American Express is opening a Centurion lounge at New York JFK’s terminal 4 in early 2019. It will be the largest Centurion lounge yet and they promise “new amenities” on top of standard Centurion lounge offerings.
We’ve seen cases of passengers being kicked off flights for showing too much cleavage, one woman even got a Playboy spread after being kicked off of Southwest Airlines.
I’m not sure I can recall anyone ever being kicked off a flight for wearing too much clothing, unless of course it was Naked Air.
It was only just Saturday when I wrote about a British Airways business class passenger discovering bed bugs on his London – Cape Town flight. I wrote about bed bugs on a BA flight back in October too.
Now there’s a new story out about British Airways having to cancel a flight from London Heathrow to Accra, Ghana because cabin crew refused to work the aircraft due to the presence of bed bugs.
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.
Over the summer I wrote about someone bringing 19 people in an airport lounge using the Priority Pass Select card that comes with the Chase Sapphire Reserve. You get unlimited airport lounge visits at participating lounges (over 1000 worldwide, here are the U.S. airport lounges). You also get unlimited guests at no additional charge.
It turns out the woman who brought in 19 guests was just a piker.
Over the weekend a Boeing 737 overran the runway and went off on an embankment in Northeastern Turkey.
There’s now video from inside the cabin during the evacuation and more is known about the incident.
Singapore Airlines is introducing fantastic new products for their Airbus A380s. They have 5 new planes replacing 5 that are being returned to their lessor, and those are being delivered over the next year. They’ll be introduced into service with the new first suites and new business class that offers double beds for passengers traveling together.
The plane has flown to Sydney, and now we know its next two destinations.
A week ago 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.
With American Express getting exclusivity to issue Hilton co-brand credit cards in the U.S., and Citi’s Hilton cards retired, Amex will be launching new cards and improving benefits this week — expected for Thursday the 18th. The base Hilton Honors American Express Card remains the same but eliminates foreign transaction fees. The Hilton Honors Surpass® Card from American Express is going to become the Hilton Honors American Express Ascend Card. The annual fee goes up from $75 to $95, but it adds 10 Priority Pass free visits per year and a free weekend night each year after spending $15,000 in purchases on the card in a calendar year. And the card looks attractive, too. It’s important to note that if you’ve had the Surpass card, the Ascend card will not be considered a new product.…
At a Crew News update last week a Dallas-based flight attendant asked American Airlines CEO Doug Parker about seat back entertainment. She said she’s noticed that most passengers really appreciate inflight entertainment “with the TV’s” and she wanted to understand why American wouldn’t install seat back tv’s going forward?
She says that passengers “don’t even remember their headphones” yet alone their own entertainment devices. Customers prefer it, flight attendants prefer it, why wouldn’t they offer it? (“Why are we going in that direction if we’re Going for Great?”)
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 »
