Southwest Airlines has long had a ‘fun’ motif. That’s been part of the culture from the beginning, and was fostered by their underdog position – the big airlines sued to keep them from ever flying, they struggled early on and had to pitch together to keep a four-plane schedule even after giving back their fourth plane.
Though they grew to became the largest carrier of domestic passengers in the United States, the early spirit does still come out.
Chase credit cards, in card images and other samples, generally have the name “D. Barrett” embossed on them. American Express sample cards bear the name “C F Frost” but many years ago were issued to “John Q Public.” Frost was an Ogilvy & Mather executive who worked on the Amex account in the 1960s.
Today I learned who Citi’s “Linda Walker” is.
It used to be common for airlines to insist on seeing the credit card used to purchase a ticket, to combat fraud. With one reader, Delta insisted on seeing the credit card used to purchase a ticket that wasn’t even purchased with a credit card. That meant it was impossible to check in. And now the passenger is out real money.
I dunk on Marriott a lot for its failure to deliver on promised benefits, for its clueless customer service agents, and its broken IT. And Starwood members are generally unhappy with the Marriott Bonvoy program. To be fair, benefits aren’t received as consistently as they used to be for Starwood members. The credit card’s earning isn’t as rich. And top status is harder to earn, with a minimum spend requirement at the 100-night level to receive ‘Ambassador’ service that no longer includes an individual assigned Ambassador.
However, for Marriott Rewards program members the Starwood merger has surprisingly been a blessing and that’s really easy to forget.
The flight from San Francisco to Orlando was supposed to leave at 2 p.m. but the flight was “held on the tarmac after several passengers reported receiving inappropriate photos” according to a passenger.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana Fairfield Inn by Marriott is billing guests a surprise “energy surcharge” that appears to be 4% of the room rate. This surcharge isn’t disclosed to customers when booking their room.
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly says he – and the airline lobbying group he leads – wants to see the federal transportation mask mandate end September 13 and he also says he believes airline passengers should be able to follow the same guidance set out by the CDC for everyone else – that no mask is needed if you’ve been vaccinated.
Delta has offered up to lifetime Platinum status (’75k tier’), along with an annual gift, for million milers. Now they’ve introduced lifetime Diamond status at the 6 million mile level, including qualifying miles from all sources (including spend on premium credit cards).
A passenger on board an American Airlines flight from Dallas – Fort Worth to Orlando went on a homophobic rant in which she accused Disney of having been “corrupted” by advocates of same sex marriage.. or something to that effect.
The disruptive passenger, who was unwilling to wear her face mask over her nose and mouth, was pulled off the aircraft by the arm by a flight attendant, after the aircraft returned to the gate.
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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 »
