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.
After a medical diversion a family was given the private jet treatment by Spirit Airlines.
The airline dropped the family off in Turks & Caicos. The girl recovered. But they were stranded – the local airport was closed to commercial traffic, and the they hadn’t even intended to leave the country so weren’t carrying passports. So the very next day Spirit actually sent a plane to bring the family back to Puerto Rico.
Australian Jessican Tam reports that when she cancelled a Qatar Airways roundtrip business class ticket from Jakarta to London, and they accidentally refunded AU$28,179,789.36 – or about $19.7 million at today’s exchange rates. She’s even shared a screen shot of her bank balance.
Southwest is offering a 30% bonus on points that post to your account between August 1, 2020 and October 31, 2020 under the ‘credit card’ category. You’ll earn this bonus if you have at least 6000 credit card points post during the promotion period, and you can earn up to 25,000 bonus points. These points count towards a Companion Pass, which itself has reduced requirements to earn this year already.
Emirates has 115 Airbus A380s. Those offer a lot of capacity when flying is at such low levels. And Emirates is an international airline, they aren’t flying domestic routes which have fewer restrictions around the world. Their on board bars are designed precisely not to social distance. And showers, while in normal times cleaned between each use, are both an expensive amenity (carrying all that water means burning fuel) and represents use of the same space by multiple passengers.
To bring the A380 and its amenities back means air travel recovers, and social distancing is no longer required to fly.
It makes a lot of sense to bulk up on miles right now. You’ll be well-positioned to take some great trips once we’re all flying again. And I expect that planes will have a lot of empty seats for awhile which should be great for the best award pricing.
You may want to be careful about which miles you pursue, in order to hedge risk – or you may want the optionality of strong cash back and the option to convert to miles later.
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 know that people carry the SARS-CoV-2 virus with them from one country to another, one city to another, one planes. However we haven’t traced outbreaks to contact on planes anywhere in the world. One of the reasons that’s usually cited for this is the use of high efficiency particulate (HEPA) air filters.
What are HEPA air filters, do all planes have them, and why do they work?
When you see a novel warning sign, it’s almost always in response to something a person actually did. No one thought to warn anyone before some idiot came along. Occasionally these sorts of signs make you really wonder about people, like “this motorcycle contains no edible parts” and cartons of eggs that warn “this product may contain eggs” (or jars of peanut butter that flag, “may contain nuts or nut products”). Who are the people who need to be told “this electric drill is not intended for dental use” anyway? Austin’s South Terminal is a separate structure from the main terminal, less than three quarters of a mile away but a 7 mile drive. It currently serves Frontier and Allegiant. This sign was just spotted in the men’s room there: What in gods name was…
My gut feeling is that there’s something wrong with complaining when others are suffering so much, though people are suffering all around the world during ‘normal times’ and I don’t have an issue talking about ‘first world problems’. Does this shift during COVID times make me, on some level, a hypocrite?
How are you handling customer service complaints now, and is that different than it was at the start of the year? And if there’s a change, will it last past the coronavirus pandemic?
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 »
