My favorite place to stay in Kuala Lumpur is the Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur. I first stayed there after it opened in 2012.
I’ve been back, and it’s only gotten better. It’s one of the top hotels in the city, has perhaps my favorite club lounge breakfast, and has fantastic views of the Petronas Towers.
The change will make passes easier to use, customers won’t have to remember to bring them and won’t lose them.
It will also make them harder to sell, although no doubt some will print them and try. That’s riskier to the seller, since a pass is tied to a specific account. And that’s riskier to the buyer since there’s no way to know if a given pass being purchased was already sold and used by someone else.
American Express would only let go of the Costco business when there was no way to make a profit at the numbers Citi was talking about. It’s the perfect example of winner’s curse. Everyone knows what the business is worth, the one who wins the auction is the one that overpays.
Citi got a huge portfolio — over 11 million American Express cards across more than 7 million accounts. But they didn’t get the same card exclusivity Amex had, Costco will accept any Visa — even those of competitors.
Matthew Lunn married his wife Carly on the Greek island of Rhodes. And they took a wedding photo that’s gone viral outside the monastery of St Paul. They’re in their wedding outfits, him sans pants, and she appears to perform a sex act.
The consequence of this photo apparently is a ban on all foreign weddings on the island of Rhodes.
SurfAir is offering free private jet flights to top tier elite members of European frequent flyer programs.
Many folks have top status even living in the U.S., for instance by status match, air berlin and Turkish are especially common. God Save the Points thinks they may accept top tier status from U.S. programs as well.
I think I may have come across the most ludicrous awards ever given out in travel, the 2017 Business Traveller Awards granted at a Monday luncheon in London. Many of the selections are simply self-refuting.
As you peer into the alternate universe of these awards, bear in mind that Panasonic apparently paid for this.
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.
Airline Weekly is always a great source of interesting data and this week’s issue (subscription) summarizes daily revenue for the top 10 routes for each of the 11 largest U.S. airlines. And there’s some great nuggets in the data.
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.
One of the best things about United miles is that you can use them on Star Alliance partners. United’s award space isn’t great on its own flights (though better than American’s). But with myriad partners you can almost always get where you’re going in Europe or Asia.
I do not know whether this is a glitch, a temporary phenomenon, or a new revenue management philosophy but searching for partner award space there’s almost nothing available in Lufthansa business class across the Atlantic after February 7 .. and it’s become much harder to get before that, too.
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 »
