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.
I appreciate that American still has an award chart that they are willing to publish. I appreciate that they mostly stick to it. However they stick to it only as long as there isn’t an exception, that they do not tell customers about.
Back in April British Airways parent company IAG acquired just under 5% of Norwegian and started talks to acquire the discount carrier. I assumed that acquire meant smother it so that the airline wouldn’t keep depressing transatlantic fares, especially out of cities like London.
Chairman Willie Walsh addressed a Norwegian deal at their investor day.
UberEats now delivers from virtual restaurants — from restaurants that don’t actually exist.
It turns out that the food people want delivered isn’t always the same food they want in restaurants, and Uber can leverage excess capacity to produce food at a restaurant by having them make something else they don’t normally offer and branding that food as coming from a different restaurant that isn’t actually a place you can go.
iBorderCtrl is a new lie detector project being tested in European airports at immigration checkpoints in Hungary, Latvia and Greece. They all border countries outside the EU.
Passengers entering from outside the EU will be asked questions “by a virtual border guard avatar.” A computer will decide whether it thinks the passenger is lying, and if so the tone of voice of the electronic border official should get “more skeptical.”
Delta hasn’t been nearly as aggressive buying new aircraft as American. Instead of replacing their Boeing 767-400 fleet they’re actually going to invest heavily in it. In fact the 767-400s are going to get Delta One Suites (business class seats with doors).
Last month Delta CEO Ed Bastian answered an ‘Ask Ed Anything’ employee question about Boeing 767-400s interior refurbishments starting this winter.
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.
VietJet’s CEO became Southeast Asia’s first self-made female billionaire. The airline is a discount carrier flying narrowbody aircraft mostly domestically although with several routes now into Asia.
Five years ago the airline was fined 20 million Dong over unapproved inflight entertainment. It wasn’t a problem with the installation of a seatback video system. Instead, 5 bikini-clad candidates in a local beauty contest performed a dance onboard the airline’s inaugural flight to Nha Trang.
Last Tuesday Delta CEO Ed Bastian responded to an employee question in an ‘Ask Ed Anything’ video about whether the airline would ever acquire used Boeing 777s.
Delta created a lot of controversy 3 years ago when then-CEO Richard Anderson claimed the airline would buy a used Boeing 777 for $7.7 million. He claimed there was a ‘huge bubble’ in used widebodies and that a 10 year old Boeing 777-200 was worth about $10 million.
A year ago American Express ran a targeted 20% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to Aeroplan. It was the first time I could recall seeing a bonus on transfers to this Star Alliance loyalty program.
There is currently a 10% transfer bonus available. It does not appear in my account so may be targeted.
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 »
