Marriott appears to have added a new benefit for ‘overachieving’ Ambassadors who spend at least $40,000 in a year – at least it is a benefit for 2024 spend.
Ambassadors who spend $40,000 are being invited to extend the same status to a spouse, significant other, or other member of their household.
Over the summer the FAA launched a safety audit of Southwest Airlines. This came after the airline came within feet of the water while still miles from Tampa less than a month after another of the airline’s 737s descended to just over 500 feet while still 9 miles out from the Oklahoma City airport. In April, a Southwest Airlines flight in Hawaii came within 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean. Then in June a Southwest Airlines flight took off from a closed runway Southwest has shared internally some of the issues that FAA inspectors have flagged during the Certificate Holder Evaluation Process Safety Audit. I suppose some of these are better than the pilots who spent a flight watching video feed of passengers in the lavatory? The airline declined comment since “[t]he CHEP is still…
Alaska Airlines has announced changes – nearly all improvements – to its Mileage Plan program for 2025. I spoke with Alaska’s Vice President of Loyalty, Alliances, and Sales Brett Catlin about the effort – which he calls a “phase one.”
Delta Air Lines has announced an interior cabin refresh. They’re tying this to their 100 year anniversary, presenting a new more modern image. The palette is darker. They won’t swap out seats, just add memory foam padding to some seats. And they’re adding new lighting. Naturally this is pitched as being “premium” and a new interior, to most passengers, feels like new planes.
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.
The Department of Transportation and Lufthansa have entered a consent order addressing the airline’s discrimination based on religion, impacting 128 Jewish passengers on May 4, 2022 who were traveling from New York JFK to Budapest via Frankfurt and who were denied boarding on their connecting flight due to the misconduct of some passengers on the first leg of the journey.
In the 60’s and 70’s the original Diplomat was frequented by Rat Pack types. The hotel closed in 1991 and was acquired by the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters in 1998, torn down, and rebuilt at a cost of ~ $800 million in construction costs and $40 million for the property. That’s about what it was sold for last year – without adjusting for inflation.
Delta has stopped serving hot meals out of Detroit. Aviation watchdog JonNYC confirms what I expected, that the issue is listeria.
While Delta downplays the significance, suggesting a ‘food safety issue’ was discovered during an inspection, reportedly the crew of a Detroit – Amsterdam flight got sick suggesting the explanation from the airline is misleading even if technically accurate.
Bear in mind though that after gutting awards on Delta and devaluing ANA business class awards up to 26% without notice, Virgin Atlantic plans to move to dynamic award pricing in just two weeks. You know it’s bad when the change is about to happen and they won’t give concrete details for what to expect.
Throughout 2023, American Airlines was promising that anything you wanted to do with the airline could be done digitally – with the few remaining features to be delivered by the end of the year. I kept asking, just as a glaring example of what was missing, what about upgrades?
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 »
