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.
Chase created Chase Dining with Tock offering special restaurant reservations at top places set aside for cardmembers. This was part of a continued assault on American Express as the category leader in travel and entertainment. Amex, by the way, didn’t stand still. They traditionally offered a special reservations program but double down by acquiring reservations platform Resy. The American Express Gold is my favorite card for dining spend, earning 4 Membership Rewards points per dollar. Chase’s premium Chase Sapphire Reserve® has offered 3 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar since card launch. Recently Chase revamped its Sapphire cards and made them even more rewarding on dining. The $95 annual fee Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card improved its earning to 3 points per dollar on restaurant spend, and added a getting a 10% anniversary bonus on spend during…
There’s a certain genre of travel article that gives advice on how to upgrade your flight, with advice that’s nearly always wrong or at least highly misleading.
It usually begins with how you dress, but one Bloomberg piece took the art form to a new level telling you just to mention the words “revenue management” and airlines have to give you a business or first class seat. You’d be better off trying to upgrade by gifting the pilot of your flight a dependable work mule, or dressing up as a mimosa (because alcohol is free up front).
oneworld joint venture airlines American Airlines, British Airways, Iberia and Finnair have a sale across the Pond.
Right now you can book from much of the U.S. to much of Europe starting at $240 roundtrip, as flagged by airfare deals site and service Notiflyr.com.
U.S. airlines are going to announce today that “they will back a voluntary industry target of using 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel in 2030” as part of a White House event. This new goal is 50% higher than one announced 18 months ago.
While United legal concluded they had to offer these vaccine exemptions, they’ve decided that anyone obtaining one cannot work in some cases “he pandemic meaningfully recedes” and in other cases (such as non-customer facing roles) when new health procedures are in place for weekly Covid testing and masking.
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.
American Airlines rolled out live TV three years ago but it was cut at the start of the pandemic. They explained it away as there being no live sports on offer, but of course channels included news and entertainment too.
Starting tomorrow live TV is back on domestic narrowbody aircraft.
The US government maintains a “No Fly List” and airlines are required to check passengers against it before allowing them to fly. They maintain other lists that trigger increased security screening and potentially harassment.
The lists are pre-crime profiling. Not even based on science. And it’s also done very very poorly. People get on the list by mistake, because they’re related to someone who is on it (or just have a similar name), or because they visited the wrong country in the wrong year. .
A JetBlue passenger learned he was exposed to Covid-19 and was supposed to fly the next day. Many airlines have dropped change fees from some fares, but this passenger was on a ‘Basic’ fare. He called JetBlue to find out what to do. He had taken a Covid-19 test, but wouldn’t get the results before he was supposed to fly.
He asked to reschedule his trip a couple of weeks into the future. He was told he’d have to pay a difference in fare and also a $100 change fee. JetBlue wouldn’t waive the change fee without presentation of a positive test.
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 »
