Marriott launched its new loyalty program August 18, 2018 aligning the benefits of Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards. All accounts were moved over from the Starwood platform to Marriott.
However they kept all 3 program names, even though there were no longer differences between the programs. This has to do with contractual obligations. For members all that was left to wait for was the new program name.
A Hawaiian family traveling on Sunday night with their one and a half year old baby was stopped at the security checkpoint at Honolulu airport when a TSA screener refused to allow them to pass with their baby food.
Passengers are permitted to bring any amount of baby food, breast milk or formula necessary for the flight through checkpoints in spite of standard rules limiting the amount of checkpoints that can go through security. However it seems the TSA takes it upon itself to decide what is and is not appropriate for babies to eat.
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.
Two American Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are awaiting FAA approval prior to going into service.
This means the government is doing more to improve passenger experience when it’s shut down than when it regulates.
When you don’t follow a flight attendant’s instructions we’ve all learned what can happen. They call the police to go all David Dao on you. But like the American Airlines flight attendant last year who grabbed a stroller and nearly hit a baby sometimes instead of outsourcing they take care of business themselves.
That seems to be what an American Airlines passenger is alleging.
This year Delta raised SkyClub membership prices and eliminated single visit passes. They also started requiring passengers to be flying Delta or a partner airline to access the lounge even if they’re so-called ‘members’.
Since Delta announced the change to access rules we saw similar moves by American and by United mere days later. Of course we did.
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.
A bird was discovered in business class twelve hours into flight SQ322 from Singapore to London on January 7th. The bird continued to fly around and when the plane touched down it was “handed over to animal quarantine authorities.”
Naturally when the Mynah arrived at London Heathrow it declared, “boy are my arms tired.”
Back in 2012 Ryanair floated the idea of ‘standing seats’ to pack more passengers in and lower costs. And Airbus has a patent for ‘double decker’ seating. But neither idea is supposed to be real or is approved for flying — anywhere.
That was little comfort to the family of three who had paid about $1700 to fly from Mahon in Spain to Birmingham in the UK on TUI airlines. They were assigned seats 41 D, E and F but because of an aircraft swap there were no seats like that.
Airline investor Indigo Partners threw Wow Air a lifeline and Wow Air is partying with $49 flights to Europe.
From BWI I see January 21 through March 11 available to Brussels, Dublin, Frankfurt, London, and Iceland. There are similar offerings from Newark, Detroit, and Boston. This sale ends January 18 but limited inventory will sell out faster than that.
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 »
