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.
Hyatt has apparently deflagged several hotels, removing them from the Hyatt Place chain, likely because their owners were unwilling to invest to bring the property up to standard. While I generally like new build Hyatt Place properties, many of the ex-AmeriSuites Hyatt Places are quite bad.
One of the properties is no longer using the Hyatt name – they cannot – but they’ve given themselves a questionable renaming?
Kona airport on the Big Island of Hawaii closed Monday afternoon after discovering cracks on the runway. The airport has a single 11,000 foot runway. They quickly brought in contractors to mill and resurface a 10′ x 10′ patch of runway, and expect to complete resurfacing in order to reopen service on Tuesday.
Chase’s new Sapphire Lounge is now open at New York LaGaurdia airport. The JFK lounge opens next week, in the old Etihad Airways space. Chase’s airport lounges are managed by Airport Dimensions, which is part of the same company as Priority Pass.
The Cheapening continues. While some airlines offer business class passengers amenities inside nice leather reusable bags, or hard side plastic Tumi suitcases, American Airlines has been giving out a new amenity kit in international business class that’s made out of cardboard.
Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger was captain pilot of US Airways flight 1549 which went down in a ditching in the Hudson River after a double bird strike. He was played by Tom Hanks in the eponymous film – the movie as a whole wasn’t very good but the entire thing was worth it for the flight sequence.
Now for the 15th anniversary of the flight, Sullenberger has narrated a “minute by minute replay” of what happened January 15, 2009.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal has outlined to employees the steps the airframe manufacturer plans to take to improve quality assurance in light of the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 near-disaster that currently has that plane type grounded by regulators.
The TSA sends passengers through scanners to see beneath their clothing, but one woman was made to put on extra clothing before being allowed to be screened at airport security.
She was headed to Los Angeles, where wearing very little is de rigueur, and was told by screening staff that she was “exposing herself.”
Amidst days of disarray for Delhi flight operations due to fog, passengers are losing their minds. A man slapped the captain of an IndiGo flight. Hundreds of passengers have crowded check-in counters, while many yell at airline staff. And passengers sat down on the tarmac next to one plane to eat a meal during a 12 hour delay.
Over 1,000 IndiGo flights a day have been delayed for each of the last several days.
Customers were quick to flee Delta after the airline announced major changes to earning status and accessing its airport clubs. Loyalty Status Company CEO Mark Ross-Smith says that “100,000+ high-value frequent flyers did a Status Match in 2023” and that this was “[m]ainly driven by the Delta SkyMiles changes.”
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 »
