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.
U.S. airlines agreed not to buy back stock until September 30, 2022 as part of their government bailouts during the pandemic. It would have been unseemly to pick taxpayer pockets and immediately turn around and distribute those same funds to shareholders.
Now that the buyback restriction is about to end, unions don’t want airlines to spend money that way, arguing that the funds should go into the operation instead (paying workers more, natch).
Man and woman meet. Man falls madly in love. Proposes. And they decide to elope. They headed to London Heathrow to catch a flight to Rome to get married. And she ran off from the airport with his money – and his luggage.
There are several new stories that are coming out about Hertz customers being arrested for stealing cars they had rented. One customer was even arrested three times – although it’s worth noting that’s not a record, since one elite member chalked up 4 arrests spending 30 days in jail, where she suffered a miscarriage.
American Express has its Centurion lounges, and its smaller ‘Studio Partner’ longes which are Escape Lounges. Previously you could use an American Express Platinum card to access Escape lounges, but they’re now branded by American Express and more cardholders know about the benefit.
Like Centurion lounges, these Centurion Studio lounges have become more crowded.
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.
Having AAdvantage in the same group as revenue management would make sense if the goal were for AAdvantage to gain access to more saver award inventory. That hasn’t been the trajectory at American, which has focused on buying seats outside of traditional saver buckets and more making additional inventory (‘web saver’) available to customers based on prevailing fares.
Instead the explanation for the move is, “Adding the AAdvantage team to this organization will make sure our AAdvantage members are able to unlock benefits across the entirety of our commercial programming.” Allowing AAdvantage members to ‘unlike benefits across the entirely of the airline’s commercial offerings’ sounds more like merchandising, monetizing the member base. Great offers can still be value-add, of course. We’ll have to wait to see how this evolves in practice.
You should register now – while the offer is in front of you, so you don’t forget and in case you happen to have any Hilton stays – because you can earn double points between September 6 – December 31, 2022 and you’ll also earn 2000 additional bonus points on all stays that end Monday through Friday.
Richard Kerr, formerly of The Points Guy and the Award Travel 101 Facebook group who is now with Bilt Rewards, offered a couple of provocative questions in his Instagram feed.
He asks why some people value clearly less valuable currencies more than a Bilt point. He may be asking about individual program members, but I’m going to ask it of those people who are supposed to know – travel bloggers who publish valuations of different mileage currencies. Much of the work those bloggers are doing fails to hold together.
American Airlines is the only airline offering first class in addition to business class on some cross country flights. They do this with a dedicated fleet of Airbus A321T aircraft. However this special fleet, and special product, seem unlikely to last.
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 »
