A UK resident of 15 years flew to his mother’s funeral in Zimbabwe, and was detained at the airport — and then jailed, facing deportation — upon his return because he didn’t look like his passport photo.
He had apparently gained about 125 pounds since the photo was taken.
Review of a six night stay at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco — cash and points (10,000 points + $125 per night) and a confirmed suite upgrade with club lounge access.
I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
I’ve been a fan of the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card as an important tool for frequent flyers for a long time because:
Recent reports are that Chase has only wanted to approve this card for new customers that haven’t applied for 5 new cards in the past two years.
That means three things…
American published new mileage earning rates for flights on British Airways and Iberia effective October 1. But they only published the changes on non-US websites, and only when viewing those sites in their native languages.
It turns out that ending the ability to earn full mileage on British Airways and Iberia flights was something published in error and that has been reverted on the website.
One imagines this was at least seriously under discussion, and could come, given the reduced earning that the British Airways and Iberia programs offer for discount fares on their own flights. But that day is not today.
Instead of increasing the density of reconfigured Boeing 777-200 planes from 260 seats to 289 seats (and reducing the number of business class seats onboard), American tells me they’ve decided those 260 seat aircraft will stay in that configuration as a subfleet. That’s great for passengers.. and for upgrades.
Panama City-based Star Alliance airline Copa, which used United’s MileagePlus as its frequent flyer program until this summer, is getting up and running. They’ve been aggressively status matching especially United elites and folks with Latin America mailing addresses and with status in competitor programs.
They’ve handed out free miles just for joining. And they have reasonable award charts.
Now they have a big 150,000 mile offer for flying to Copa’s ‘new destinations’.
I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
The American Airlines Boeing 777-200 retrofit project has been slow. Deliveries of the 787s had been delayed. And that’s long been though to be the result of slow deliveries of seats from Zodiac.
Now comes news that American has dropped Zodiac as their seat supplier.
If you’re like me, you need a hotel suite upgrade and don’t really care what room you get on a short business stay. My only really strong preference is not to have a connecting room, those don’t tend to isolate sound very well, and what I want most is a quiet room. Most of the time my elite status gets me into club lounges, and ‘club level’ upgrades are nearly meaningless. With most city hotels I don’t much care about the views. My work-related stays are generally short. But traveling for leisure, I’m generally not alone, the stays are often a bit longer, and I really enjoy an upgraded room. A hotel suite upgrade matters. Some people don’t share me feelings in valuing that, and that’s cool, they think “I’m on vacation and I’m not…
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 »
