Last night I gave a heads up that IHG Rewards Club — the points program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and related brands — would be adjusting the redemption prices at about 8% of participating hotels.
They’re giving a modest amount of advance notice — changes go into effect February 17. That lets you make any future date bookings now at the old price for hotels that are going up.
The things that were most interesting to me about American’s earnings call weren’t falling airfares and weakness in South America market; the Zika virus; or American’s record profits, whether it’s fair to say that they had the most profits of any airline in history (or whether Delta ‘excluding employee profit sharing’ is higher, since of course those are wages and as Doug Parker pointed out the difference in profits between the airlines is Delta’s big losses on fuel hedging, something American doesn’t do).
The audience for the earnings call was mostly financial analysts. American was getting beaten up on, despite its profits and margins, for low fares. The critique was, why don’t they do more, actively manage to find ways to keep more of the cost savings from lower fuel? However there’s always some important tidbits that matter from a customer perspective, and to understand the direction the airline is going and what matters to its leadership. So here’s what was most interesting to me, that will be a different emphasis from mainstream financial reports on the call:
Last week I noted that Citi moved the card over to using Aspire Lifestyle Concierge. They have a much smoother process now for bookings using the 4th hotel night free benefit.
But there’s another hidden benefit to this change: Aspire’s Preferred Restaurant Program.
In my post about the surprising availability of American Airlines premium cabin awards on a plethora of transatlantic and transpacific routes on.. Wednesdays, some readers suggested that I may have buried the lede.
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We’re getting more than 2 weeks advance notice that IHG Rewards Club reward night point prices will go up or down by 5,000 or 10,000 points per night at 400 properties.
United is launching San Francisco – Singapore service June 1 operated by a Boeing 787-9.
This flight is 132 miles shorter than Qantas’ Sydney – Dallas, which is the current longest flight in the world. And it’s shorter, of course, than the Dubai – Auckland, New Zealand flight that Emirates just announced for March. United will terminate service between Singapore and Tokyo/Narita effective June 2, 2016 (eastbound).
There are several things striking about this development.
oneworld airline airberlin has a fantastic promotion for new members joining.
Join using the promotion link by March 31. Make your first redemption by December 31. Get half the miles back from that redemption. Boom.
I mentioned off-hand this morning about really good premium cabin award availability on American flights on Wednesdays. That’s worth drawing out more explicitly. They seem to be changing how they release award seats, for the better.
They started loosening up the Sydney route. They loosened up London. They opened up China.
There is plenty of first class award space on Japan Airlines for New York JFK – Tokyo and Chicago – Tokyo over the next 6 weeks. There’s also a new pattern for American’s Dallas and Los Angeles – Tokyo flights releasing premium cabin award seats.
When there’s first class available it’s on JAL’s Boeing 777-300ER which has their new first class suites. American charges 62,500 miles each way between the US and Japan (as well as Korea). Make Tokyo your connection and continue on in Asia and first class awards are 67,500 miles each way.
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 »
