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 Chairman of Star Alliance airline Asiana’s parent Kumho Asiana Group is being accused of sexual harassment as the ‘#metoo movement’ spreads to South Korea.
Park Sam-koo reportedly goes to the airline’s Seoul headquarters “on the first Thursday of every month to cheer on flight attendants.” He says he ‘receives energy’ by doing this.
Earlier this month Hyatt was pricing several hotels below their normal published cash and points award prices. Most of those deals are no longer available.
However several hotels are again charging less than they are ‘supposed to’ for cash and points.
Dr. Malik Hasan paid $1 million for wine from Premier Cru Fine Wines in Berkeley, California. He charged the purchases to American Express and Chase credit cards. Premier Cru went out of business without shipping these purchases. Neither American Express nor Chase fully honored his charge back request, and he sued under the Fair Credit Billing Act.
The British Airways Visa comes with a 10% re-usable code, CARDOFFERU, that cardholders can use to reduce the price of British Airways tickets. That offer has been extended to travel which begins by June 30.
And now the British Airways AARP discount of up to $200 has been extended too.
Reportedly there will be “an open ‘demonstration kitchen’ where chefs will whip up Malaysian and international gourmet dishes”
In 2015 Etihad created an Amsterdam-based special purpose vehicle “SPV Equity Alliance Partners” which issued bonds for Etihad and other airlines it controlled. Etihad has since walked away from its investments in Alitalia and air berlin, each of which reportedly held 19% of the debt.
Etihad is discussing “how to support the bonds” given the “political and reputational pressure” not to default. It will be expensive for the Al Nahyans to cover the commitment, but embarrassing for them not to.
An Aeroflot Airbus A320 from Moscow Sheremetyevo to Volgograd had just landed yesterday after its 577 mile flight when one of the economy seats caught fire following the explosion of a battery charger.
There’s video from inside the aircraft where passengers appear to be calm, but some on the plane reported chaos and some passengers evacuated down emergency slides.
Style and Shave still appears as an Etihad Guest mileage redemption option and it’s on the airport website. However reports are that the facility has closed in both the first and premium lounges in their home airport Abu Dhabi, “[A]s one shift ended, the[ staff] had no idea there was nobody coming in to replace them.”
During United’s earnings call last month they explained they would be tweaking Basic Economy fares.
The idea of Basic Economy is to offer such a bad experience that you’ll spend more money to avoid it. However when United first rolled out the fares they lost about $100 million — because customers were avoiding United.
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 »
