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.
A ground stop for all departures from New York LaGuardia was put in place Wednesday evening, though arrivals were allowed to continue, because the FAA believed that the FBI had “lost track of a fugitive” who was “now loose in the airport”.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was responsible for the controversial New York Times’ “1619 Project” which argues that the real founding of the United States happened when the first salve arrived in Virginia in 1619 and not in 1776, tweeted yesterday about inequality at the airport.
The oddness of complaining about inequality inside of the Martha’s Vineyard airport aside, what struck me about this is that I did not think Martha’s Vineyard airport even had a separate PreCheck line? When I visited Martha’s Vineyard last month I took the ferry in both directions and I didn’t visit the airport. Perhaps I need to update my priors?
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.
I don’t love Chicago O’Hare, but when I book an O’Hare connection I usually think, “at least I can get Tortas Frontera.” And I’ll pick up a sandwich (choriqueso is my go-to, followed by the pepito) even though there’s free lounge food available. I’ll gladly pay for something good enough that I would eat it even if it wasn’t inside of an airport.
There need to be some licensed TGI Fridays and plenty of quick serve places in an airport, to put out a lot of food to travelers with varying palates. But not every place needs to do 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 »
