United has two new ways to earn elite status for next year. One lets existing elites keep their status for modest spending, while the other gives those who don’t currently have status or have already re-qualified a boost in reaching a higher elite tier.
It’s not quite ‘giving up’ on 2021, but it does make earning status much easier, and still requires more spending than other airlines.
Early in the year I earned 110,000 transferable points with a new Brex account. We hadn’t seen an offer than big before or since. And I was able to then add another 100,000 to the account after that.
You get a no annual fee card with no credit pull that earns 7x or 8x on ridesharing among other categories, and points can be used for 1% value in cash, gift cards, or travel or you can transfer to airline loyalty programs.
Delta is running a sale on coach award tickets to Europe starting at 34,000 miles roundtrip. They haven’t announced the sale, which isn’t surprising since at Delta whatever price they quote you in the moment is the price. Sometimes coach saver awards to Europe are 70,000 miles roundtrip, though I often see them for over 50% above that. SkyMiles is usually a dumpster fire for redeeming points.
We don’t know how long this sale will last, so if you want cheap coach awards to Europe book this now. It’s fully refundable without cost.
Many of you signed up for Brex when they were offering 110,000 points to new accountholders. I know I did. Well I’ve mentioned getting 100,000 Brex points (which transfer to miles) for signing up for Paypal merchant processing. And it was probably the quickest and easiest 100,000 points I’ve ever earned.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker gave an interview to the New York Times, and much of it covered familiar ground for readers. Five things stuck out to me, though – including that Parker loves viral videos where passengers are being removed from planes, and everyone on board cheers.
The incident on board a Frontier Airlines Philadelphia – Miami flight where a passenger was duct taped to his seat has gained worldwide attention. The man reportedly spilling a cocktail on himself, taking off his shirt, touching up flight attendants and getting into a fight. The flight attendants who used the duct tape were suspended.
Now this man’s take on being a flight attendant, dealing with an unruly passenger, may be the best (and only good?) thing coming out of the incident.
United Airlines will require all of its employees to be vaccinated. This requirement will be effective the sooner of 5 weeks after FDA full approval of a Covid-19 vaccine, or 5 weeks after September 20.
We won’t be able to impose national ‘no dine lists’ for restaurants, but the ex- Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security in the Obama administration Juliette Kayyem wants those who haven’t been vaccinated placed on the government’s ‘No Fly List’.
Via Air had an F-rating from the Better Business Bureau and 71% of TripAdvisor reviews that were poor or terrible (at the time even Allegiant was only 27% negative and Southwest Airlines 6%).
After bankruptcy and an acquisition, the airline is asking the FAA to change its name.
JetBlue appears to be hiring an airport supervisor for… Brisbane, Australia. There are multiple people on LinkedIn identifying themselves in administrative roles working for the airline in Brisbane already. While JetBlue doesn’t have planes capable of flying from the U.S. to Australia, Australia has no limits on foreign ownership of domestic airlines.
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 »
