The hotel is well-located. It is quiet, as they seem not to have the entire property open. My room was clean and comfortable. It used to be one of the best for elite treatment, but with the club closed no restaurant for breakfast it no longer is. Still, when this is where you need to be in the city and the price is right – it was less than 1/3 the cost of the nearby Andaz 5th Avenue for instance – it can be the right choice.
Employees have complained for several years about being confused over the kind of product they’re supposed to offer – whether they’re a premium carrier, or an ultra low cost one – and what that means fro the service they’re supposed to deliver to customers.
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.
One of the biggest mistakes American Airlines has made in the past several years is its new domestic product. They crammed more seats into planes, removed seat back entertainment screens, and now passengers board thinking they’re on old aircraft.
Ex-CEO Doug Parker greenlit the Torquemada-style seating program and didn’t even try his airline’s product until it was flying for about six months. It turns out they didn’t even build a mockup of it first to see how it would work for passengers and employees. New CEO Robert Isom has previously described needing to make the best of it, since they’re stuck it with it.
At the start of April I wrote about an offer to earn 465 American AAdvantage miles – and elite status miles – per Uber trip up to 4 times via SimplyMiles. That’s 1,860 elite status miles for taking Uber and charging the trip to a Mastercard registered on the SimplyMiles site by May 31, 2022.
I now see that I have two other Uber offers as well, which I’ve now activated.
Hilton’s Canopy by Hilton London City created controversy driving for authenticity, and food and beverage revenue, by branding its bar after European socialist anarchists. The socialists were outraged by using their history to sell $18 drinks to “wanky City types.”
Hilton was forced to remove the edgy socialist branding from its capitalist endeavor. Even their website description as “a gathering place for writers, radicals, entrepreneurs and artists – a breeding ground for concepts that would go on to change the world” has been removed.
The federal transportation mask mandate has been suspended. Voluntary mask wearing varies by region of the country. Flying out of Austin and New Orleans this week perhaps 5% of passengers were wearing masks, perhaps a little bit more but definitely less than 10%.
What I didn’t understand was that a majority of people who were wearing masks were wearing either cloth or medical masks. Those aren’t protecting the person wearing one, and for several reasons it’s more important for many people to protect themselves on planes than before.
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.
The hotel claims to have reduced their energy use by around 40%. They pocket those cost savings, and those savings are supposed to pay back subsidized loans – and they make money on the difference. So why are they imposing a fee, through drip-pricing, to charge guests for it – and mislead them about the program?
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.
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 »
