nights a year to earn top tier elite status, it also requires $20,000 in spending. That’s odd for a loyalty program with so many hotels in China and elsewhere that rates are super cheap. It’s possible to stay nearly 300 nights with Marriott in a year and still not be a top tier elite.
One man probably wasn’t testing to see whether tips would count towards qualifying spend, though Marriott is at least in the process of rolling out points-earning for food and beverage while not a guest on property (something that Starwood offered for years).
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.
Ebates though now offers an option to earn American Express Membership Rewards instead of cash. And they have a credit card that earns an additional 3 points per dollar on shopping done through the portal.
So what happened? Presumably he was un-checked in or offloaded by the gate agent in error. This happens occasionally, most often during irregular operations when there may be multiple flights in a booking (backup options).
A customer shows up for their return flight only to find they have no reservation. The airline says “you didn’t take the flight” and the customer says, “then how did I get here?”
It’s been nearly 30 years since the ‘real’ Eastern flew, and it didn’t have a good reputation even then — for reliability, for service, or even for safety.
So what is next for Eastern Airlines? They have applied to the Department of Transportation to start scheduled international air service from New York JFK>
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 »
