Marriott combined their Starwood Preferred Guest, Marriott Rewards, and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs into a new unified program with the same currency and benefits on August 18th. All accounts were merged onto Marriott’s IT platform. However they retained separate program branding for legal reasons, I’m told related to their timeshare contracts.
In 2019 two major things are happening with Marriott Rewards: devaluing points and renaming the program.
The anonymous passenger who found a wallet left on an earlier Frontier flight may not be the hero that we deserve, but is certainly one we need to hear about this Thanksgiving weekend.
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 months ago oil reached the level it had been at in November 2014 — which itself was one-third off its May 2011 high. However since then the price of oil has been falling — down about 20% in the past two months.
Oil prices began falling within days of US airlines raising checked bag fees claiming this was due to high fuel prices.
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.
First class seats may have their own closets. Business class seats may have coat hooks. Those are, naturally, for hanging a jacket though of course flight attendants are often willing to hang your jacket up in the closet.
When space is limited, though, and your needs aren’t like most of the passengers that seats were designed for you’re going to have to improvise. And that brings us to the Thanksgiving travels of one Blac Chyna.
For Black Friday last year they offered miles at 1.77 cents apiece and they did that the year before too. So it’s no surprise they have a Black Friday offer so sell miles at 1.77 cents apiece again through November 26.
On Monday the City of Charlotte is expected to approve a 10 year lease (and two five year extension options) to American Express for building of a Centurion lounge at their airport. Here’s the detail:
The best Star Alliance frequent flyer program in the world is hidden in plain site. What if I told you that you could book first class to Europe for 60,000 miles, or first class to Africa for just 75,000 miles? That’s what Aegean Miles & Bonus offers.
They are a Marriott transfer partner but do not partner with any of the credit card points programs. And they’re now selling miles at a great discount.
It’s this success that left me perplexed — why would airlines continually devalue their frequent flyer programs? These are highly profitable multi-billion dollar businesses. Yet each cut risks undermining that business. Now this very warning comes from inside the industry.
Loyalty program executives — and their airline bosses — need to realize just what’s at stake: “As more full-service airline loyalty programs strip away benefits, devalue the currency and make it more challenging to earn meaningful rewards, the cracks in the dam will continue to grow, more rapidly, until one day the game will be over and full-service airline loyalty programs, and their billions in revenues – begin to wash away.”
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 »
