Stuck with huge inventory that airlines weren’t buying during the pandemic, the small business that supplies first class nuts to United and American was on the verge of going under. The owner said they had “50,000 pounds of nuts American Airlines and United didn’t want!”
Word got out where to buy the nut mixes and grounded frequent flyers bought them all!
The new Boeing 787-8s American is receiving don’t have exactly the same interiors as the planes that they began taking delivery of in 2015.
Reviewing a sneak peak at the interiors two things stand out to me.
Hotel breakfast is one of the most important elite benefits and something that’s considered standard, ironically, at most non-full service properties. But what happens when a guest expects to receive breakfast and doesn’t, either because of a change to the loyalty program or as a cost saving measure gussied up as ‘protecting guests and workers during Covid-19’?
Pfizer reports their Covid-19 vaccine, in conjunction with BioNTech, so far appears 90% effective. With 94 people in the clinical trial having gotten Covid-19 so far, that means people in the control group receiving the placebo were about 10 times as likely to get the virus as someone who had received the vaccine.
The drug maker could reach milestone of 2 months since the second dose for half of trial participants in order to apply for Emergency Use Authorization next week. They report no ‘serious’ side effects in the trial. That’s great news, great progress. And it means we should have great optimism for travel.
Kevin Mitchell of the Business Travel Coalition argues that a federal face mask mandate for airlines and airports is crucial to bringing back business travel. But a mask mandate is likely to mean less mask wearing because it’ll have more exemptions than current airline policy. And business travel isn’t being held up by insufficient masking on planes.
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.
In Ireland bars in the Dublin airport remain open despite the country’s lockdown because airports are considered an essential service. So you’ve got people looking for some semblance of normalcy heading to the airport to drink – buying the cheapest ticket available to get through security.
As part of the launch of the new program Air Canada has just announced a new suite of credit cards. The airline re-acquired its program, after spinning it off 15 years ago, funding the deal by extending its relationship with its co-brand card issuers. Today we’ve learned about its new co-brand credit cards in Canada. Details on a U.S. program are still forthcoming. We also learn about a new airline redemption partnership.
Holding the cards make award pricing less expensive, and spending on the cards can help earn Aeroplan elite status.
Pre-departure testing is a requirement to travel to Hawaii, New York, and even much of the world where borders are at least partially open. Airlines have been working to get clinics open inside of airports, and to coordinate rapid turnaround testing for their passengers.
Airlines previously advocated for the government to do temperature checks of all passengers. The airlines themselves require passengers to fill out a health checklist as part of check-in, and require masks in areas of airport terminals they control and on board their planes. Airlines and airports have new cleaning regimes to address potential surface transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
But did you know that some airports have been trying to spend CARES Act money to set up screening regimes, and the federal government hasn’t allowed them to do it?
The best part of this has to be the phone call from the Trump campaign advance team, dialing up the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. “Hello, Four Seasons, how can we help you?” “Do you have availability for an event at 11:30 a.m.?” “Yes, we have space available.” “We won’t need catering, would you be willing to do it for a flat $10,000.00?”
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 »
