Competition is heating up between the big banks to serve premium customers across travel, dining and experiences, with American Express looking to hire a leader that will help them build a new app ground-up.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Fifteen months ago Bilt raised $150 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. It became one of the fastest companies to ever become a ‘unicorn’.
Now they’ve raised an additional $200 million at a $3.1 billion valuation.
Aer Lingus has terminated its codeshare with United. And in another major move, Aer Lingus customers can now use American Airlines lounges.
A hotel manager has been indicted for stealing $150,000, and concealing the theft by fraudulently redeeming guests’ hotel points.
Guest would pay for their stay in cash, she’d go in and redeem an award night against the stay from the guest’s loyalty account, and then refund the cash to her own credit card.
Denver airport’s train system has broken down. Only one train can run every ten minutes. Passengers are backing up waiting for trains and inside the terminal and people are missing flights, as the airport runs buses from the A concourse to other concourses.
Most of the attention over American Express cards focuses on Platinum, because of benefits like lounge access and all of the statement credits to work through to cover the card’s cost. But I only endorse putting airfare spending on that card. Otherwise you earn just a single point per dollar spent, and you almost never want to earn only one point per dollar.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Virgin Atlantic cancelled a Manchester, U.K. to New York JFK flight after a passenger noticed bolt fastener tops missing on a panel of one of the Airbus A330’s wings on January 15th. The story has made the rounds worldwide because it was a passenger who flagged the maintenance issue prior to departure.
There’s an odd attempt to link this incident to… diversity hiring?
Two weeks ago American Airlines detailed changes coming for the AAdvantage program in 2024. One of those changes was ‘upgrades on select partner airlines’.
While American declined to offer any details of the new option for upgrades on partner airlines, I wrote that I expected this to be the long-delayed oneworld alliance upgrade program.
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 »
