News and notes from around the interweb:
- 50% bonus transferring some hotel and bank points to Etihad Guest through April 30, for most Americans only Marriott is interesting here where 60,000 Bonvoy points become 37,500 Etihad miles.
- Initial routes for Norse Atlantic Airways, the airline which bought Norwegian’s planes and plans a similar business model (Gatwick airport in London is simply my assumption):
- Shopping portal bonuses with United and with American (HT: Doctor of Credit)
- Bad news for timing of Australia re-opening with the country abandoning its timeline for vaccination and restricting AstraZeneca dosing to those 50 and up – and the country had been relying on this vaccine for most of its rollout.
With very little Covid in the country, incredibly small risks are more significant issues since those under 50 face so little risk from the virus there. In the U.S. of course we’re sitting on tens of millions of doses of AstraZeneca, haven’t approved it at all while people who could have been vaccinated continue to die.
- TAP Air Portugal is extending matched status by a year their huge status match and mileage sale at under a penny apiece sure came at an inconvenient moment.
- Interview with the COO of Emirates on their first fully vaccinated flight.
It is interesting that Norse says it knows which routes were profitable that Norwegian offered which means they clearly knew which were money-losers but were still retained anyway.
“Norse Atlantic will offer routes that have proven to be both popular and profitable, and will initially fly between the US and Europe, serving destinations such as New York, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Paris, and Oslo.”
I truly feel sorry for Australians. I really do.
As of this morning we are pausing the J&J vaccine for a potential side effect that appears less likely to kill the recipient than covid is.
Are you sure they’re going to be flying out of JFK? I think that Newark is a more logical choice for them since it is not slot-controlled