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.
Hilton announced their new ‘Connected Room’ concept, which is live at one hotel — the Hilton Garden Inn Memphis — sort of. They promise to add 7 hotels in the coming weeks and roll out in the U.S. only in the coming year.
So far this isn’t actually “in-app” and they don’t have all the technology vendors on board, but they have the right concept.
United got hammered during their earnings call in October. They offered a number of metrics at an investor day a year ago, said that most of those efforts were on track, but refused to give any numbers to back up or elucidate on the claim.
Their stock is down about 15% in the last year, and about 12% since the beginning of the year.
Delta and their transatlantic joint venture partners are adding a first checked bag fee to their least expensive fares to and from Europe.
As American and United roll out their Basic Economy fares internationally you can expect they’ll follow Delta in short order since they generally believe Delta is smarter than they are.
On Tuesday an African American man departing Washington National airport was in the priority line for boarding when – he reports – the woman behind him told him he was in the wrong place.
He told her he was in first class so he was in the right place. Apparently she persisted, complaining about the airline boarding military personnel with priority, “we paid for our seats so he still should have to wait.”
American Airlines ConciergeKey is the ‘super secret’ level that George Clooney had in Up in the Air, in some sense equivalent to United Global Services and Delta 360.
And they’ve introduced a new benefit for 2018.
The next IHG Rewards Club promotion is up and available for registration.
They’re coming out with ‘Accelerate’ again for stays between January 1 and April 30 you earn even more points. And in some ways it’s my favorite hotel promotion — not as much for its richness as much because it is sort of fun.
The best Star Alliance frequent flyer program in the world is hidden in plain site. What if I told you that you could book first class to Europe for 60,000 miles, or first class to Africa for just 75,000 miles? That’s what Aegean Miles & Bonus offers.
They are a Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partner. They just started offering online booking of (some) Star Alliance awards. And they’re now selling miles at a discount.
Whether it’s singer Rick Derringer being arrested at security with a gun or rapper Coolio being arrested with a stolen gun at a checkpoint, there’s a penalty. Generally fines for bringing a firearm through the checkpoint range from $500 to $2000, whether intentional or not.
But what about when the gun is brought through the checkpoint by a TSA screener?
In recent years Alaska has had largely the same limited inventory of Air France awards made available to other partners (so it’s about as bad as availability offered to SkyMiles members). British Airways is hardly a replacement partner, however, given the fuel surcharges imposed on BA awards. Still, Alaska continues to add partners while carriers like American only seem to lose them.
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 »
