In Marriott’s earnings call yesterday Arne Sorenson laid out his thinking on the loyalty program that will combine Marriott, Starwood, and Ritz-Carlton in 2019.
The only thing from Sorenson’s remarks that worries me is that they’re driving down the cost of the program for hotels, although no doubt that’s a part of how they get properties on board with program changes they’re planning to announce in the coming months.
A man from New Orleans packed a foot long sex toy and lube in his son’s carry on bag. Then he sent his son through a TSA screening checkpoint. Hijinks ensue.
American Airlines has myriad aircraft in different configurations from legacy American Airlines decisions before the merger and from US Airways, and a series of individual decisions along the way. Customers can luck out with better aircraft for passenger experience and worse aircraft.
They’re making efforts to standardize the fleet where they can, and that means the 13 Boeing 777-200s with 45 business class seats will each be losing 8 seats up front.
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Earlier in the week I wrote about the pretty outrageous domestic first class fares the EPA Administrator travels on. He’s loyal to Delta even when the federal government has awarded a city pair contract to another airline. And he pays full fare first even for the Delta Shuttle between New York and DC.
There’s been much hand wringing though over his flying Emirates business class Milan – New York in June. That’s wrong. Here’s why.
Last year Hyatt ran double points April through June and double points for the last month and a half of the year. Those were the only bonus promotions for hotel stays Hyatt ran. Period. And there’s been nothing yet this year.
Until now: they’ve just announced their new promotion and it’s likely better than double points — and kicks in with your first stay.
Marriott’s ‘Leadership’ prefers the Hyatt Regency LAX over the half dozen Marriott properties in the area.
Loyalty fraud is a costly issue for programs. A lot of it originates in China.
The challenge though is limiting the cost of fraud without undercutting the value proposition of the program to legitimate members. That’s what I highlighted earlier in the week with Alaska’s new policy of prohibiting booking awards within 72 hours of travel on Cathay Pacific, JAL, or Hainan Airlines.
When a hotel program promotes that you can use points for any ‘standard room’ available on property, you think that means the most common room at the hotel. It doesn’t. It means the worst or lowest category room at the hotel.
And some hotels use this to prevent members from using their points. Hyatt has had real problems with this at some of its premier properties.
There’s a lot of pushback to the Trump administration suggestion to sell off DC area airports.
I’d like to leave aside the particular proposal and make a few points about the concept, both selling the DC airports and federal assets generally. Even if you’re not a fan of the President or of ‘privatizing’ see if you can disagree with these.
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 »
