Mar 20 2016

American Express lost 10% of its card business when they lost the Costco deal. Here’s an inside account of how American Express lost the business. As costly as it was for American Express to lose Costco, it would have been more costly to retain Costco.

Costco’s switch to Visa though was delayed. This is a complicated transition for the merchant and for the banks, especially with Citibank picking up American Express’ “back book” (Citibank bought the existing card accounts from Amex).

Now we have a timeline, and what happens next.

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Mar 20 2016

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.

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Mar 20 2016

After clearing transit passport control and security, I had a 3 hour connection, and no gate was posted yet for my flight. I decided to head to the British Airways first class lounge on the south side of the airport.

British Airways has business class, first class, and Concorde Room lounges. The Concorde Room is their ‘real’ first class lounge which is open only to BA’s first class passengers (and a select few elites). Business class passengers use the business lounge. So the ‘Galleries First’ first class lounge is really a ‘top tier elite lounge’.

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Mar 19 2016

Alaska Airlines seems to be coming the Germany or Florida of US carriers, where every urban legend or strange story actually happens.

During Thursday’s Bellingham, Washington – Honoulu flight a passenger’s iPhone apparently burst into flames.

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Mar 19 2016

Delta pretty much never makes business class saver awards available on its own Los Angeles – Sydney flight.

Nevertheless, you could used to be able to use Delta SkyMiles to get to Australia in business class — flying the long way through Asia. You could make award bookings on China Southern or China Eastern (with fuel surcharges) connecting in Shanghai or Guangzhou respectively. Or you could make an award booking on Korean Air through Seoul.

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Mar 19 2016

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.

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Mar 19 2016

A flydubai Boeing 737-800 (aircraft A6-FDN), flight FZ-981 from Dubai to Rostov on Don, Russia crashed last night 55 passengers and 7 crew onboard. My thoughts are with the 62 souls, all lost on impact.

Weather last night near Rostov on Don was terrible, and the plane had aborted its approach to the airport’s runway 22. It held at 8000 feet for half an hour, then climbed back to 15,000 feet where it held for another hour and a half.

They commenced another approach to runway 22. With winds at 27 knots, gusting to 42 knots, they made another go around. The plane should have had more than 2 hours worth of fuel left at the time of the incident, so there was no fuel pressure to make a risky landing.

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Mar 19 2016

Barry Biffle, as Vice President of Marketing at Spirit Airlines, brought us some of the most juvenile ads in the history of aviation (and that includes from Russian and Vietnamese airlines).

Biffle is part of a tangled web of people in the airline business. I met Biffle years ago at a hotel bar near US Airways headquarters in Crystal City after he, Baldanza, and John Reistrup participated in a chat on Flyertalk.

He shared at the time that US Airways members were redeeming on Star partners at about the rate Star partners were redeeming for travel on US Airways; what would happen to tickets in the event the airline liquidated; that Pittsburgh customers would continue to have the best non-stop flying options with US Airways; and how they were thinking about Caribbean expansion.

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Mar 18 2016

LivingSocial and for that matter Groupon were once ‘next big things’. They raised a lot of money, burned a lot of cash, and built of mailing lists of people who don’t like to pay retail. This week Living Social laid off about half of its workforce. Over the paid 18 months they’ve shed better than three-fourths of their employees.

Now they have a new way to put money into your pocket rather than theirs: Living Social Restaurant Plus will give you up to a 30% rebate when you spend at specific restaurants at certain times.

And they’re still spending other peoples money to get a business going: They will give you a 100% rebate on your first qualifying meal up to $20 when you sign up. (You have 30 days from signup to take advantage of the offer.)

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Mar 18 2016

Back in December Etihad opened a new dedicated lounge at New York JFK. It’s much better than the old Oasis lounge which I used three years ago taking the New York JFK – Abu Dhabi flight. Chris Guillebeau had aptly described that lounge as “the Star Wars galaxy bar of middle-cabin travelers.”

I didn’t make it out to the lounge’s grand opening, but I was thrilled to be flying out of New York JFK with a chance to see it last month.

I reached out ahead of time to Etihad and asked if it would be possible to see the new lounge for Residence passengers as well. And if I was lucky — if no one had booked the Residence on one of my flights — whether it would be possible to see that, too.

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