Airlines take different positions on vaccine requirements for travel, depending on whether it’s international or domestic travel, and this isn’t because the virus somehow spreads differently when it is crossing borders.
The partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue started allowing each program’s members to earn miles and elite qualifying credit on each other’s flights back in the spring, and they announced that recognition of elite benefits across the two airlines would begin in the fall.
Elite benefits are here – today – and award redemption starts next month. Here are the details.
Airline employees who may be engaged in sick outs over vaccine mandates are told to lie. They can’t speak publicly about what they are doing, because it would be an illegal job action under the Railway Labor Act. Are they being told to lie in order to show complaince with mandates, too?
Many customers took it upon themselves to seek help when airlines refused refunds during the pandemic. Some credit card companies were more helpful than others. American Express, apparently, was most likely to process chargebacks against Ryanair. After all, you cannot keep money for services that haven’t been delivered.
Now customers who succeeded with chargebacks, but bought new tickets for travel, are being told to return the refunds or their trips are off.
This is interesting of course for the 7x points-earning categories, though that doesn’t represent huge spending for most people (which makes 7x possible to offer!), and even with 4x on dining this is strong earn for a no annual fee card.
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 narrative about Southwest’s troubles could become self-fulfilling at the airline and spread to other carriers. Pilots are watching the operational carnage at Southwest and realizing that they can take down the operation, even if they weren’t doing so already. And employees at other airlines are watching.
Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian’s ex, has been arrested for MDMA at the Austin airport and virally chastised for hanging up her wig on the business class coat hook of her Air France flight.
Now she is making a scene at the Miami airport (natch) yelling at a fan who wanted a photo that she’d better be vaccinated. That’s fair, I don’t want unvaccinated folks coming up to me in airports either. Though she’s clearly not wearing a mask, in violation of federal rules.
A federal vaccination requirement for employees of government contractors is probably legal. An OSHA emergency rule mandating vaccination or regular testing for employees of large companies is more questionable, but the Governor’s Executive Order is more questionable still. All of this simply adds uncertainty for companies in Texas – whose potentially illegal orders are we supposed to follow?
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 »
