News and notes from around the interweb:
- Air Iceland Connect puts journals in seat back pockets and asks passengers to share travel stories they have no wifi or inflight entertainment, so they give you something to write in. (Financial Times, HT: @winglets747)
- Chase is in the process of moving from Connexions Loyalty to Expedia for pay with points travel bookings. So far Freedom cards have been moved over. They’re touting the larger pool of hotels you can spend points for, but my real fear is Expedia’s customer service.
Expedia Dancers Don’t Provide Customer Service. Flickr: Juggernautco - Traveling while Muslim: the case of the exploding chocolate by the way here are all the reasons people are losing their Global Entry.
“Give me your Global Entry card.”
“OK…” I said quizzically. I handed him my card.
“I’m confiscating this.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re being non-compliant.”
“Pardon? I’ve been cleared three times now. How am I non-compliant?”
“You mocked us for checking your chocolate for explosives.”
- “Airport staff ‘broke disabled Ryanair passenger’s wheelchair and returned it to her in four pieces with parts hidden in towels in the hope she wouldn’t notice'”
- An Air France employee board member is criticizing possible selection of Air Canada President Benjamin Smith as their next CEO.
Air France KLM almost certainly needs an outsider to lead the airline and overcoming the Amsterdam vs. Paris factionalism of the airline. However employee board members give the airline something of a ‘United problem’ — Jim Goodwin was a weak CEO, acceptable to employee shareholders because he was viewed as weak and they could run roughshod over him. Indeed a pilot work slowdown in the summer of 2000 (the ‘Summer From Hell’) resulted in the airline offering a 48% pay raise. However after 9/11 when he raised the need for cost cuts, employees pushed him out. Employees don’t want a strong Chief Executive at Air France KLM, either.
- What happens to emotional support animals now the airlines are cracking down?
only packing the essentials pic.twitter.com/IRf6VAdjZs
— aesthetic pets (@fluff) August 12, 2018
This is the BS headline at CNBC, “JP Morgan credit-card users get upgraded as rewards travel portal switches to Expedia”
Even the subtitle is misleading, “Once stodgy firms that built most of their tech in-house, banks are increasingly joining up with leading software companies to keep up with consumers’ climbing expectations.” Their old system was through Connexions or another travel company, not in-house.
Do you still book airfare through an online OTA? I know you stopped using Expedia, but I didn’t know if you switched to Orbitz or something like that (so you can double dip and get both airline awards and OTA awards [and possibly a online portal, like Mr. Ebates money back])?
My experience is with Citi, but if Chase was using Connexions then it applies. I used Citi Thank You points for hotels which had a terrible website and passed the buck to Connexions which then would book with Expedia, GetARoom, Priceline or whoever. On multiple occasions on one trip I would arrive at a hotel with Thank You reservation in hand and they had no such reservation. I had to make international calls to Thank You which transferred me to Connexions to try to sort it out with the hotel. In all but one case, it was sorted out eventually. So, I’m hopeful that by using only Expedia the situation improves. It was a bit embarrassing arriving at a hotel and they ask what OTA did I use and I’d say I don’t know since Thank You and Connexions refused to tell me. Now when it gets screwed up I can confidently say, “Expedia”.
FEIW Orbitz is owned by Expedia. Of course. I have joined every loyalty program out there, 🙂 but many are not attractive enough to be a deciding factor. If for some reason I an booking a flight at an OTA anyway, I will take the points, but that’’s about it. Note that if you book a hotel through an OTA, you May lose that hotel’s own points.
Connexions is a nightmare. The staff is poorly trained. I have had multiple issues with airline reservations. Sadly, I don’t think Expedia will be any better. The process really needs to be fully online to avoid he human element and wasting my time having to explain to agents where a country is located.
Connexions Is hands down the worse company I have ever done business with! I would never book anything through them or Chase ever again.