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 CDC says “avoid all travel to Antarctica.” This week the State Department upgraded the region to level 4 – its highest travel warning, usually reserved for places like Yemen. And they didn’t even get their first Covid case until December.
American Airlines is known for being particularly stingy with international business class award space on its own flights. I redeem AAdvantage miles more than any other airline currency, but almost always for flights on their partners.
Right now, though, there are some good opportunities to spend miles for summer business class to Europe – just as several European destinations plan to re-open at least to vaccinated Americans.
With the Department of Justice ramping up its investigation of American’s partnership with JetBlue at the behest of competitors, this ‘Northeastern alliance’ is out today with exciting new routes demonstrating the additional flying that becomes possible through the partnership – and just how much more formidable the competition with Delta and United becomes in the Northeast as a result.
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.
Australia and New Zealand have launched a ‘travel bubble.’ That means citizens of either country are permitted to travel to the other, and then return home without a government-enforced quarantine. There is three times as much travel going from Australia to New Zealand as there is the other way around.
A reader asks why this is considered “lopsided” in media reports when there are 5 times as many people in Australia as there are in New Zealand?
Some state governors have issued orders against vaccine passports, but these have only limited meaning, such as not requiring state employees to get vaccinated and not requiring proof of vaccination for state business. The Biden administration has said they’ll facilitate but not require vaccine passports.
But do governments have a constitutional obligation to offer vaccine passports? That’s the argument that two law professors make, that government action to protect people from public health risks must use the least restrictive means possible. – and vaccine passports are required because they allow people to escape restriction.
The State Department announced a ‘do not travel’ recommendation for 80% of the world’s countries. They are explicit that this decision is not their assessment of risk for those countries, but a change meant to mirror what the CDC already says. Indeed the CDC’s current guidance does not match actual risk.
However this is the wrong direction for travel guidance, and it’s the CDC that should be updating risk assessment.
Travel has been picking up, and airlines haven’t always scaled their call center capacity to match. Add in some bad weather – take Denver, for instance, on Monday where there was snow and more delays than any other airport in the world – and wait times to speak to an airline agent really grow. This has been an issue across airlines, and even wait times for elite frequent flyers who get call center priorities have been longer than usual at times lately.
American Airlines customers, especially, reported long wait times on Monday and into Tuesday – 5 to 8 hours, even – and customers are bringing receipts.
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 »
