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.
United Airlines employees may be known for a chain of events that led to the David Dao beating, for shoving an elderly man to the ground and threatening to steal his miles if he complained, and for killing a dog.
But abusing travel benefits? That’s a step too far.
Two years ago a Qantas flight attendant was awarded six months’ pay after being fired for stealing alcohol and lying about it. He claimed the beer in his jacket and vodka in his pants got there by mistake. He “inadvertently pocketed the beer and vodka while serving passengers.” And while he really had no idea, “the gin might have come from a hotel mini bar.”
So what does it take to lose an appeal to Australia’s Fair Work Commission?
Priority Pass has a create new lounge option — access to Gameway locations which are available at the Dallas Fort-Worth airport (with plans to expand to other airports, hopefully they’ll be part of Priority Pass too).
A reader brought a bag of Chick-fil-A on board with him (“12 grilled nuggets w/ buffalo sauce, 2 grilled chicken deluxe sandwiches no bun”). He admitted that it smelled quite a bit in the small first class cabin of an American Airlines Bombardier CRJ-700 regional jet operated by SkyWest.
He finished eating, a flight attendant picked up his trash, and “moments later without making eye contact crushed up a bag of coffee grounds, opened the overhead bin, and placed the bag directly over my head in seat 2C.”
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.
Yesterday American Airlines grounded 14 Boeing 737-800s. These are planes that have undergone the ‘Oasis’ modification – to replace interiors with more seats; less comfortable seats; less distance between seats; less recline; no seat back video; and smaller lavatories plus bigger overhead bins.
I’m now learning more about issues with the aircraft being inspected.
arriott is no worse than it used to be, except for IT issues that seem to be gradually getting sorted but remain frustrating. Starwood properties are mostly the same, although with lower points redemption prices at the best properties come more restrictions on availability.
Eventually we should see improvements in Marriott availability, compared to what we have seen in the past, starting next year with fewer ‘high demand dates’ at some hotels. Perhaps Flueck’s commitment that we’ll reach the Starwood model of availability for legacy Marriott will come to pass in the future as well.
Plastiq.com is a service that will charge your credit card and mail checks on your behalf. (With some vendors they also make electronic ACH payments.) Their usual fee for this is 2.5%. It’s worth it to incur that fee if you’re earning a signup bonus with the credit card charges, or you’re meeting a spending threshold for a bonus. However I generally advise that it’s not worth it for the ongoing miles without a spending bonus. You don’t want to incur a 2.5% fee to earn 1 mile, you’re buying that mile at 2.5 cents. No mile is worth that. This may be totally obvious but for business spending companies can generally write off the fee. If you’re paying business bills via Plastiq.com your net cost is 2.5% minus (2.5% * your marginal tax rate).…
When I asked American Airlines whether “there[‘s] any work besides overhead bins being done,” specifically mentioning wiring, I was told “Our team is conducting a full inspection of these 14 aircraft.”
While they’re not confirming specifics, they’re also not claiming the issues are limited to overhead bins.
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 »
