It took 20 years – and George W. Bush – for federal employees to be allowed to collect frequent flyer miles on official travel.
Now members of the U.S. House can pay for travel to D.C. themselves, on personal credit cards, collect miles and points and get reimbursed from their House office.
A man reportedly urinated on a passenger while flying Air India from New York JFK to Delhi on November 26. According to the woman in her 70s, the man “unzipped his pants, relieved himself and exposed me to his private parts” and the crew did little about it.
After media brought attention to the incident, the man was identified. He was fired by his employer. And he is being prosecuted. His defense is classic.
American Express has been opening a network of airport lounges over the past decade, because that’s where their cardmembers are. After initially trialing the first Centurion lounge with Centurion cardmembers only in Las Vegas, the program expanded significantly. New York is their biggest market, and it looks like they have a new space coming, at least initially for Centurion cardmembers only.
Centurion New York is expected to open in March on the 55th floor of One Vanderbilt, about a block from the Hyatt Grand Central (former Grand Hyatt), featuring food by Daniel Boulud.
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.
Both Delta and United own a stake in CLEAR, and all you’ve needed was an account number with either to get a lower price and those with status paid less still. Now the airline discount is shrinking. An email went out to Delta SkyMiles members showing the change in pricing.
The Hyatt Regency Aruba has a history of playing games with free night award availability. They made it nearly impossible to spend Hyatt points, assigning only 22 out of their 357 rooms as potentially eligible for redemption. This hotel is actually owned by Hyatt, and after I brought their shenanigans to corporate’s attention they adjusted the practice.
However Aruba redemptions again became a problem. Some time in the second half of December all award night inventory at the property for 2023 zeroed.
The New York Times ran an op-ed on Friday by William J. McGee full of bizarre nonsense, arguing that it’s time to re-regulate the airlines, because Southwest Airlines melted down over the holidays and the FAA (government regulator!)’s antiquated NOTAM system failed for several hours this past week.
The author makes the case for the Civil Aeronautics Board – abolished by deregulation – because it limited competition and ensured airline profitability. That’s obviously bad for consumers.
Southwest Airlines did a bad thing. It cancelled flights affecting around two million passengers over the holidays. Southwest has talked about its IT issues for years, but never said ‘and we might wind up cancelling travel on two million people costing $825 million. Therefore investors were misled about the business’s prospects. Everything is securities fraud.
When a flight delays, airlines almost always blame weather. Factors outside of their control mean they don’t owe you anything, like a hotel to spend the night in or meals at the airport. But American Airlines CEO Robert Isom now says that when his airline fails to recover from problems, that’s on them and they owe their customers. That’s a sea change, following on the Southwest Airlines debacle over the holidays. But not everyone in the company’s customer service department may be ready to change.
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.
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 »
