United will start flying Newark – Johannesburg March 27, 2021. You wouldn’t be taking a holiday there now, but five and a half months is a million years in Covid time and mileage redemptions are especially flexible – a much better idea than paying cash for an international ticket right now.
The route will feature United’s new business class, and there’s excellent award availability right now.
Hawaii has required everyone arriving in the state to quarantine for 14 days. They’ve put off plans to re-open tourism until October 15. At that point they’ll allow visitors with a negative Covid test within 3 days of arrival to skip quarantine.
The island of Kauai, though, isn’t satisfied and doesn’t want to participate.
Former American Airlines Chairman and CEO Don Carty was traveling in first class on Thursday. He left the airline 17 years ago, but some flight attendants still hate him. One crewmember took out their anger that he’d fly American the day 8000 flight attendants were losing their jobs.
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 Express lets cardmembers earn points when they refer a friend who applies and is approved for a new card. You’re generally limited only to referring friends and family for cards you already have yourself.
From October 1 through October 28 they’re adding a new bonus to encourage people to refer friends. In addition to the standard points that they’ll give for a successful referral, they’ll also let someone who successfully refers someone earn 3 more points per dollar (or earn 3% more cash back) for the next three months.
American Airlines is letting cabin crew know that they’re not permitted to wear Breast Cancer Awareness flair on their uniforms – even accessories that had been approved for uniforms in the past.
With securitizing frequent flyer programs the ‘new thing’ J.P. Morgan sees an opportunity to take smaller pieces of a program – rather than a whole thing – and turn them into tradeable commodities.
Why not take pieces of the loan and trade those, creating a more liquid market? Why not then package these into frequent flyer mutual funds, parts of various instruments backed by several airline programs? And why not make a leveraged bet on these?
Whether traveling on an award or a paid American Airlines itinerary, if you’re using a partner frequent flyer account number you aren’t supposed to receive extra legroom seats in coach any longer.
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.
Hyatt announced both a new and very lucrative promotion, along with an extension of a great points-redemption offer. You can get up to 25% back when redeeming points, and you’ll be able to earn up to quadruple points on Hyatt stays while also earning elite status credit both in the fourth quarter of 2020 and having those stays also count in 2021 as well. That’s some generous, lucrative thinking on the part of Hyatt.
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 »
