British Airways has a new business class suite with privacy doors. It appears on the same plane where first class still lacks doors. That will be (slowly) changing as British Airways will have a new first class suite with doors, which will first appear on new Boeing 777s that start to be delivered next month.
Politicians from both sides of the aisle, along with the President, have publicly supported a second airline bailout in the form of a ‘clean extension of CARES Act payroll support.’ That would mean another $25 billion over 6 months to the airlines in exchange for holding off on employee furloughs.
However this hasn’t happened because it’s caught up in negotiations over a larger package, that some observers say is now unlikely to happen. Since furlough restrictions expire after September 30, some airlines are expected to let go of workers starting October 1. That’s seen as a deadline for Congress to act (or for the President to take some form of executive action, as he’s suggested he could).
October 1 isn’t really a hard deadline, though.
ABC Denver reported Jeffrey Cook reported on three missing cats loose on board a transatlantic flight for over an hour. We know what everyone was thinking, of course: at least it wasn’t snakes on that plane!
On Monday Delta announced that they were mortgaging the SkyMiles program, taking out a $6.5 billion loan secured by their frequent flyer program and its revenue stream As part of the deal they had to disclose a great deal of the inner workings of the program including where members are located and how much they’re spending on Delta American Express credit cards, along with how much they’re generating in revenue selling miles to members.
Just three days after announcing this deal they’ve announced an upsizing. Instead of borrowing $6.5 billion, they’re going to borrow $9 billion.
I like the British Airways Visa Signature® Card a lot more than I did before Chase updated the card with new benefits. This is the first card that ever had a six figure initial bonus offer in the U.S., it has a companion award ticket you can earn make it worth considering, but it’s the rebate up to $600 a year when you book award tickets that’s most enthralling.
The airline, which was already struggling before the pandemic, says that – despite a government bailout – they need more government cash or they won’t survive the winter.
In mid-March Hawaii’s governor asked tourists not to come to the islands and then on March 26 imposed a 14 day quarantine on all arriving visitors. They couldn’t legally ban people from coming, but they could impose public health restrictions.
We’ve seen re-opening dates of August 1, and September 1, and now Hawaii is saying that visitors will be able to travel to Hawaii without 14 day quarantine starting October 15. In liqu of quarantine passengers will have to present a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours of arriving.
There are a significant number of readers with Star Alliance Gold status and a lot of miles in the TAP Air Portugal Miles & Go program since they were selling miles for $0.0087 apiece as part of their mileage subscription program and matching status earlier this year.
TAP’s Miles & Go is running a mileage bonus (rather than a discount) on all Star Alliance partner flights. They will award “Club TAP” mileage subscription members with a 10,000 mile bonus for booking a one-way award on Star Alliance and other airline partners.
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.
IHG Rewards Club is offering double points for stays October 1 through December 15 (registration required) with a kicker that’s 10,000 bonus points after first stay during the promotion period for co-brand credit card cardmembers.
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 »
