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.
Delta and Starbucks have a new reciprocal earning partnership, which is only upside. There’s even a bonus for linking your accounts, which you should do in order not to leave miles on the table.
Two comedians are suing over being searched for drugs at the Atlanta airport while boarding their flights. The stops and searches lack probably cause, and are generally based on racial profiling (duh). Over a 9 month period, police stopped 402 passengers at the jet bridge in Atlanta. 68% of those were minorities. Fewer than 1% – just 3 – yielded ‘drug seizures’ like THC gummies and six prescription pills.
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.
Hilton’s new promotion: is double points on all stays with checkouts by December 31 plus 2000 bonus points for checkouts on a weekday. In addition Hilton is offering double elite night credit for nights stayed October 11 – December 31, 2022. You need to register for both, award stays count, and the offers tell us something about business travel and loyalty right at this moment.
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.
Alaska Airlines acquired Virgin America in 2016 and did away with the Virgin brand. Virgin had a nicer first class product, so it was sad to see planes reconfigured. Alaska committed to its Boeing fleet, in contrast to Virgin’s Airbus narrowbodies.
What did Alaska get out of the deal? Slots and gates at congested airports, many of which Alaska has walked away from or underutilized. And they overpaid in a $2.6 billion deal for the privilege, having outbid JetBlue.
For the next week a Qantas Club membership is half off. That means it will will cost ~ US$251 (AU$300 for the membership plus AU$99 joining fee).
Qantas Club membership includes American Airlines Admirals Club access when flying American.
After “Des Moines…?” my immediate thought was to work through whether this was a display of their real capabilities, or a warning shot? But this doesn’t signal they are capable of more. A DDoS attack against a public-facing website is something any modestly savvy teenager could launch. It doesn’t serve as a message that ‘we can reach your systems, and next time will be worse.’
Instead it’s more moderately annoying for the individual airports involved at best, the kind of attack someone would launch who wanted to say that an attack was made without actually doing one.
Where interchange has been limited, like in places such as Australia, credit card annual fees have risen since spend on the cards isn’t as profitable.
Europe, where interchange is limited and the use of cards as a payment mechanism is less common than in the United States (and cash more prevalent), is much poorer than the United States. That’s hardly the only reason, or the most significant reason. It’s a bundle of policies, and the U.S. would be ill-advised to follow European economic, financial and regulatory policy.
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 »
