Happy Sunday to all our travel friends, both near and far. Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, so we’re passing them along.
- It’s 2020 so nothing that happens is surprising anymore. But I can’t say that I expected to watch a video of a man jumping onto the wing of a loaded plane and humping said wing before falling to the ground. If the man was that horny, he could have just checked in at one of these hotels that offer free on-demand porn on the TV.
- Airlines have been traveling along a bumpy road when it comes to mask usage on planes. Between not knowing how to enforce the rules and dealing with animated anti-maskers and people who just want to see how much they can get away with, it hasn’t been easy. An airline’s most common response to a person who refuses to mask-up is to put them on a no-fly list until when masks are no longer required for passengers. Not even that always goes right like this example where United has “banned” a two-year-old for being unwilling to keep her mask on. It’s not surprising because it’s United, and they always seem to be on the wrong PR side of these types of stories.
- A few months ago, almost all of the US-based airlines eliminated change fees on domestic flights. While this made travelers happy, It’s unknown if this practice will continue after the pandemic has left the crisis phase and life begins to return to normal. It must not be hurting the bottom line too much because Delta has announced that they’re dropping the change fees on international flights originating in the US (excluding basic economy fares.) Delta is saying this change is permanent, but we’ll all have to wait and see if that’s going to be the case.
- Whenever you’re traveling, you have to be on the lookout for scams. Some scams are mostly harmless and will only cost you some extra bucks and/or wasted time. Others can get downright scary with things progressing to scammers refusing to let you leave and threats of violence if you don’t cooperate. Here’s a recent example where a scammer tried to take advantage of a person’s kindness to get money and when the scam was exposed, he turned from a person who needed help into a creepy stalker.
- There haven’t been a whole lot of stories about hotels opening in 2020. In fact, most of the stories have been about hotels closing, like the Palmer House in Chicago. So it was some good news to hear that the previously planned Aman New York will be opening in the spring of 2021. Known for its world-class customer service experience, this will be only the second city hotel from the ultra-luxury Aman hotel brand, with the other being in Tokyo. The hotel pictures look amazing, but it will be interesting to see if the hotel can bring the Aman experience to New York. They’ll have to because there’s plenty of other expensive hotels in town like St. Regis, Four Seasons, and the Waldorf Astoria (slated to re-open sometime in 2022)
- You can learn a lot by listening to what companies tell investors on their earnings calls. For example, American Express gave some data about how cardmembers responded to the new benefits offered in 2020, like streaming and wireless statement credits. It turns out, over 75% of Platinum card users took advantage of those benefits. Because of that, in 2021 American Express is going to focus on cardholder retention and product refreshes. I also hope that they’ll throw in some retention offers for good measure.
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#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
