I’ve had terrible customer service, awful flight delays, cancelled flights. Things happen in travel. I try to let it go, and appreciate what Louis C.K. reminds us is “the miracle of human flight.” I have never submitted a complaint to the Department of Transportation. (Nor have I ever complained to the federal government about credit card marketing.) Have you? I’ve often wondered what it would take to cause me to escalate an issue, make it federal. Reader Paul H. points me to this piece on complaints filed with the DOT, based on a FOIA request for submissions referencing customer service and discrimination during a two month period in 2014. Here are some truly special highlights…
Get 1000 Free Hilton Points Just for Updating Your Password! (They Promise..!)
United, American, and Hilton all suffered recent data breaches. Indeed, Hilton points have been among the most available for sale on the DarkNet. Starwood was hacked, too. Hilton accounts have long used 4-digit PIN numbers. That’s not a lot of unique combinations, and Hilton has decided that’s not secure enough. Three weeks ago Hilton reached out yesterday to let me know that they’re moving to passwords.. At the time they offered 1000 points to get you to update your password. But their IT wasn’t ready for their announced changes. And they followed up with a hold off. Indeed, about a week ago I checked in and they let me know they were still working on things. Well, apparently they’re ready to go. HHonors members will need to update their passwords by April 1. As of…
Virgin America Offering 2-for-1 Flights (It’s Like a Dallas Companion Pass, Without the Work)
Airline seats are mostly sold as commodity products. The genius of frequent flyer programs has been to take what is essentially an interchangeable thing — a seat one from city to another connecting in a third city — and create differentiation and brand loyalty. What hasn’t historically worked in the US market is to offer a better value proposition. Certainly it hasn’t earned a price premium. American had ‘More Room Throughout Coach’ but they put seats back into their planes because customers weren’t choosing them over competitors. People choose, for the most part, on price and schedule. It’s interesting that Virgin America is taking a different tack — they aren’t advertising that they’re more expensive but worth it. They’re advertising that you pay the same and get more. They’re promoting travel out of the Dallas…
US Airways Card Should Be Around for One More Month
US Airways announced that their miles would be combined into the American AAdvantage program next month. We’ve long known that the US Airways co-brand credit card would stop taking applications when the US AIrways and American programs combine. I’ve seen speculation on several sites recently that this week would be the last chance to apply for the US Airways credit card. I was surprised by that, since I hadn’t heard it myself and since I’d expect Barclays to want to acquire new cardmembers up until the last moment. @MattEnder received a solicitation for the card with a deadline of April 12. That’s consistent with our previous understanding of Barclays taking applications until the merger of programs actually happens (or more likely up until when US Airways partially freezes its data for the migration, perhaps no…
US Airways Miles to Be Merged into American AAdvantage Next Month!
I haven’t received my US Airways Dividend Miles e-statement for March yet, but Loyalty Lobby received his and notes the following paragraph: Next month, we’ll reach the next milestone on our path to integration by bringing Dividend Miles into the American Airlines AAdvantage® program. We’ll transfer your mileage balance and elite-qualifying activity into your new (or existing) AAdvantage account. When the 2015 program and details of how the US Airways and American programs would be combined were released in October, we were told the combination would happen during the second quarter of 2015. At the time I wrote, They haven’t set a target date, and there’s lots of IT work to do, but they sounded optimistic to me about hitting their deadlines on the early, rather than late, side of the calendar. Throughout I’ve been…
The Best Airlines and Airports… and the Worst. Plus Starwood Hotels You Didn’t Know Changed Rewards Category
News and notes from around the interweb: Even ‘Airlines 4 America’ the airline industry lobby group is unwilling to sign onto the United/Delta/American complaint about the three large Gulf airlines. Nate Silver takes his statistical prowess to airline schedules and performance. He finds that US Airways, Alaska, and Virgin America are operationally better than Delta (which is of course better than United and American), and that the New York area airports and Chicago O’Hare are unsurprisingly quite awful. Some Starwood hotels changed categories — or didn’t — this week contrary to what had previously been announced. Ryanair to fly to Spain’s ‘Ghost Airport’ Promo code USMRIOT takes 20% off Dallas-originating and 15% off other US-originating itineraries on Emirates for booking through March 31 and travel through May 15. (HT: S.) Video of slides deploying on…
TSA Arrests Man for Too Many Credit Cards
The TSA has never caught a terrorist. But they’ve nabbed their first card churner going through a checkpoint in Fort Lauderdale prior to boarding a Delta flight for New York. During a physical search of the bag, a security screener discovered four stacks of credit cards hidden inside four different sneakers on the bag’s bottom, the report said. The screener also noticed several credit cards were blank. The Broward Sheriff’s Office responded and found 136 blank credit cards displaying logos of various banks, and 62 credit cards with two different listed account holders and various account numbers, the report said. At first the man claimed “no knowledge of how the credit cards were in his duffel bag” (the ‘Shaggy defense‘). Then he claimed a cousin he couldn’t identify paid him $200 to bring the cards…
Cathay Pacific Will Introduce a New Business Class Seat Next Year
Cathay Pacific is an American AAdvantage partner (and a member of oneworld) and flies from New York JFK, Newark, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Toronto and Vancouver to Hong Kong and of course beyond. I love their first class product, and redeem for it when I can. But their business class is excellent. It’s a similar seat to what US Airways pioneered, American has in their new 777s, and Delta flies to Asia and Tel Aviv. I especially like the two-row ‘mini cabin’ on the Cathay Pacific 777. Their business class of course is four seats abreast on the 777, with all aisle access. It’s the ‘reverse herringbone’ style seat, which is my absolute favorite business class seat. Australian Business Traveller reports that Cathay Pacific will come out with a new version of the seat…
HOT FARE: From $528 for Air France PREMIUM ECONOMY US – Istanbul Roundtrip
The Flight Deal scoops a deal about Air France premium economy for under $600 roundtrip. Premium economy can often be thought of as similar to domestic first class, so a real step up from coach, and for less than the price of coach. This should be a $2500 – $3000 roundtrip ticket. And yet I don’t think it’s a mistake, it appears to be focused on United hubs. Washington Dulles and Chicago are available from $528, Houston and other United hubs are reportedly available for a little bit more. Take your outbound flight between March 28th and May 15th or between August 24 and October 25. Travel outbound Sunday through Wednesday Return Monday through Thursday 3 day advance purchase required You can earn full redeemable miles with Delta or Alaska on this fare. This should…
More Tourists Behaving Badly: Russian Porn Illegally Filmed at Giza Pyramids
First we have tourists arrested for taking photos inside Cambodian temples. Then California women were caught scratching their initials into the Colosseum in Rome. As though it wasn’t becoming hard enough for criticizing the destruction of historical artifacts in the name of smashing idols by ISIS… …Egyptian authorities are now investigating “how tourists came to film a pornographic video at the site of the Giza pyramids and Sphinx.” What’s more, the Russian porn star doesn’t even seem to appreciate the historical significance of the sites, and complains about her tour instead. The actress is seen complaining constantly into the camera about the scenery, the locals, the souvenirs – just about everything – before flashing parts of her body, according to viewers. Whether or not revelations of this film will lead to the storming of a…
