Apr 15 2015

IHG is going to start expiring their points. At the same time they say they’re introducing new benefits, but aren’t telling us what those are. We should trust them.

Yet they’re sneaking in that they will be changing the award categories of ~ 10% of their hotels. They won’t tell us which ones.

This program has a history of making changes without notice. I walk through some of those, and remind what their boss stated publicly about no-notice changes. Hopefully all he needs is a reminder.

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Apr 15 2015

Scott Mayerowitz writes about the proliferation of brands across the lodging industry.

“The world’s 10 largest hotel chains now offer a combined 113 brands at various price points, 31 of which didn’t exist a decade ago.”

Too many brands leads to consumer confusion, and makes it more difficult to understand what each one’s basic idea is. Do hotel chains proliferate brands in order to sign more properties, but while undermining their core business? With lifestyle brands the range, and more new brands coming online every few months, can consumers even keep up — and know which loyalty program to credit their stays to?

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Apr 14 2015

Copa wouldn’t seem like the most important airline to most US-based frequent flyers. But they’re a lot more important than you think, in several ways. Copa used to be majority-owned by Continental Airlines, and Copa took on a variant of the Continental logo and joined the old Onepass frequent flyer program. Continental started selling their investment in 2005, and the airline is independent now, but they’re pretty well integrated with United. Even now that they’re launching their own frequent flyer program there’s reciprocal upgrade benefits between the two airlines. And of course Copa is a member of the Star Alliance. Their brand new frequent flyer program which is about to launch is making a statement — and they’re calling out United and Delta while they do it. They’ve just e-mailed out this missive: Russ Hinckley…

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Apr 14 2015

News and notes from around the interweb: American flight attendants publish an open apology to Nicole Kidman disassociating themselves with the broadside on the actress (meant as an attack on Etihad, in support of US airlines’ complaints about subsidies) put forward by their union. American Express no longer reports new cards to credit bureaus as though they have been open as long as your oldest Amex card. Minor point, but adding new American Express cards no longer increases your average account age, which is a small portion of your overall credit score. Many – though far from all – American Express cardholders have a sync offer in their account for $20 off $20 at Amazon. Log into American Express and check if you can claim the offer. All Silvercar rentals are $49 for the rest…

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Apr 14 2015

Last night Southwest teased the announcement of new seats. And as I expected they’ve gone with B/E Aerospace. The seats were unveiled at the Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg and beginning mid- next year they’ll be featured on new Southwest 737-800 deliveries. Key features: Adjustable headrest ‘Widest’ 737 seat in the market (based on cabin width, Airbus aircraft generally have wider seats than Boeings) ‘Enhanced’ cushion comfort (it’s not the barely-padded slimline!) ‘Sleek’ cover design in ‘eLeather’ (this new term frightens me) The B/E seats are certainly capable of more than Southwest is doing with them, sadly. However for customers things could be a lot worse!

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Apr 14 2015

Citi Prestige card – in addition to a new big 50,000 point signup bonus, $250 airline fee credit, American lounge access, and triple and double points-earning categories – comes with a variety of included benefits.

One of those is free golf rounds, which appears to be better and more useful than I would have expected. There are courses nationwide and even worldwide that you can reserve, up to three times per year.

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Apr 14 2015

Don’t think those enhanced pat downs are excuses for the TSA to get their jollies? At Denver they were.

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Apr 13 2015

Southwest tweeted a tease about a big announcement tomorrow, and it looks like new seats. Reading between the lines, though, there appears to be more to the announcement.

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Apr 13 2015

IHG Rewards Club – the loyalty program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and related brands – will be introducing new elite benefits this summer. We know some of those now, and I’ll explain those.

They’re also introducing expiring points. Their points haven’t expired, now they’ll expire after 12 months of inactivity. Elite members get a longer expiration, though.

I go over the holes in the program, what they could do to fill those, and what we know they’re planning so far.

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Apr 13 2015

I’m looking at a flight later today that has only two first class seats for sale: (There’s one confirmable upgrade [A] seat and no discounted first class [P] seats that American will sell.) 11 out of 16 first class seats are open on the seat map: To be sure, the seat map is not a perfect approximation of availability. There can be people in a cabin without seat assignment. That’s more often true for international flights than domestic, and domestically in coach than first class, but it’s true. Today there was bad weather going through Dallas, including a ground stop. That doesn’t come close to explaining this, however. The flight showed up the same way prior to day. I frequently see American Airlines flights where they will not sell any first class seats (“F0”) but…

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