Back in April I talked with Marriott’s Senior Vice President of Loyalty David Flueck and he assured me that the new Marriott program would continue to honor elite benefits when guests booked their stays through online travel agencies.
Marriott’s new terms and conditions were consistent with this, as well. It was a real improvement over how Starwood treated elites whose rooms were booked through these sites. And it lasted for all of two weeks.
Mehran Karimi Nasseri is the man behind the Tom Hanks film The Terminal. He spent 18 years living in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport’s terminal 1. He reported being kicked out of Iran for protesting the Shah, and eventually granted refugee status in Belgium. He moved to the UK, but lost his papers when he says his briefcase was stolen.
Recently a Taiwanese man spent more than a week living in the Perth, Australia airport but not because he lacked documents. He ran out of money and was waiting to fly home in several weeks. He couldn’t afford to change his ticket on Singapore Airlines low cost carrier Scoot.
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.
American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to a variety of different airline programs and so some hotels. Generally your best redemptions with Amex points is going to be airline transfers. And they offer occasional transfer bonuses.
Right now points transfers to Cathay Pacific are showing up with targeted bonuses.
British Airways issued a press release saying that the “personal and financial details” of customers that have used its website and mobile app to book travel have been stolen, but that this does not include travel details (itineraries) or passport information. This all happened late Wednesday night London time, From 22:58 BST August 21 2018 until 21:45 BST September 5 2018 inclusive, the personal and financial details of customers making bookings on ba.com and the airline’s app were compromised. The breach has been resolved and our website is working normally. They say they’re reaching out to customers they believe have been affected, but that anyone worried about it should “contact their banks or credit card providers” and do whatever those companies suggest. In other words they have no suggestions and aren’t funding options at this…
According to Hilton there are bigger initial offers coming for the suite of Hilton Honors credit cards from American Express on September 11.
The percentage of American Airlines seats occupied by award customers has been lower than that of competitor airlines and had been declining ever since US Airways management took over at the airline. American was been filling about 6% of seats with awards compared to nearly 8% at United and Delta and 13% at Southwest.
AAdvantage President Bridget Blaise-Shamai reported in June that they’re “on a path towards putting our availability much more closer to the competitive levels of like a Delta or a United.”
The TSA makes most travelers take off their shoes, many go barefoot on germ-laden floors. And most of us assumed, I think, that they weren’t doing much to wash or sanitize bins.
Your fellow sick passengers touch the bins, they even put their dirty tissue sand handkerchiefs in them before going through the nude-o-scope. TSA employees get gloves to wear, passengers don’t.
Robert L. Johnson is best known for founding BET, Black Entertainment Television in 1979 and selling it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. He serves on boards like Lowe’s, the NBA Board of Governors, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and is a past board member of Hilton Hotels, General Mills, and the United Negro College Fund.
He’s an accomplished man, he’s well traveled, and he owns hotels — his RLJ Lodging Trust owns about 150 of them. So he’s certainly used to checking into hotels. But not this one.
When the new Marriott program launched their terms and conditions said that Platinums would get an upgrade if available at check-in to an ‘enhanced room’. That’s not what we were promised.
The terms now say that a Platinum is to receive an upgrade to the best room available up to and including suites. Of course there are some limitations.
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 »
