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.
This is a little bit insane. In 2015 Austin entered into a 30 year lease so that a private company could build a second airport terminal. The ‘South Terminal’ also has two 5 year extension options built into the lease. But the city wants to use eminent domain to terminate the lease, because it now prefers to expand the main terminal.
They’ve offered to compensate the builders less than $2 million for a project that cost as much as $20 million, while the city teaches every business it would be dumb to enter into a lease on city property because no deal with Austin is guaranteed.
All that’s ‘different’ to make this is a ‘shuttle service’ is that the 11:50 p.m. Air France departure from New York and 7:35 p.m. departure from Paris will operate on Friday and Saturday nights, which they do not now. Let’s see which travel media get tripped up by just ‘publishing the press release.’
Flight attendants rearrange the beverage carts they’re given in order to serve customers efficiently as they move down the aisle. That’s almost a requirement to provide beverage service. American Airlines is now telling flight attendants that when they do this, they must also restore beverage carts to their original organization prior to the end of the flight.
The airline says that if they do not do this, caterers won’t “salvage and recycle products for future flights.” They want flight attendants, pressed for time and who are supposed to be providing service to customers, organizing things for the benefit of caterers who are on the ground.
Flight attendants sometimes engage in hijinks when there aren’t any passengers around. Sometimes that gets them in trouble, like when an airline decides that viral videos of crew inside of overhead bins shouldn’t circulate or when the photos are too provocative.
And other times the stunts they pull become instant sensations because of the skill and daring they display, like this Virgin Australia crewmember whose gymnastics and yoga gets put to use closing overhead bins. Upside down. With her feet. While maintaining perfect style and grace – and her uniform.
A new viral video, with around 9 million videos, is circulating showing an agent at a United Airlines check-in counter and a passenger in a fight:
I had reserved a points stay with confirmed suite upgrade at Alila Marea, but that hotel shut down for a private event and moved me to the Seabird Resort. It turns out that this was a lucky break because the suite I had at the Seabird was truly magnificent. Service and food on property were excellent, too. And I might never have stayed here otherwise!
We’ve seen re-launches of several hotel programs during the pandemic. Smaller programs like GHA Discovery and Shangri-La Circle are brand new. GHA, which has around 500 hotels but is adding several hundred more, was just a benefits program – but now offers cash rebates to spend at their properties (‘Discovery Dollars’). I really wish I had more opportunities to stay with both chains.
IHG Rewards has branded as IHG One Rewards – the one meant to signal that they’ve now ‘unified’ their brands, with all new elite benefits that even apply at Kimpton and Intercontinental hotel properties. With all these changes, which program is best?
Some of you will be sure that American Airlines treated me this well ‘because I’m a blogger’ or something like that. Believe me I do not receive special treatment from American Airlines. For several years I’ve been unpopular enough among certain members of senior management that I’m surprised I still have an AAdvantage account.
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 »
