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.
On Friday Starwood’s customers and shareholders were excited by a Chinese group led by insurer Anbang making a substantially higher offer for the hotel chain than the pending Marriott Marriott acquisition deal.
On Monday Marriott increased their offer substantially to take the lead in the acquisition of Starwood.
This is far from a done deal however. Here’s why.
A tourist in Jackson Hole, Wyoming stole a Pizza Hut delivery truck because he needed a ride to the airport.
The crack detectives figured out the scheme, and worked with their counterparts across jurisdictions to try to find him. However police were too late to catch him at his connection in Denver. Instead the game plane was to meet his gate on arrival at his destination in Chicago. But the cops went to the wrong gate and missed him.
Neither Uber nor Lyft are available in Jackson Hole as of this writing.
Through February 8th Hilton is offering a bonus of 80% on purchased points.
Hilton usually charges a penny apiece for points, so with this bonus is selling points for a little over half a cent each. That’s not the absolute cheapest I’ve ever seen (back in June they offered a 100% bonus). Here they’re selling points for just a little over what they’re worth.
This will certainly appeal to newly minted Hilton Diamonds who took advantage of the end of year status match opportunity…!
Earlier today One Mile at a Time detailed what was ostensibly going to be Hyatt’s new spring promotion, shared with him via a reader, although caveats “The above comes from an unofficial source, though does seem to be Hyatt’s second quarter 2016 promotion. If that’s in fact the case, I’m sure it will be announced shortly.”
I’ve confirmed the details with Hyatt, between April 1 and June 30 Gold Passport members will be able to register and stay for up to 75,000 bonus points.
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.
Marriott had an investor call yesterday to discuss the acquisition of Starwood, and the future outlook for the combined companies.
Naturally the focus is on the deal and their argument for its upside. Most interesting to me is that the presentation slide deck included a page on the future of Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.
There were two explosions in the Brussels airport departure hall around around 8 a.m. local time today. There was also an explosion at a subway station near EU headquarters. Flights were suspended. US flights to Brussels landed safely. Intra-european flights were diverted or returned to their origin.
As of this writing at least 13 have been reported dead at the airport and 15 at the subway station. Although some of what we will read and see on television reported today will turn out to be wrong.
One of the airport explosions is reported to have been near the American Airlines check-in counter, the other near the check-in desk for Brussels Airlines. American confirmed their “employees and contractors are accounted for with no reported injuries.”
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.
British Airways business class is a controversial product. It’s fully lie flat, which is better than angled, but it’s probably the worst lie flat product out there. The airline often sells business class at a deep discount through sales, and so the product can be a good value (albeit not as much on award tickets where you’re paying fuel surcharges).
When it’s substantially cheap than the competition it’s value for money. But it’s far from top shelf. It’s also worth knowing that some seats are better – and worse – than others.
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 »
