Search Results for "ASIA".
Austin is cheaper and administratively easier than heavily taxed and regulated California, and cheaper and warmer than New York. And it’s still a place that Californians and New Yorkers are willing to call home.
GHA Discovery is probably the biggest hotel loyalty program you may never have heard of. They cover 37 brands which is more than Marriott and they’ll soon hit 20 million members.
GHA – the Global Hotel Alliance – covers numerous smaller chains that skew towards luxury. The Discovery program is relaunching to become much more rewarding. Against the trend in the industry, the new program actually costs hotel owners more in order to give customers more. Elite status is becoming easier to earn, and benefits will become more consistent. And word is they’re even an easy status match.
For April, July, August, and September 2022 there are plenty of dates with availability for two passengers on the Dallas – Hong Kong flight in first class at 84,000 AAdvantage miles apiece. Next year there may be hope of visiting Hong Kong, or of using this flight to connect onward in Asia on American’s partner Cathay Pacific.
Availability on American’s Dallas flight is great because it’s a useful connecting point for most of the country.
Last year, when relatively few people were going out, Capital One offered to send cardmembers Michelin-starred dinners. Then over the summer they offered a series of Michelin restaurant experiences worth flying to in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Northern Virginia.
For the winter they’re back with another three Michelin restaurant experiences as part of their “Capital One x MICHELIN Guide Destination Dinner Series.”
Annual trend recap pieces usually wait until the end of the year but am I tempting fate too much to call it largely a wrap on 2021?
With travel frequently doubling last year’s levels each day, and approaching parity with 2019 around the leisure-heavy holiday period, we’re back in the skies and putting our heads down on hotel beds. With far more hassle like vaccine paperwork and testing, international travel is returning though much of Asia Pacific remains tough. And travel companies – and their bank partners – are hungry for your business.
The Marriott Bonvoy program is, on paper at least, head and shoulders above the Hilton Honors and IHG Rewards offerings. Those other two don’t even guarantee late check-out, let alone promise that suite upgrades will be provided when a standard suite is available.
In practice, though, Bonvoy doesn’t live up to its promises.
The value of frequent flyer miles is something I’ve been calculating for years. I think what makes my approach different is I lay out the theory behind my valuations, I explain a lot of the moving pieces, and I present a comparison between my valuations and the valuations others are giving. I first laid this out the value of frequent flyer miles in 2014 and then updated values in 2016, 2017 and 2019. I skipped 2020 due to the pandemic but a tremendous amount has changed. Air Canada launched a new program with the same name (raising redemption prices but eliminating fuel surcharges), Delta and United devalued partner awards more than once, Capital One launched transferrable points mostly at 1:1, and new program Bilt entered the transferable points space – to name just a few…
Southwest is in the news after a flight attendant reported a white mother traveling with her 10 year old biracial daughter as “suspicious.” The mother was investigated as a sex trafficker.
Prompted by my writing about wide open availability for two first class Suites awards on the Singapore Airlines New York JFK – Frankfurt flight, a reader asks about other ‘fifth freedom routes’ between the U.S. and Europe.
They wanted to fly between the U.S. and Europe on an Asian or Middle Eastern carrier and wanted to know what their options looked like using miles for the best seats possible.
It’s one thing to say that American Airlines doesn’t want a $15,000 a year flyer, who doesn’t also engage in the program in other ways, to have top status – since those other activities are often more profitable to American.
It’s another, I think, to say that whole classes of members are shut off from much of the new program based on their geography, or that new millennial flyers they supposedly want to attract have a higher hurdle to clear for status than older business travelers who last had to meet standard criteria for status in 2019.
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 »
