Review: Qatar Airways Airbus A380 First Class, Bangkok – Doha

by Gary Leff

Jul 07 2016

I was super excited for this flight because it’s an aircraft and a first class I hadn’t ever flown before. This would be the second of three Gulf carrier Airbus A380s I’d get to sample on this trip, which was exciting in itself for me. It wasn’t just one airline, it was all three of the Gulf carriers and sampling literally the best of what each had to offer over the course of about a week.

This would be the shortest of the flights, costing 45,000 miles and $22.35 in taxes apiece. Bangkok – Doha is less than seven hours. Qatar Airways only offers first class on their A380, and has only regularly scheduled the plane on medium-haul routes like London and Paris in the past. (There’s an A380 scheduled to Sydney starting in mid-September, but Melbourne and Auckland remain on Boeing 777s and US routes are either on 777s or Airbus A350s.)

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CEO Interview: Jay Walker of Upside (and Founder of Priceline)

by Gary Leff

Jul 06 2016

Priceline founder Jay Walker is launching a new travel booking site in September. The focus is business travel for small and mid-size companies, and the goal is to save the company money while offering gift cards to employees.

I spoke with Jay last week about how development of the site progress is going, the ideas behind it (and whether they’re replicable in other industries) and also his history with Priceline. Jay also founded which pioneered auto-renewing magazine subscriptions and which he sold to Time, Inc. (Frequent flyers may be most familiar with Synapse’s Magazines for Miles product.)

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Husbands Who Fly Business Class While Their Wives are in Coach

by Gary Leff

Jul 06 2016

The Daily Mail carries what they contend is a ‘trend piece’ on an increasing number of husbands and wives traveling together — with the husband in business class and wife in coach. Really it’s just a collection of stories, not data, and not offering any comparison with the past to make the case that this is more common than it used to be.

Nonetheless the stories are interesting.

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Illegal Immigrant Caught Stowing Away Inside a Suitcase

by Gary Leff

Jul 06 2016

In 10 weeks at the beginning of the year I traveled to Paris, Bangkok, Doha, Maldives, Sri Lanka, the desert outside Dubai and Maui (plus places like Washington DC and San Francisco of course). Over and over, when people asked where I was going next, I heard “can you take me along in your suitcase?”

This morning an Eritrean man is making news, having been found inside a suitcase in Chiasso, Switzerland after train passengers heard moans emanating from inside. The train originated in Italy, and the man in the suitcase was traveling with another man who was hiding in the bathroom.

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Southwest Airlines New Tech is About to Leave 1986 Behind

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2016

Back in December I wrote about Southwest upgrading its technology to be able to pre-assign seats and even sell first class. They basically said they were acquiring dangerous doomsday-style technology that they promised they wouldn’t use.

The new reservation system will go live later this year. In the first half of 2017 Southwest will migrate operations over to the new platform.

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Oops.

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2016

I make typos frequently in blog posts. I’m a one man shop, and part-time at that. I bang out a post and share it in between other jobs. I could do a lot better. With a budget over $7 billion and with 50,000 employees at my disposal, I’d like to think that I would do better.

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31 Years of Miles and Points Rewards Cards

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2016

This year is also the 25th anniversary of American Express Membership Rewards (née Membership Miles). This wasn’t the first transferrable points program — Diners Club Club Rewards launched six years earlier in 1985.

American Express has an Anniversary Collection of redemption offers. Some are new redemptions, others are “member favorites” (not new) and some are exclusive to the promotion.

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Spend Your American Express Membership Rewards Points at 1.5 Cents Apiece

by Gary Leff

Jul 05 2016

American Express is offering a 50% bonus on transfers to Plenti through December 31.

You earn points with Plenti partners. You can also spend your points (at 1 cent apiece in value) on those partners. A 50% bonus means getting 1.5 Plenti points per Membership Rewards points — valuing those Membership Rewards points at 1.5 cents each when redeemed to pay those bills.

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