I had just an overnight in Abu Dhabi. Normally if I’m getting in late at night and leaving the next morning I’ll stay at the Premier Inn attached to the airport. It’s a bit dorm-like but it’s clean and close.
However this time I was landing before 1pm and it was Valentine’s Day. I wanted something a bit nicer and didn’t mind heading farther afield since I had a layover of about 19 hours. I settled on the St. Regis Abu Dhabi.
So while it should be obvious, a new paper by the University of Chicago’s Dennis Carlton and several co-authors finds that the Delta-Northwest, United-Continental, and American-US Airways mergers haven’t been anti-competitive at all.
Priority Pass Prestige memberships come with unlimited visits and usually retail for $399. They do not come with free guests.
The Priority Pass Select card that comes with Chase Sapphire Reserve includes unlimited guests (subject to limits imposed by any individual lounge) so is ‘worth’ even more than that.
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.
United invited elite MileagePlus members running in the New York City marathon on a first come, first serve basis to join a fuel up dinner tonight — the night before the race — at Del Posto restaurant in New York for a special carbo-loading on Mario Batali specialties. Olympian Meb Keflezighi will be a special guest at the dinner.
United has a VIP race start tent tomorrow morning with special bib pick-up station to avoid lines and private bathrooms. They’re also providing personalized medal engraving, post-race massages, and snacks.
As an official policy, American switched to offer 24 hour refunds when purchasing travel a week or more in advance and eliminated 24 hour holds — but continued offering holds as an option on the website, indicating this would go away at some point but didn’t specify when.
American is less generous than Delta or United who allow 24 hour refunds even for purchases made within a week in travel, however this is not required by the Department of Transportation.
Los Angeles KTLA news anchor and 1994 Miss America Lu Parker was arrested on suspicion of petty theft on Wednesday morning at LAX terminal 6 which serves Alaska Airlines plus some gates for Delta and American. The former Miss USA allegedly stole a pair of $200 headphones from another passenger who identified her to authorities. The incident took place in the TSA passenger-screening area of Terminal 6 at LAX, and Parker was later removed from a flight and arrested, a spokesperson with the LAPD said. Lu Parker Used to former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Date Copyright: buzzfuss / 123RF Stock Photo Apparently she picked up the headphones during the screening process from a passenger going through the checkpoint along side her, and proceeded to her flight with her newfound gains. There is, reportedly, a…
It’s been tough to be a British Airways customer over the past few years, and things are about to get much tougher in the face of uncertainties surrounding Brexit and competition from low cost transatlantic carriers like Wow Air and especially Norwegian.
And they’re going to mash together all the different Avios programs into one. They haven’t told us what that will look like, but British Airways makes it look like the independent and more valuable ones moving to the less valuable shared program. We’ll have to wait and see.
I thought it would be instructive to take a look at a cheap Qatar Airways First Class fare.
You can fly in first class — not business class, first class — on Qatar for $1254 between Cairo and Bangkok via Doha.
On Tuesday I wrote that Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic would be ending their partnership November 13. It will no longer be possible to earn Virgin America miles flying Virgin Atlantic and vice versa. And it will no longer be possible to redeem Virgin America miles for travel on Virgin Atlantic and vice versa.
This was done without much notice to members. It wasn’t listed on either airline’s website, and neither airline has as of yet emailed members. Virgin America agents were briefed and sharing the details with customers who asked, while Virgin Atlantic agents appeared to know nothing about it.
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 »
