I’ve heard from several people wondering what their next-best path to earn Hyatt Globalist will be, since they can’t credit cheap Excalibur stays to Hyatt (without actually traveling anywhere) going forward.
Southwest Airlines has announced changes to make earning status easier from flying and from credit card spend, a new benefit to top tier status, and greater flexibility for all members in redeeming their points.
This new TAP Miles&Go American Express® Credit Card lets your spend contribute to Star Alliance Gold status, their award chart is reasonable especially ‘extra miles’ awards that let you travel on far more TAPs flight than are available to other airline partners.
American Airlines is replacing its small business loyalty program Business ExtrAA with the new AAdvantage Business which is now available. Instead of having a completely separate program, small businesses will earn AAdvantage miles in their own account on top of the miles earned by travelers, and they’ll redeem miles just like consumers will.
That’s a simpler system, and there’s one clear benefit for travelers: they will earn one additional loyalty point towards their status per dollar spent when adding an AAdvantage for Business account number to their reservation.
On Saturday three people were injured in a shooting at the Texas State Fair. A 22 year old man has been charged with aggravated assault after a conflict that began amongst two people who already knew each other at the Fair’s food court. Everyone was evacuated, and the fair re-opened on Sunday.
One passenger who flew from Tokyo to Bangkok in order to catch the 9 hour 45 minute El Al flight from Tel Aviv shared the story of scores of young people trying to get on in order to heed their call up in the reserves or enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces. There were far more hopeful passengers than seats. With the captain’s permission, those people flew anyway.
It wasn’t always this hopeless. Things seemed so much better at the turn of the last century. The 1995 Oslo II Accord included international funding for Yasser Arafat International Airport in the Gaza Strip. Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands donated a Boeing 727 and 2 Fokker 50s to help launch Palestinian Airlines.
The new Gaza airport opened in 1998, and Bill and Hillary Clinton attended the official grand opening. At the time there were plans for a port and for a… casino!
I thought Delta would have a good chance keeping the slot if it proposed a New York JFK flight (a new competitor on the route in an important market, and ironically one with much better connectivity now that the Department of Justice forced American and JetBlue to break up their partnership). I also thought that the best shot of winning would be new service from a market that currently lacks a non-stop to Tokyo, such as Miami (or Orlando).
However Delta is telling its employees that the slot will go to American or to United.
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.
Friday’s Copa Airlines flight 393 from Panama City to Tampa, Florida took off at 9:36 a.m. But less than an hour later, it was headed back to the airline’s hub with special forces placed on alert. Crew had identified what they thought was a bomb placed in the lavatory. It was a diaper. An adult diaper.
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 »
