British Airways upended their program in the fall of 2011. They started charging separately for each award flight segment, and charged based on distance. Short flights became a good value, and longer flights got expensive.
Unfortunately the 4500 point award is ending for flights originating in terminating in the U.S. effective February 2.
Six months ago I speculated on what a Starwood-IHG (or Wyndham) merger would look like.
Three months ago market excitement ratcheted up over an IHG-Starwood combination, although that culminated in word from IHG that talks ended without a deal — although Starwood remained a potential acquisition target for Wyndham and Accor.
Now 3 Chinese firms are vying to make an offer to take over Starwood Hotels, at an expected price of more than $12 billion.
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. Including how to see the new Star Wars movie two days early, for free.
Back in March American had a ~ $450 all-in mistake fare roundtrip between Washington DC and China in business class. They honored the fare.
Many people had merely held – and not ticketed – their reservation. For the most part those held reservations were cancelled (passengers were not allowed to purchase those tickets). American is now offering a make-good.
Chairman’s Circle is United’s status above 1K and Global Services.
United, like every other airline, has long had special programs for high revenue customers. Prior to Global Services was created I knew a customer who flew 200,000 miles a year domestic on walkup fares. He used to get a call at Christmas from the CEO. The airline once held a departure for him when he overslept. Here’s what they do now for true top tier Chairman’s Circle members.
Hilton is testing discounted rates for HHonors members. The rates will be available at certain hotels in four cities when booking through Hilton channels.
In some ways this seems like Hyatt’s one year test offering 20% off to Platinum and Diamond members. That turns out to have been too generous — the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. Hilton’s test is more limited.
Yesterday Hyatt’s Jeff Zidell tweeted an article from Harvard Business Review highlighting, “[c]ultivate gratitude and loyalty will naturally follow.”
The piece suggests that ‘loyalty needs to be reciprocal’. I suggest that means striving to deliver as much value as possible to customers, and continuing to look for ways to do more (while pricing your product at a level that earns a strong rate of return). Figuring out how much you can take away from your customers, or viewing your customers transactionally, undermines loyalty. In the airline space that means re-commodifying your product, and undoing the great work frequent flyer programs have done to create differentiation amongst what’s otherwise just a seat from city A to city B.
Luxury Travel Diary, a high-end travel blog with great reviews based in the UK, has a bunch of travel auctions — some about to close, others extend into October — and there look to be some real bargains. Many of these are great auctions, without enough bidders, so the items go for way less than they should.
They wanted to highlight some of these, and offered to help organize a giveaway of a 4 night hotel stay in Paris for readers of this blog.
A passenger on a LAN flight from Pucallpa took video out the window of his Airbus A320 while waiting to deplane in Lima, Peru.
Baggage handlers were going through luggage before taking them to baggage claim. One looks around to see if anyone was watching (and didn’t do a very good job of that, apparently) and then reaches into a passenger’s bag and takes something out. He hands it to another baggage handler.
There’s a fantastic rumor today that in addition to announcing new service to Auckland, New Zealand, American will announce service from Dallas to Abu Dhabi as well (possibly even in a joint venture with Etihad).
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 »
