On Tuesday night’s American Airlines flight AA2198 from Charlotte to Washington National, a Trump supporter clearly wearing a mask was removed from the aircraft after an apparent ‘joke’ about not wearing a mask. Other passengers around her can be heard asking the airline not to take the time to remove her, and just let everyone get on their way.
Hyatt cut its elite status earning requirements in half and is offering double elite nights for the first two months of 2021. Hilton cut its elite status earning requirements in half. But from Marriott we’ve heard nothing. Major airlines have announced their plans too… but not Delta or Southwest.
We usually see passengers being booted from flights for refusing to wear a mask. It’s unusual to see passengers kicked off for complaining about how other passengers are wearing their masks.
However on Saturday’s United Airlines Newark – Tel Aviv flight that’s exactly what happened.
On Tuesday Senator Mitt Romney was flying from Salt Lake City to Washington DC on Delta – along with a plane loaded with passengers heading to the nation’s Capitol to support Donald Trump in advance of Congressional counting of electoral votes which will formalize Joe Biden as the next President.
On New Years Eve, Star Alliance member Avianca’s flight AV29 took off from Orlando headed to Bogota, Colombia. And as the Airbus A319 touched down it “collided with a large plastics object floating in the air” which became tangled across both the left and ride side engines, wings and horizontal stabilizers.
In December 2019 – shortly before the start of the pandemic – Korean Air announced a huge devaluation of their frequent flyer program with revenue-based mileage-earning and a new distance-based award chart coming in April 2021.
Korean Air has offered one of the more lucrative frequent flyer programs for many years, and access to outstanding award inventory not made available to its partners. However they’re also part of a joint venture with (and partially owned by) Delta, so devaluation of their mileage program was almost a given – at least until the pandemic hit.
Delta decided to drop Gogo internet from its main domestic fleet, and replace it with ViaSat. They reiterated their commitment to move forward with free internet, and believe ViaSat will be best to drive their project streaming content to seat back entertainment screens… an effort American Airlines considered and rejected, despite an internal push for such a project.
Qantas started selling international tickets – for New Zealand at the end of March based on an expected ‘travel bubble’ reciprocally permitted visits between the two countries – and July 1 for the rest of their international route network including the United States. The CEO of Qantas, Alan Joyce, said he expected the country to re-open to international travel at that time.
The government of Australia was none too amused with Joyce’s announcement but they didn’t deny it.
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.
Before the pandemic there was no greater loyalty program with a gap between what it promised and what it delivered than Marriott Bonvoy. On paper it took the best features of Starwood Preferred Guest with the scale of properties of Marriott and merged them together. And yet the program has simply failed to deliver elite benefits consistently at the property level.
The irony of course is that before acquiring Starwood, Marriott Rewards wasn’t very generous with elites but they were consistent. The Marriott brand across the board was consistency. Now they’re the Forrest Gump of loyalty: you never know what you’re going to get until check-in. This have only gotten worse.
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 »
