How To Think About Making Travel Plans Now

by Gary Leff

Feb 07 2021

I am making fully refundable bookings using points. However I’ve been avoiding transferring American Express and Chase points when I do not have to, because while awards can be redeposited into an airline frequent flyer account the points cannot usually be moved back from the airline account to Amex or Chase. When you transfer flexible bank points there is a cost in lost flexibility.

Domestic travel should be mostly doable this summer, especially for the vaccinated. We’ll likely be able to travel to hard-hit destinations with vaccination and a negative test, though countries that have quashed the virus will probably stay closed longer.

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It’s Not Just Fake Covid Tests, People Are Faking Essential Worker Letters To Travel

by Gary Leff

Feb 07 2021

The U.S. now requires a negative Covid-19 test in order to enter the country by air – even if you’re a citizen returning home. We’re hardly alone, many countries require a Covid-19 test to enter. Since testing can be an expensive hassle even people without the virus are faking negative tests. On one flight 95% of passengers presented fake negative results. But it’s not just negative Covid-19 test results that are being faked.

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Hertz Really Is A Basket Case

by Gary Leff

Feb 07 2021

Hertz is in bankruptcy yet last year their stock was a favorite of Redditors on the Robinhood app. They’ve been sending customers to jail when they fail to mark rental agreements as extended, or fail to mark a car back into inventory and rent it again.

Now they’ve sent out a message seemingly at least as customer-friendly as everyone else: that they were pausing points expiration through December 31, 2021. But their fingers were crossed.

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20 Years After The Merger, TWA Pilots Lose Lawsuit Against American Airlines (And Their Own Union)

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2021

American Airlines acquired TWA in 2001. And since then former TWA employees have felt like they’ve gotten the short end of the stick. The most recent case involves ex-TWA pilots suing both American Airlines and its pilots union arguing that they conspired to strip these pilots of their senior in the airline’s 2011 bankruptcy. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit threw out the suit.

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Marriott Vacations Buys Lawrence Welk Resorts, Will Rebrand Them As… Hyatts

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2021

The hotel business can be strange in many ways. But timeshare brands are far, far stranger.

How about Marriott Vacations controlling Hyatt’s timeshare portfolio? That’s something not a lot of people realize but gets a big exclamation point from Marriott Vacations Worldwide spending $430 million to acquire Welk Resorts to turn them into Hyatt Residenes properties. And wait – there are Lawrence Welk hotels?

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How Airlines Will Ramp Up Status Matches While Cracking Down On Abuse

by Gary Leff

Feb 06 2021

Loyalty programs are wasting opportunities to attract good customers, but with hotels at low occupancy and more airline seats than customers competition for elite members is going to become more fierce. Enter the status match. Loyalty programs are going to want to make sure they don’t become too expensive (offering benefits to people who do not become customers) and aren’t the victims of fraud (there are new techniques to fight status match fraud).

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For 2021, Marriott Amex Cards Will Reward Spending As Much As The Starwood Amex Used To

by Gary Leff

Feb 05 2021

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.

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Massive Devaluation Of Delta SkyMiles (Yes, Another One)

by Gary Leff

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.

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