Going through the whole message to employees there’s a lot that’s interesting about Southwest’s positioning – and problems. The airline doesn’t see the same sort of business travel they used to, and much of their network is still optimized for non-stop business travel on the West Coast. That needs to change, and they need to seek out more connections.
The Warsaw Marriott Hotel, once a symbol of post-communist transition in Poland and a landmark of international hospitality, quietly ended its affiliation with Marriott in recent months.
You may be seated in a high-end hotel lounge, ensconced in a refined atmosphere, and it’s interrupted by another guest’s loud FaceTime call. Or picture a five-star dining room where athleisure has become as common as formal attire. Public spaces have been transformed into personal living rooms, including guests in their underwear or worse.
There are hotels where this is fine! But each brand needs to know who its customers are, and what it’s trying to achieve, and then take a firmer stance upholding the standards it settles on.
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.
In video, the blonde passenger is confronted by a man asking if she’d taken his charging cable. She says that she did, and he wants it back.
Southwest Airlines lets passengers pick their seats on a first-come, first-served basis. You board earlier if you buy the most expensive tickets, if you’re a frequent traveler, or if you pay for early boarding. Or if you fake the need for a wheelchair.
That’s why Southwest Airlines has more wheelchair passengers than any other airline.
One recent change is that you can give someone a trip credit to use for their own travel. You’ve cancelled your ticket, and the credit can be used by someone else. But if they buy a ticket worth less than the full value of the trip credit, the residual value now goes back to you.
United Airlines will pay flight attendants not to take a hotel room for the night during layovers on their trips. This is called the “Hotel Gainsharing” program, and pays “at least $20 per night based on how much United saves in canceling a hotel room that it no longer requires.”
Barclays just isn’t big enough to bid effectively for the whole American AAdvantage card portfolio. Citibank had the chance to take the whole thing, and also to offer points transfers to AAdvantage as part of its ThankYou-brand card product suite. But they balked at the price. Ultimately American got the biggest deal possible by leaving two card issuers in place. That could change.
In yesterday’s announcement about airport lounges, JetBlue’s benefit cuts got short shrift in coverage. The airline’s elite members will no longer receive seating benefits or flight changes on basic economy fares, and they’re dropping the BLADE helicopter transfer partnership.
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 »
