Virgin Atlantic is offering 25% off awards booked by October 3 for travel October 1 through December 31, 2023.
Chase, Capital One, Citibank, American Express and Bilt points all transfer to Virgin so it’s easy to access these points if you don’t already have them.
Bastian has previously said that the changes to elite status and lounge access are not the end of what members can expect (“over the next several years we’ll announce additional changes to qualification and to how a mile is awarded”). And, of course, even after those changes were announced they quietly devalued SkyMiles further by raising the price of Mexico-originating awards (one of the bets values that had remained in the program for use of miles). Mileage devaluations continue even as they talk about “modifications” to status and lounge access changes they’ve recently announced.
A woman boarded a Southwest Airlines flight to New Orleans without a ticket trying to see a Beyonce’ on tour.
The flight’s manifest has one fewer passenger on it than there were on the plane. According to one report the flight was sold out and there were more people on the plane than seats.
What on earth is a “Hospitality Charge,” as seen at Bruegger’s Bagels in the Minneapolis airport? There’s signage explaining that a 4.5% surcharge is added on top of menu prices to cover ‘hospitality’ but also explains that this is not a tip and does not go to workers.
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.
American Airlines informed employees on Tuesday about the death of a 25 year veteran Los Angeles-based flight attendant who had been working a trip and laying over in Philadelphia.
A co-pilot snorted coke off of a woman’s breasts the night before a Johannesburg – London flight last month and put details of a substance-fueled orgy in writing in a series of texts to a flight attendant before trying to work the trip home. She reported it and the flight was cancelled. He was drug tested on arrival back in London and fired.
A GTT representative told me that American is blaming “the industry’s operational deficiencies on its business partners and others.” But it seems like what it’s doing is trying to clean up those deficiencies!
While “GTT values the company’s decades-long relationship with American and” wants to keep selling American Airlines tickets, maybe the emphasis ought to be on the victims of the travel scams run through their systems, rather than claiming they themselves are the victim?
In Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder intentionally produce a flop on Broadway. They oversold shares in the production many times, and planned to run away with investors’ money. In the 1967 film “Springtime For Hitler and Germany” was an ironic, surprise smash hit. In 2023, Delta’s changes to the SkyMiles program are producing equal and opposite amounts of outrage.
Recently-announced Delta SkyMiles changes to elite status have underscored for me that stretching to earn top status just no longer makes sense for most people. If you are hub captive, and flying one airline enough anyway to earn status-fine. But what does top tier get you? The real sweet spot is mid-tier status anyway.
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 »
