On your next trip to Thailand, if some have their way, you could smoke pot, gamble, and pay a bar fine all in a single visit. Funny, all I want to do when I go there is eat great street food.
ZIPAIR is a Japanese low cost carrier owned by Japan Airlines. It launched during the pandemic with a hub at Tokyo Narita airport and flights to Singapore, Seoul, Bangkok, Honolulu and Los Angeles. San Jose flights are planned at the end of the year. They fly 4 Beoing 787-8 aircraft leased from Japan Airlines with 8 business class and 272 coach seats.
Right now a business class roundtrip might run $4000 between Los Angeles and Tokyo, while ZIPAIR is selling business class for just $1643 – or less.
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.
Vietnam Airlines launched new service from San Francisco to Ho Chi Minh City (SGN) during the pandemic. They’ve been eyeing non-stop service to Los Angeles as well – but they’re not alone. In fact a surprising carrier may be first to launch the service, and receive two years of subsidies from the Los Angeles airports authority.
There are two airlines reportedly with Memorandums of Understanding in place to launch non-stop LA – Vietnam service, both may be surprising but talks with one have reportedly heated up.
All (4) available United cards from Chase now have great offers – up to 100,000 miles – giving you plenty of options.
LAST CALL: These offers at these links will be removed by end of the day on 8/10/2022. There’s just one week left.
Car owners renting out their vehicles on Turo and GetAround are facing problems at certain airports. Dallas – Fort Worth filed a lawsuit against Turo in the fall. But Turo is just the platform that connects car owners and renters and takes a fee. Now the airport is going after the people doing the actual transactions by “towing cars on the spot in parking lots.”
Air Canada was one of the worst actors of the pandemic. They took customer money for tickets, and then when they cancelled flights they kept the money.
So it should come as no surprise that the airline has a new trick up its sleeve. They’re flouting Canadian passenger compensation rules for cancelled flights by claiming that their lack of staffing which causes a cancellation is a safety issue.
Europe has strong airline consumer protection rules, at least in theory. In practice even when an airline owes you money for a delay, it’s tough to collect. We’ve seen customers literally send bailiffs to airline offices to collect and airlines even cancel flights to avoid having their aircraft impounded over $300.
Now they may even eliminate the protections in EU regulation 261 (2004) which requires airlines to compensate passengers between €250 and €600 cash for flight delays of over 3 hours, for cancellations, and for involuntary denied boardings due to overbooking.
CLEAR is currently trialing a curb-to-gate VIP escort called “CLEAR Premium” in Orlando at a $79 price point.
Clear provides an “Ambassador” that assists passengers through check-in and baggage check, then security and then through the terminal to the gate. It’s the kind of thing, at this price point, I’d consider for my in-laws at crowded airports.
Eventually Hong Kong (and mainland China) will lift pandemic restrictions. The city has focused on its relationship with Beijing, and the Peoples Republic of China has kept draconian Covid restrictions because much of its population has remained immunologically naive and they’ve been unwilling to using mRNA vaccines (since those represent failure of Chinese science compared to the West) and other key treatments.
China needs to keep Covid-19 in check until getting past the 20th Peoples Congress at which President Xi is expected to break with convention set by Deng Xiaoping and receive a third term. Uncontrolled spread of Covid (and invasion of Taiwan, for that matter) represent too much risk to take on for the Chinese leader before that.
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 »
