American claims to be still redeeming just as many upgrades as before — just no longer at booking.
This means they’re providing a worse customer experience but the same number of seats are going to upgrades rather than selling more seats. They’re reducing the value of AAdvantage miles and elite upgrades without getting a revenue benefit in return. Smart.
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 sibylline Brian Sumers tweets a oneworld slide claiming that data supports the claim they’re the preferred alliance of customers who spend the most money. When all it really says is that oneworld has a presence in high yield cities but since they’re smaller than Star Alliance they don’t have as big a presence in lower yield cities also.
The real takeaway from the data, though, are which cities have the biggest concentrations of premium cabin customers.
A month ago Hyatt named Starwood veteran Mark Vondrasek as Head of Loyalty and Business Platforms. World of Hyatt reports up to him, and he’s also responsible for integrating Hyatt’s lifestyle brand acquisitions Miraval and Exhale into the chain.
He’s not filling huge hole Hyatt has had since Jeff Zidell left. He had to hire that person.
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.
A week and a half ago I shared a sneak preview of the 8th American Express Centurion lounge in Philadelphia near gate A14 in terminal A-West.
The lounge has officially opened as of 5 a.m. Eastern time this morning.
Krug Grande Cuvée is an excellent champagne, and several airlines serve it in international first class. It’s a blend of wines from 10 or more vintages and from a combination of pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier. And it’s cellared for at least six years. You’ll often pay $160 or more in a bottle shop.
However Singapore Airlines is introducing Krug 2004 “on all First Class and Suites flights where both” Dom Perignon and Krug are normally served.
Virgin Australia and its joint venture partners are actually offering a $186 roundtrip fare between Dallas and Melbourne, Australia. That’s not a typo.
A year ago I wrote about Lending Club offering up to 100,000 United miles.
At the time they were offering one mile per $2 invested by new customers. You earn better yields than a bank, but there’s some risk…
Spirit Airlines kicked a group of passengers off of a San Jose, Costa Rica to Fort Lauderdale flight last week because they smelled.
Spirit promised they could fly the following day, but the passengers pointed out “We’re going to smell the same tomorrow.”
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 »
