Tag Archives for immigration.
U.S. travel policies have not kept up with world events, or even the science of Covid-19.
The U.S. should drop its ban on travel from areas with less Covid-19 than the United States. And it should drop its requirement for a Covid-19 test for those that have been vaccinated.
Last summer Hilton disavowed the government’s use of its hotels to house undocumented immigrants. Marriott declared that their hotels shouldn’t be used to temporarily house people picked up in immigration raids.
So you would be forgiven for thinking that Hilton hotels were no longer being used to detain migrants.
Wait times at London Heathrow immigration hit 7 hours on Monday and a passenger collapsed. An airport executive told U.K. parliament that “police were being called to deal with tensions that flare up as people queue for hours at a time.”
Manual U.K. Covid processing – checking of forms and tests and evidence of booked future tests – is taking so much time that it’s potentially increasing the spread of the virus.
Canada’s hotel quarantine rules had a loophole. Passengers returning to Canada by air had to spend three nights at a government quarantine hotel waiting for Covid-19 test on arrival results, while those who crossed the border by land could quarantine at home.
This can be avoided by flying into a U.S. airport near the Canadian border and renting a car or taking a cab. That’s exactly what’s happening.
An American citizen presenting themselves at the border is entitled to enter the country. They can be questioned, searched, and required to quarantine as a public health measure. But as a general matter citizens cannot be denied entry into the country.
Here the government places a requirement on airlines to prevent citizens from presenting themselves at the border. You can’t even get tested in much of the world. And there are few places where you’re allowed to go enroute in order to stop for a test.
Usually a airline employee – not a government official – is all that stands in the way of a plane load of arriving passengers becoming illegal immigrants.
Terminal D at Dallas Fort-Worth is the international terminal, but it’s used for domestic flights too. Whether or not you’re directed to immigration and customs depends on which doors are open or closed when you get off the aircraft.
Each country will take a somewhat different approach to dealing with passengers that have received Covid-19 vaccinations, and the challenge is coming sooner than later (in fact it’s already here).
The federal government is looking to require foreign visitors and prospective immigrants to submit “fingerprints and possibly other biometric information..into a new database” prior to being permitted to submit online visa applications and even ESTA requests.
Remember Thailand’s ridiculous tourism visa scheme? Turns out that no one even applied. It’s been called off, and leadership is back developing a new plan: Assign someone to follow around each tourist, and make sure they don’t have contact with any Thai people.
The principles of loyalty marketing can be applied across industries, and the basics are very much the same: recognition (elite benefits) and reward (redemption). While the most successful programs have been in travel – airlines have turned their marketing programs from a cost center into a profit engine – loyalty marketing is important to anywhere consumers make repeated choices.
The Maldives is trying something new with a destination rewards program with three elite levels. Here’s hoping they offer status matches!
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 »
