OpenTable made your points worth less and harder to use – while imposing new expiration rules – earlier this year. That’s after devaluing their awards program three years ago.
Now there’s another way OpenTable avoids rewarding you for your bookings through their website.
Etihad is dropping one of its two New York JFK – Abu Dhabi Airbus A380 flights, and putting the A380 on Paris – Abu Dhabi. That means there will be two daily Paris – Abu Dhabi flights with the A380.
The Etihad A380 features the ‘First Apartment’ — one of the three best first class products in the sky. There’s a separate bed and seat, and living space which was unprecedented when the product was introduced. In addition it’s only one of two first class products with a shower onboard.
After cancelling 675 flights Thursday and Friday, American’s wholly owned regional carrier PSA is again experiencing problems today.
Alaska Airlines is offering a 40% bonus on purchased miles through July 13.
Alaska Airlines allows a free stopover on each one way award. And they have some of the best redemption prices of any program.
Starwood is offering a 35% discount on buying Starpoints through July 20. They’re actually letting you buy points at a price which those points are worth which is great.
Technically Starwood Preferred Guest will still exists August 1, but that’s a legal distinction. Marriott, Starwood, and Ritz-Carlton will all have the same program at this point just with different names because contractual issues prevent them from calling it one program. For all intents and purposes though this is the last sale of Starpoints qua Starpoints.
Sleeping in airports is a time-honored tradition. It happens regularly during major storms, when flights are cancelled and airlines aren’t giving out hotel vouchers or nearby hotels are booked solid. Airports sometimes bring in cots.
Passengers with long layovers after an overnight flight may lay down in a quiet spot on the floor, too. There’s even a guide to sleeping in airports.
On Thursday a Bravo Air MD-83 left Antalya, Turkey bound for Kiev, Ukraine. There were 169 passengers and 6 crew on board. On arrival the aircraft landed but veered off the runway before coming to a stop.
A passenger was videotaping the landing from inside the cabin. At 22 seconds you can hear clapping after touchdown, but at 37 seconds you can hear in turn to screams. It’s incredibly eerie.
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.
There’s no question that immigration and customs develops a different culture and reputation at different airports in the U.S. While you’d hope they would apply standards and procedures from their handbook uniformly, there’s a difference between de facto practice and de jure rules.
People learn procedures by watching other people, and by discussing how to go about doing their jobs with colleagues. In other words, customs and immigration procedures are carried out by people.
On Friday’s Singapore Airlines flight SQ516 from Singapore to Kolkata, India was delayed four hours due to non-working air conditioning onboard. But apparently crew didn’t keep passengers informed about what was wrong or what it looked like to fix the aircraft.
There weren’t any refreshments served during the delay that stretched as long as the block time for this four-times weekly Airbus A330. Allegedly sick passengers were refused water.
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 »
