TV Food Host Asks a Fundamental Question About Airline Elite Status

Jun 14 2016

TV food personality Alton Brown tweets his unhappiness with Delta SkyMiles Platinum status.

What’s going on with upgrades is that Delta now monetizes 57% of its domestic first class seats and projects getting to 70% in 2018. When there are no more ‘leftover’ first class seats, that’s the end of first class upgrades. It’s a far cry from a decade ago when only 10% of forward cabin seats were purchased directly.

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500 Free and Easy Marriott Points

Jun 14 2016

Marriott will give you 500 points for following them on Instagram by June 21.

Once you follow Marriott Rewards on Instagram, go to this link and enter the email address associated with your Marriott Rewards account. It took me a few minutes to realize where on the page you do this:

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Chase Freedom Extends 5x at Costco, Other Wholesale Clubs Through End of Year

Jun 14 2016

Costco will start accepting Visa on June 20. The Citi website for the new Costco card will be live at that time.

Chase offered ‘warehouse clubs’ as a 5x earning category in the second quarter for their Freedom product. Clearly Chase wanted to get the message out that you can use their cards at Costco, too. In fact, Chase issues almost exclusively with Visa as a result of a flat rate pricing deal for use of Visa’s network.

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Passenger Tied to His Seat After Throwing Money on the Ground and Charging Cockpit

Jun 13 2016

On Thursday SkyTeam member China Southern was preparing for a 1200 mile hop it performs every day between Wuhan — the most populous city in central China — and Harbin, the capital of China’s northernmost province.

It’s a route flown daily by China Southern with a Boeing 737, and also by Sichuan Airlines with an Airbus A321. Normally not more than 2.5 hours in flight, this journey would be extended because of a passenger meltdown caught on film.

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Hertz Declares: “We Cannot Guarantee Any Reservation” — Would You Trust Renting From Them?

hertz rental car desk
Jun 13 2016

I went to the counter and while they had my reservation, I was told they wouldn’t give me a car. They took more reservations than they had vehicles, and so the woman at the desk said they weren’t going to honor any bookings made that day.

It seemed like Hertz should have done more than just told me I was out of luck. If they didn’t have cars, they shouldn’t have given me a reservation. And if they weren’t going to honor the reservation they should have tried to take care of things some other way.

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