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.
Virgin America has a formal status match campaign for folks with status with a competing airline. They’ll give you temporary status and an accelerated path towards keeping it.
Through end of day today (Tuesday, March 29) Virgin America is also offering a 25% discount on Hawaii and Mexico bookings.
This morning word came out that Chinese consortium Anbang had raised its bid for Starwood to $82.75 in cash.
Marriott had offered 0.8 Marriott shares and $21 in cash last Monday, worth a little over $79 at the time, to outbid Anbang’s previous $78 offer. Marriott’s shares had fallen since then.
Instead of countering with a higher offer — continuing the potentially irrational bidding war — Marriott has issued a statement saying that Starwood’s shareholders to vote to sell for Marriott’s cash and stock offer anyway.
American has made it pretty clear they want to win Los Angeles, the way that Delta has worked to win New York. Both are major US markets, and hyper-competitive.
American has grown both with its own flights — they recently added a Sydney flight (with an improved inflight service), they’re adding Auckland, New Zealand, and they’re adding Tokyo Haneda service and Hong Kong as well not to mention Shanghai with a 787 — and those are all international routes that face competition.
There’s been speculation about JetBlue, Delta, and Etihad as Virgin America investors.
Now we know that there are two bidders and we know who they are: JetBlue and Alaska Airlines
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.
The deal for Anbang — instead of Marriott — to acquire Starwood – may be back on.
I wrote on Saturday that the door was open for the consortium led by Chinese insurer Anbang to make another offer for several reasons.
Things could ultimately now work out for Starwood to remain independent!
We often talk about the what airlines are serving but more important than the what is the taste.
I know that sounds like an oxymoron, the idea of airline food that’s good. 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.
There were efforts to improve on that, of course. Back when United’s premium cabin meals were branded with celebrity chef Jacques Pepin (so long before Charlie Trotter’s first appearance with the airline, the celebrity chef whose meals were largely derided as giving passengers ‘the trots’), they actually had economy meals which were chef-branded. United’s chef in economy was Sheila Lukins.
The airport’s Executive Club has hot food, but no bathrooms. It’s non-descript and was busy while I was there. I didn’t stay long. Instead, I grabbed my Priority Pass card and headed down to the middle of the terminal, and later to the end of the terminal, to check out two other lounges.
What’s especially strange is that terminal D itself has both a KLM lounge and an Air France lounge — two separate lounges operated by Air France KLM. In the same terminal. An easy walk from each other. And with overlapping lounges. Even if they’ve got both on long term leases it seems gratuitous to staff and supply them both. Now, Air France’s Paris flight usually leaves just an hour after the KLM Amsterdam flight most of the time. But even if they needed both lounges to support the two overlapping flights it’s strange that they keep the lounges open throughout the day.
In light of President Obama’s historic trip to Cuba, The Onion covered Air Force One’s return flight with ‘hundreds of Cuban refugees’ clinging to the plane.
The scary thing? Plenty of people believed this was real. But then they believe what they read in the National Enquirer, like that Ted Cruz could be having five affairs. With actual women (not one of whom is an imaginary Michelle Pfeiffer in The Russia House). Because people are dumb.
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 »
