While not the first foreign airline to join PreCheck — that nod belongs to Air Canada, and now even Aeromexico and Etihad participate — Lufthansa has become the first European airline to make it possible for ‘trusted travelers’ to expedited US outbound security.
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.
Pex+ is a new site coming out of Beta that allows you to search for award space across a number of different airlines and data sources all at once, quickly. It offers hotel searches (points and revenue prices, so you can compare). And it even offers to email you when award prices drop (saver space opens).
It doesn’t just tell you whether saver awards are available — it shows you the mileage cost of each award so you can compare up front and it includes taxes and fuel surcharges.
Readers had questions, and the site’s founder responded.
Roundtrip first class fares between Lahore or Karachi, Pakistan and New York JFK are widely available for travel on Etihad — including Etihad’s Airbus A380 First Class Apartment — for less than $3500. One-way fares between Pakistan and New York are available in first class for less than $2000.
This is expensive, of course, but it’s closer to what you’d expect for a reasonable business fare than a first class fare.
Passengers complain that they aren’t served food anymore in coach most of the time. When I first started traveling for business (and certainly growing up), passengers complained that they were served food. Because airline food was a joke.
Back when United’s premium cabin meals were branded with celebrity chef Jacques Pepin they actually had economy meals which were chef-branded. United’s chef in economy was Sheila Lukins.
Thirty years ago of course United had an economy meals partnership with McDonalds — with happy meal toys (I have both Ronald McDonald and Grimace). United replaced the galley carts with ones specially-designed to keep the burger warm while the lettuce and bun stayed cool.
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.
With US airlines regularly offering less value for their points, I’ve been putting together this series with background, tips, and tricks for frequent flyer programs programs whose points can be very useful to you and that you can earn easily by transferring in from bank rewards currencies.
Here are 16 things to know about the United MileagePlus Program:
I’ve signed up for scores of cards over many years and I still have an excellent credit score, it was nearly 800 FICO on the three major credit bureaus when I went to get my mortgage. In part because of signing up for more cards, rather than in spite of it.
It often surprises me though how many credit cards are approved for consumers with much lower credit scores than I’d have expected. It turns out there’s data for that.
Hyatt used to let you book a ‘studio’ room at their Hyatt Residence Club (timeshare) properties for 12,000 points per night — flat — regardless of property. The price was the same regardless of property and had remained fixed this way for many years. Higher level rooms were available at fixed prices as well.
When Hyatt made changes to award prices at several hotels August 1 they also made changes to the redemption structure for Hyatt Residence Club properties. Only they didn’t announce those changes in advance.
American Airlines was behind United and Delta in devaluing its award chart and its elite program because it had bigger fish to fry. Finishing the US Airways merger came first. The internal mantra was “integrate before we innovate.”
But key elements of backend integration are slipping, there are huge gaps in American’s IT that drive customer service costs and limit revenue growth, while American focuses on reprogramming who gets upgrades.
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 »
