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.
Before the pandemic one of the American Airlines breakfasts on regional jets was a smoked salmon plate. American’s regional jets don’t have ovens in the galleys so it was a perfect meal to serve cold. I always thought that it was a better choice than an egg dish with sausage on mainline.
In the fall I had a smoked salmon plate on my Los Angeles – Honolulu flight. I was thrilled at the choice, but there was no tomato and I was given a miniature bagel. I’ve often criticized American Airlines for failing to pay attention to the details. On this flight they’d really figured it out.
As you can see from this chart, only Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta has changed pricing, going from 20,000 points per night to 25,000 points per night. Hyatt tells me, though, that Hyatt Ziva Puerto Vallarta will be moving to Category B at 20,000 points in the next week.
I have to give Hyatt a lot of credit here. My first instinct is to wonder whether assigning existing all-inclusives to a new award chart would be an opportunity to raise the price of redemptions. Surely at most programs it would be! And they have not done this here.
There’s a lot of words in hospitality that people get wrong all the time. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard people refer to American A-Advantage, or A-Mex. But it never occurred to me that I’ve been pronouncing Marriott wrong for the last 20 years or longer.
American Airlines stopped catering the espresso machines on board their Boeing 777, Boeing 787, and Airbus A321T aircraft during the pandemic. The “frothing wands, cups, saucers, brewing pods” were taken off of planes, according to the airline. Fortunately espresso drinks are back!
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 Justice Department’s case against American-JetBlue was weak. A Spirit acquisition could make it stronger. But it’s still not a slam dunk. The Justice Department might say to JetBlue ‘drop the American Airlines alliance as a condition of our approval of the Spirit acquisition.’
According to data from Cirium’s Diio Mi, there are only 32 non-stop flights scheduled between the U.S. and China this month. That’s a total of just 11,634 seats.
Going full Wuhan in Shanghai isn’t working. But without having used the last two years well to prepare for inevitable virus spread, which was ultimately the point of a suppression strategy, what’s the exit plan for China?
For several years the IHG co-brand card from Chase has offered generous up front bonuses and has been worth keeping for its benefits – Platinum status, annual free night, and 4th night free on awards.
Now, though, the card has gotten much better and new benefits are live. Oh, and there’s still a generous up front bonus, too.
ike many carriers, United Airlines and Lufthansa operate a ‘joint venture’ where they share revenue for their operations across the Atlantic. There’s not supposed to be any difference between traveling on a United flight or a Lufthansa flight. Both airlines put their flight codes on the other carrier’s flights. That means United sells Lufthansa flights as though they were United flights with a United flight number, and vice versa.
But if Lufthansa is going to sell United flights as though the fights were their own, then those flights become subject to European consumer protection rules.
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 »
