Search Results for "ASIA".
Is better inflight food a post-pandemic change? Is the difference between first class and business class really bigger than ever before? I’m not so sure. Here’s the real difference between premium cabins.
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.
Two comedians are suing over being searched for drugs at the Atlanta airport while boarding their flights. The stops and searches lack probably cause, and are generally based on racial profiling (duh). Over a 9 month period, police stopped 402 passengers at the jet bridge in Atlanta. 68% of those were minorities. Fewer than 1% – just 3 – yielded ‘drug seizures’ like THC gummies and six prescription pills.
There are a lot of sites that purport to tell you how much a mile or point is worth.
The range quality and rigor offered by various sites to value points is significant, I think. But what I stumbled across is that one company that puts these out cannot even agree with itself.
The ability to transfer miles to airline and hotel loyalty programs has been “down for maintenance” on Capital One’s website since about September 23.
System issues happen from time to time, but they do not usually last for days at a time. And Capital One has been surprisingly quiet about the issue.
Especially on sub-1500 mile routes, American Airlines meals can be disappointing. The watchword here is inconsistency. I expect that out of my home town of Austin where catering hasn’t been able to keep up with American Airlines growth, and meal provisioning has frequently had to be trucked in from Houston.
Still I was especially non-plussed by the options presented to me for my recent Austin – Charlotte – Austin flights in first class. The turkey sandwich even reared its ugly head. For dinner!
Airlines are about to downgrade the elite status of 25 million frequent flyers. At the start of the pandemic loyalty programs extended elite status. Customers who earned their status in 2019 weren’t flying. Borders were closed, businesses weren’t sending people on the road.
Today is the first of October and the first Bilt Rewards ‘Rent Day’. They’re giving away a lot of points, Bilt Mastercard cardmembers and also for people who don’t have the card. It’s a way of really owning a day in the marketing space – a day that resonates with a large chunk of the population.
The first of every month they’ve got promotions and offers. Today you can receive free points in the Bilt app with their Points Quest trivia feature. They have Virgin cruise discount offers and they partner with Virgin as a points transfer partner, so they’re giving you 500 free points for linking your Virgin account now. And you can earn a lot of extra points today spending with the no annual fee Bilt Mastercard.
News out of Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan that they will be revamping their award charts before the end of the year is certainly not welcome – especially because the airline is providing little detail despite explicitly committing to 90 days’ notice before any changes.
Just a few weeks ago the prospect of trying to coordinate changes to Europe awards would have given me heartburn. There was simply very little award space, save for a handful of airline and routes that I used as ‘worst-case scenarios’ when helping people to redeem their miles. And I didn’t want worst-case scenarios traveling with my wife and daughter.
Fortunately things are really looking up for those of us looking to use points for travel abroad, especially to Europe.
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 »
