Tanzania is open to U.S. tourists. Should you go?
It hasn’t been clear to me what the situation on the ground is like, but my award booking partner Steve Belkin just spent two weeks there and files this report.
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.
Documenting just a handful of cases where inflight spread may have occurred is significant as an argument for the safety of flying because there’s never been a virus studied as extensively and intensively in a short period of time as this one. There are millions of people flying throughout the world week after week during the global pandemic, yet we haven’t been able to identify more flights where the virus spread (though there are probably some). This – combined with airline cabin crew having a lower incidence of Covid-19 than the general population, is highly suggestive that inflight spread is very rare.
For many years this was the single best card for earning valuable rewards points, in a class by itself. Now it’s refreshed with the biggest public offer there’s ever been for the card.
They’ve increased from offering 60,000 to 80,000 points – without changing the $4000 spend requirement within three months. This is the strongest initial bonus offer on any card in my opinion. But the value goes even beyond that.
On August 31 Cherrae, who identifies herself as a Detroit rap artist, boarded Spirit Airlines flight 1839 from Las Vegas to Nashville.
According to a report I’ve seen, she was seated in one of Spirit’s “Big Front Seats” and prior to departure a flight attendant asked her several times to wear her mask properly over her nose and mouth. The flight attendant reported that she wouldn’t comply. Things, shall we say, escalated.
On the most recent episode of the always-excellent “Airlines Confidential” podcast journalist Seth Kaplan and former Spirit Airlines CEO Ben Baldanza were talking about airport codes and they shared several things I wasn’t aware of, though perhaps have heard in passing before.
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.
We don’t know enough about this product yet to have a real idea of its value – if you can actually generate a 4% return through spend and referrals that’s going to be really strong, but most people won’t be able to successfully refer someone every month.
Referrals aside then we’re talking about 2% back on the first $15,000 of spend each year. This card is only interesting for spend above $15,000 to get to 3% back. But you’re going to have to spend substantially more than $15,000 on the card before you’re really getting enough value to make the higher rate of return worthwhile.
Airlines have somehow conned the President, the Speaker of the House and myriad members of the House of Representatives and the Senate to sign onto the idea of a $25 billion ‘clean extension’ of CARES Act payroll support. That’s a second $25 billion injection of cash in exchange for not furloughing workers or eliminating service to most cities through March 31, 2021.
Except that the math here is truly insane. No one seems to be doing the math. So let’s talk about what a $2.5 billion package might look like instead.
Chase was the most aggressive card issuer coming out of the Great Recession. They were the first to bring us a 100,000 point signup bonus, back in 2009. They’ve been aggressively introducing big offers for their card products again.
It’s striking to me that there are actually (8) different initial bonus offers of 100,000 points or more I’m aware of that Chase currently has available. That’s incredible.
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 »
