Bilt has launched a travel portal so that – in addition to transferring points to partners like American, United, and Hyatt – Bilt Rewards members can book their preferred trip (whatever it is) and pay with points instead of cash.
Each point is valued at 1.25 cents apiece when spent this way. That beats most credit card portal values, and matches Chase with its Sapphire Preferred Card.
One woman in Atlanta – 89 years ago, and just out of the hospital the day before – found herself stranded after a mix up on Delta Air Lines. She seemingly paid the pet in cabin fee but the flight wasn’t updated to reflect the pet in the cabin. Delta says the problem was her dog barked.
She was asked to leave the aircraft. She showed her pet in cabin receipt – but wasn’t allowed back on and she’d made the classic error of putting her medications in her checked baggage.
Between 40 and 60 passengers on board a Carnival Cruise ship in the waters off New York brawled across five levels of the ship. The fight began after a threesome among passengers led to cheating allegations and jealousy.
A correspondent shares that the renovations to the kitchen at the main Delta Sky Club in DTW has been completed, and that it features mostly new furniture with dividers designed to offer privacy. There’s also now outlets at nearly every seat “though some aren’t yet operational.” The four cubicles remain for now [as they do in Cincinnati], although cubicles aren’t part of the latest Sky Club design concepts. …The comfortable adjustable office chairs in each cubicle have been replaced by regular chairs that aren’t suitable for desks…the coat/jacket hooks at each cubicle were removed.. Still no snazzy phone booths or pods, as we’re seeing at other newly built or recently renovated lounges in the Sky Club system. Also, the bar is still the temporary staffed bar with only complimentary booze. No premium drinks here, which…
Spirit Airlines sent me their release indicating that tomorrow will not be the day that shareholders vote on whether to sell to Frontier Airlines.
Instead the shareholder meeting will be adjourned and reconvened on July 8. Spirit wouldn’t do this if all their ducks were lined up to gain approval for the Frontier deal that their board has endorsed.
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.
Bernie Sanders, like all of us, has some valid gripes about air travel today. He’s come out with a set of solutions he’d like the Department of Transportation to impose through new regulation. This includes forcing airlines to skip crucial maintenance, and requiring flight attendants to work when they’re sick with Covid-19.
JetBlue’s proposed deal to acquire Spirit Airlines is better for Spirit shareholders than Frontier’s is. Spirit management supports the Frontier deal, and it will probably be approved. JetBlue is offering 40% more for Spirit Airlines than Frontier is. With Spirit’s shares falling to slightly below Frontier’s offer, the market thinks the successful suitor will be Frontier, not JetBlue.
However a Frontier deal for Spirit is actually better for consumers, even though JetBlue’s product is better than the one offered by either airline.
Hyatt’s Hôtel du Louvre in Paris all of a sudden stopped offering free night awards on points. Searching for stays, it appears the King Standard Room was gone entirely, and all rooms at the hotel that were for sale came with views. And those rooms aren’t standard rooms eligible for redemption. I reached out to Hyatt to see what was going on, and whether the hotel was compliant with Hyatt’s rules since I wasn’t able to find a single free night award in the coming year. Up until the end of May awards were easy to come by. Hyatt shares that the issue is the hotel’s renovation, specifically affecting the base level rooms at the hotel. [S]tandard rooms are more limited right now as many have been removed from inventory during some external renovations to…
Virgin Atlantic is launching two positive changes for its Flying Club frequent flyer program. They’re guaranteeing to release a minimum number of award seats when loading a flight into the schedule, and they’re allowing Gold elite members to book any seat they want that’s for sale as an award ticket by spending double miles.
Somewhat counterintuitively the introduction of double miles awards without capacity controls are actually the bigger deal here for the program, I think.
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 »
