Beijing and Tianjin plan to allow 6 day transit visas by the end of the year. These allow you to enter China for up to 144 hours — up from 72 hours today — without a visa in advance providing you are arriving from and departing to different countries (and for this purpose Hong Kong counts as a different country).
The problem with privatizing an airline is that theft and malfeasance must be opened to public scrutiny.
I’ve had the Bank of America-issued Virgin Atlantic MasterCard several times over the years. The card is back with a signup bonus of up to 90,000 miles.
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.
Modern airlines are safe. They’re mostly reliable. And they’re a marvel of technology and dedication.
Sometimes.
Despite the investment of billions of dollars into passenger experience, there’s a sense that too many employees at US airlines just don’t care. When we’re traveling, the trip is important to us.
When things go wrong, we’re at their mercy. And too often things feel far more controllable by the airline than they are.
American slightly exceeded Wall Street expectations with its second quarter results earning pre-tax profit of $1.3 billion.
They’re touting the increase in non-GAAP accounting earnings per share year-over-year but of course that’s largely driven by having fewer shares (they’ve been using profits to buy back shares). Profits are actually down compared to the second quarter of last year.
People inside Chase are concerned their Sapphire Reserve Card is too generous and they’ll never make back their investment and that the bank “is pushing for about $200 million in fresh cost cuts in the unit that oversees the card.”
Delta owns 49% of Virgin Atlantic. Now Air France KLM is going to acquire Virgin Group’s 31% stake in the carrier. So Virgin Atlantic will be 80% owned by joint venture partners Delta and Air France.
But that’s not where it gets complicated.
Earlier tonight I wrote about a ridiculous deal offering up to 150,000 miles in the Gol Smiles program for even a one night hotel stay that cost $600 or so.
You’re going to want to familiarize yourself with this program because they’re running a promotion that is insane and off the charts: hotel bookings for miles worth far more than the hotel nights themselves.
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 »
