Singapore Airlines is offering offering a 15% bonus on points transferred into KrisFlyer miles from credit card programs through December 27, 2020. Nearly all of their bank partners are eligible for the bonus, including Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citibank ThankYou Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards and Capital One miles that are trasnferrable to airline miles.
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 AAdvantage still has award charts, although the awards you book may not be based on chart pricing. They’ve increased the price of ‘unpublished any time’ award levels and a one way business class ticket on an American flight to Tokyo may now cost as much as 450,000 miles – but there’s something to look for that could cut the cost of the same redemption by 84%.
We know that business travel is almost non-existent these days, but airlines in the U.S. have consistently reported that it’s more or less tripled off of a very low basis – it was down 95% and now it’s down ‘only’ 85% (so up from 5% of last year’s levels to 15%).
The business travel that has recovered has been small businesses, often in the Midwest and Sun Belt, as well as critical logistics and health care businesses. But how much of an airline’s total revenue did this account for, anyway?
Silvercar was my favorite company to rent cars from. They rented only Audis and had a generally all-inclusive model. For $5 they refilled your gas at market prices. You paid actual cost of toll tracking, no extortionate daily fee. However the Audi-owned rental car company is shutting down all airport locations in the U.S. in early December. They will retain Audi dealership locations.
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.
A Muslim media influencer and 2020 Democratic congressional primary candidate, 28 year old Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, was removed from an American Airlines flight from Newark to Charlotte prior to departure today after an altercation with a man seated in first class.
Since she refused to leave the aircraft ‘unless he was removed also’ the entire plane was offloaded. She got off last, and was taken into custody. She is claiming discrimination and has sought assistance from the Council on American Islamic Relations.
U.S. frequent flyer programs aren’t the most valuable. In fact some airline programs seem almost allergic to the idea that some consumers somewhere might actually benefit in an outsized way from what they offer. United and Delta have actually devalued their award prices for travel on partner airlines during the pandemic. And when we see promotions they aren’t especially rich – either it takes a lot more from the customer compared to what the program is willing to give, or earning is capped at very low levels.
The real value comes from airlines around the world who won’t so quickly devalue, and whose airlines will begin to ramp up service perhaps before demand fully returns. Expect to see a lot of award seats available on Emirates, whose planes like Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s are too big for many routes at least for awhile.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated an earlier complaint, was unable to resolve it, but found sufficient merit to issue a “Right to Sue” letter so the federal government has found some merit in the arguments thus far. Winning this case would represent an existential threat to airline unions. It seems a long shot, however.
Rules that limit the size of gatherings are imposed at the city, state, or national level – and don’t apply to the sky. So if it’s illegal to gather with 20 or 40 of your closest friends because of the global pandemic, why not hold your get together in the sky?
Not only is it a way to hold events that’s legal in places that restrict getting together with those outside your immediate household due to Covid-19, but it’s also a way to look after the safety of your guests and reduce the likelihood of spread.
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 »
