Two brothers were kicked off a United Airlines flight departing Newark on January 23 because they were wearing too much personal protective equipment, not too little. Usually we hear about anti-maskers. And Dr. Fauci even recommends wearing two masks. But United wasn’t having any of the more-protective masks these passengers wore.
When Marriott acquired Starwood and merged the loyalty programs, as much changed with their credit cards as with the loyalty program itself.
Chase’s Marriott cards used to earn 1 point per dollar. Starwood’s Amex cards earned 1 Starwood point per dollar. Marriott themselves declared 1 SPG point worth 3 Marriott points. In other words, the Amex cards were 3 times as rewarding for spending.
Delta SkyMiles is at it again. They’ve raised the price of award travel on their partner airlines with no one looking. They’ve done it by a lot. And they’ve done it after just raising award prices in October. During a global pandemic when awards should be easier and cheaper to get than ever. In fact Delta is now charging more than double what United and American charge for the best awards in many cases.
The TSA, which has a hard enough time finding guns and scissors, has a new distraction from its primary mission. They’re now the transportation mask police as a result of taking existing mask rules and making non-compliance a federal offense.
The Transportation Security Administration has announced its new fines for mask non-compliance: first offenses are $250, and fines range up to $1500 for repeated non-compliance. They also have exceptions to mask enforcement, separate from new airline exemptions.
I’ve written several times, though not lately, about using Club1 Hotels in the arsenal for finding a great hotel deal. Since they’re a ‘membership site’ (you can sign up for a free membership) they can show hotel rates that are cheaper than what you’ll find on a hotel’s own website, evading Best Rate Guarantees.
Club1 isn’t cheaper on every stay at first search, but readers have saved thousands even on a single stay. They do guarantee savings on every booking and offer price matching. But even better they’re offering 10% off their already-discounted pricing with promo code.
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Get ready to have your pockets picked, again.
Democratic congressional leaders are expected to back a third airline bailout of $14 billion for airlines and $1 billion for contractors.
In a move perhaps akin to selling upgrades from United Cargo to Economy, United is offering customers who buy basic economy tickets the ability to pay up after purchase to convert their ticket to regular economy.
With basic economy now a tool to segment business travelers from leisure travelers, and with virtually no business travelers, there’s little downside and only incremental revenue in offering passengers the ability to ‘buy out’ of the restrictions on the tickets they’ve purchased.
In 1991 I’m Too Sexy was an absolute anthem. Right Said Fred hit number one in the U.S. with their debut single, something no other band has done since the Beatles. I’d call them a one hit wonder but their next single “Don’t Talk Just Kiss” did hit #76 on the Billboard top 100.
But did you know that Right Said Fred is still a thing? And that they’ve released an album as recently as 2017? Perhaps desperate for relevance they’ve taken on a new profile criticizing the U.K. government’s response to the pandemic (fair enough) and also refusing to wear masks during air travel and promoting skepticism about vaccines.
Any time Marriott doesn’t devalue its program that’s a good thing. Annual category creep has worked against you for many years, not just under Bonvoy but years earlier too. However as a result of the pandemic and how long it’s lasted we should see a majority of hotels dropping in category.
Marriott has around 7500 hotels in its portfolio. Only about 100 hotels are dropping in category – after the biggest drop in average daily room rate we’ve seen in history. Rooms cost less and Marriott’s revenue-based program should charge you fewer points. They shouldn’t just be offering ‘low season’ rates as a promotion, they should be offering those year round. And the base category of most hotels should be lower than when the hotel business was at its peak in 2019.
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 »
