This week InterContinental Hotels Group released their preliminary results for 2018, and it contains an interesting note regarding their loyalty program. This excerpt is the most interesting, talking about the value of strengthening their loyalty program:
Shopping portals can be a great way to earn cash back for purchases you’d make anyway. While shopping portals offer bonuses for all kinds of retailers, sometimes they even offer bonuses for airlines and hotels. Earlier I wrote about how you can get 10%…
Uh oh, move over World of Hyatt and Marriott Bonvoy. Another hotel group has bought an overpriced e-book about how to market to millennials without actually understanding millennials. Today Accor announced the details of their new "lifestyle loyalty…
Shopping portals can be a great way to earn cash back for purchases you'd make anyway. While shopping portals offer bonuses for all kinds of retailers, sometimes they even offer bonuses for airlines and hotels. At the moment there's a noteworthy deal,…
This is an update to a post I wrote less than a week ago about how it was rumored that Istanbul's new airport transition would be delayed yet again. This has now been further confirmed as @airlineroute notes that Turkish Airlines' schedule has been updated…
United MileagePlus is offering up to an 85% bonus on purchased miles through 11:59PM CT on Friday, March 1, 2019. United offers bonuses on purchased miles with some frequency, and when they do, the bonuses typically range between 50% and 100%. So 85%…
Choice Privileges' last major promotion ended on February 15, 2019. With this promo they offered double points to members registered in the US and Canada, with the opportunity to earn a maximum of 30,000 bonus points during the promotion period. They've…
JonNYC is extremely knowledgable about everything related to American, and more often than not correctly predicts what's going to happen. Yesterday he Tweeted the following, suggesting that American is considering limiting systemwide upgrade usage to…
Alaska Airlines has announced today that they'll be opening an Alaska Lounge at San Francisco Airport Terminal 2 in 2020. The new 8,500 square foot Alaska Lounge will be on the top floor of SFO's Terminal 2, so will feature the highest viewpoint of any…
For those of you not familiar with Amex Offers, it’s a program available through most Amex cards, where different cards are eligible for different savings and bonus offers. In many cases the offers can be huge, and more than offset the annual fee on…
We were connecting same day from American Airlines, and unfortunately our flight was delayed significantly. As a result, we sprinted to Tom Bradley International Terminal to make our flight (or so we thought at the time). As we were running towards TBIT…
United is in the process of reconfiguring their international fleet with new business class seats. As they do that they're also adding premium economy to longhaul planes, and are removing international first class from those planes that have the cabin.…
Cathay Pacific is an airline that has been trying to turn themselves around, after a rough 2016 and 2017. In those two years the airline lost significant amounts of money (~73 million USD and ~160 million USD, respectively), despite historically being…
Last September American Express and Hilton introduced increased welcome bonuses on their co-brand credit cards, and I figured it was worth a reminder that these excellent offers are still available, several months later. Here are the details of these…
The Board of Directors of Air France-KLM has made some significant announcements today. I'd say these developments are good news, though not surprising. Ben Smith was appointed CEO of Air France-KLM late last year, and he has been working on getting…
I've written extensively about the huge increase in Priority Pass restaurants that we've seen in the US over the past couple of years. Every time I write about these restaurants, I realize that I spend way too much time providing "background" on them.…
We were connecting same day from American Airlines, and unfortunately our flight was delayed significantly. As a result, we sprinted to Tom Bradley International Terminal to make our flight (or so we thought at the time). As we were running towards TBIT…
Welcome to my next trip report, covering a trip last December to Tahiti, to review Air Tahiti Nui's new business class, and to compare that to United' new Tahiti to San Francisco flight. I'll also be reviewing our Air Tahiti flights between Papeete and…
I know I'm way behind on trip reports, so it's time I catch up. This is from a stay a few months ago at the Park Hyatt St. Kitts, so better late than never, right? ;) The Park Hyatt St. Kitts is one of the newest Park Hyatt properties in the Hyatt portfolio,…
For a while I’ve been looking to try the only flight with a fully-flat bed out of DCA. Delta does a once-daily rotation between Washington Reagan National and Los Angeles on a 757-200, which offers a Delta One cabin in the front. (Several other domestic…
Priority Pass is the world's largest network of independent airport lounges, with over 1,200 locations around the world. The number of Priority Pass members has increased greatly the past couple of years, ever since the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card was…
The Private Suite LAX, which Ben reviewed in November 2017, is a fascinating concept. A private terminal operated by security specialists Gavin de Becker and Associates, the Private Suite allows you to skip LAX altogether by accessing the facility via…
Wyndham Rewards, which has over 60 million members, has just announced some major changes. For context, I think it's important to briefly talk about the changes that Wyndham Rewards made in 2015. At that point they overhauled their loyalty program in…
We see all kinds of stories of people doing weird things on planes. In most cases I avoid sharing them, either because the person being talked about can be identified, or because it’s clear the person doing something might have mental issues. But…
American has just announced interesting new partnerships with The Private Suite LAX and with Blade. I wouldn't call this new opportunity a great value, though it certainly has the potential to make the travel experience more seamless, and on the high-end…
This is a topic I see raised every so often, and I think it's worth addressing, especially given that people generally have more privacy concerns than ever before. One person took to Twitter this weekend to note that there was a camera underneath the…
My gosh, this is tragic. It looks like a horrible incident occurred earlier today at Emirates headquarters. For those of you not familiar, Emirates' headquarters is right across from Dubai Airport, and it's where all crew report at the start and end…
Well, now I've seen it all. Airline food is typically the butt of jokes. At best, some first & business class food may be restaurant quality, though many would argue even that is a stretch. And many first & business class meals are most definitely not…
South African Airways has been losing money for years, and there are no signs of things getting better. The airline has an inefficient fleet, an inefficient route network, and there are also reports of a lot of corruption. The airline has missed several…
Welcome to my next trip report, covering a trip last December to Tahiti, to review Air Tahiti Nui's new business class, and to compare that to United' new Tahiti to San Francisco flight. I'll also be reviewing our Air Tahiti flights between Papeete and…
The Canadian version of The Platinum Card announced some significant changes last week (and some less-significant ones, like the card now coming in a metal-ish version). We've been receiving quite a few questions from readers and clients as to whether…
Back in the day it was rare to see big welcome bonuses or generous rewards structures on business credit cards. That has changed, and nowadays we're seeing card issuers place huge emphasis on business credit cards. This is obviously an area where they…
