Alaska Airlines is offering a 40% bonus on purchased miles through July 13.
Alaska Airlines allows a free stopover on each one way award. And they have some of the best redemption prices of any program.
Search Results for "ASIA".
by Gary Leff
Alaska Airlines is offering a 40% bonus on purchased miles through July 13.
Alaska Airlines allows a free stopover on each one way award. And they have some of the best redemption prices of any program.
by Gary Leff
Starwood is offering a 35% discount on buying Starpoints through July 20. They’re actually letting you buy points at a price which those points are worth which is great.
Technically Starwood Preferred Guest will still exists August 1, but that’s a legal distinction. Marriott, Starwood, and Ritz-Carlton will all have the same program at this point just with different names because contractual issues prevent them from calling it one program. For all intents and purposes though this is the last sale of Starpoints qua Starpoints.
by Gary Leff
There’s no question that immigration and customs develops a different culture and reputation at different airports in the U.S. While you’d hope they would apply standards and procedures from their handbook uniformly, there’s a difference between de facto practice and de jure rules.
People learn procedures by watching other people, and by discussing how to go about doing their jobs with colleagues. In other words, customs and immigration procedures are carried out by people.
by Gary Leff
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.
by Gary Leff
Jill Surdek, American’s Vice President – Flight Service, updated crew on several projects underway and on several tweaks to the airline’s onboard service.
by Gary Leff
American highlights a $3 billion investment in products and services. However poor service from the airline’s front line can undermine all the rest of the investment.
A great example of this comes from June 4th’s American Airlines flight AA192 from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. A business class passenger reportedly voluntarily offloaded himself because his experience with a flight attendant onboard prior to departure was so bad.
by Gary Leff
Three years ago Starwood announced a $100 million effort to revitalize the Sheraton brand. This was mostly about marketing investment, but they made some tweaks using the Sheraton ‘Grand’ moniker and a carrot and stick approach with fees and incentives, to try to get hotel owners to invest in their properties.
They promised to improve the offerings in club lounges, improve hotel design, and bring on new properties. This was back when the chain was still trying to grow on its own even though the board had largely decided to sell.
by Gary Leff
Star Alliance introduced the connecting partner model last year which is like ‘alliance lite’.
Now oneworld has announced the same thing and even called it a ‘connect partner’ (as opposed to a connecting partner). The first oneworld connect partner will be Fiji Airways.
by Gary Leff
We were promised these hotel brands would offer Platinum breakfast benefits. They don’t. They offer a food and beverage credit, which can be used any time during a stay.
That credit won’t cover breakfast at all of their properties, but the news isn’t as bad as it appeared at first — Marriott is updating their chart, which suggested the credit would be only once per stay rather than once per day (for the member and guest).
by Gary Leff
A couple of years ago I wrote that the Department of Homeland Security wants hotel desk clerks to snitch on guests as possible sex traffickers based on a set of behavior that could match that of plenty of guests.
Airline flight attendants are being asked to do the same thing.
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 »