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.
A Budget Rent a Car customer was pulled over by police, and had their Chrysler Pacifica confiscated. Police said that it was unregistered, and had fake plates. They were left on the side of the road for hours. Budget had no new car to offer at Newark airport where they rented (or anywhere else nearby), so they had to scrounge to come up with another vehicle to make it to their daughter’s college graduation – paying for both. The original rental was one-way, with a return in Canada. They couldn’t replicate that with another agency, so had to drive the car back to the United States taking up extra time, effort and $2,913 in expense. The original Budget rental was for $1,391 They had to change their flights to return the second car where they…
An American Airlines passenger was supposed to fly from Albuquerque to New Orleans in June, but wasn’t permitted to travel. They say they’d been added to the airline’s banned customer list for past behavior.
Lufthansa was at one point reported to be the world’s largest buyer of caviar, based on service in its first class cabin. Offering caviar across the board on Qatar Airways long haul business class would surely make them the world’s largest caviar buyer.
Once Southwest starts flying Hawaii redeyes (which lets them reach destinations further east) they won’t need as many intra-island flights to maintain six flights per gate. We could see fewer intra-island flights as a result, if redeyes are additive to current Hawaii-mainland operations.
Expedia itself saw a 20% increase in hotel bookings in the second quarter. Expedia Group overall, though? Just 10%. That says Hotels.com was flat or down in an environment where it should be rising. What’s different is that there’s no longer a strong incentive to use Hotels.com for members in the U.S. or U.K. where the new OneKey program has rolled out.
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.
Last week’s stock market plunge was apparently because all the traders who knew what they were doing were on vacation.
JetBlue stock plunged over 20% on Monday, as it worked to raise $3 billion in fresh capital. $2.75 billion will be backed by its TrueBlue program – which largely means the expected future earnings from its credit card partnership.
It’s no secret that JetBlue has struggled with its transatlantic flights. Right now that’s to our benefit because they’re making business class award space widely available across a number of their flights, in some cases between now and end of spring, and for at least two and sometimes more passengers at a time.
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 »
