Happy Sunday, y’all! Sharon and I have come across a lot of interesting travel-related articles this week – here are some of our favorites.
- Gary from View from the Wing writes about how United wants to undo the decision to move out of JFK airport and only have flights to New York from their Newark hub. Admittedly, that decision ended up costing them money in the long run. This is a perfect example of what can happen when you run a company by how things look on spreadsheets. While a decision may look good on paper, when you put it into practice the damage caused by the ripples end up making you regret your decision and it’s not always easy to fix damage that’s already done.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com - Kimpton hotels are now folded into the IHG hotels portfolio and their Karma Rewards program is no more. However, they were able to keep many things from the old program alive. One of those is the “Secret Password” which Loyalty Lobby was nice enough to share with everyone. When you tell the password to the front desk, you’ll get a special gift, which is different depending on the hotel where you are staying.
- Walt Disney World gave everyone a first look at their upcoming Star Wars themed lands at Disneyland and Walt Disney World and it sounds pretty darn amazing.
- Ken Storey from the Orlando Weekly gave a nice overview of everything we know about the heavily rumored Star Trek park at Universal Orlando. I highly question if a Star Trek themed park could usurp what’s coming up in Star Wars land, but hey, competition is always great for the theme park guest experience 😉
- Ed from Pizza in Motion writes about how Hyatt has apparently decided not to remove a customer friendly benefit. They’ve stopped a pilot program to charge for breakfast at Hyatt Place hotels, keeping it as a free benefit included with your stay. Hint: Maybe United can take a lesson about how spending a little more money is worth it to keep your customers happy.
- Reselling items is one way that those in the points and miles community use to earn large balances in their accounts (and possibly make a profit if they’re really good at it). There are dangers in this as Miles to Memories found out when trying to get rid of a pair of Justin Timberlake tickets.
- I love checking for AMEX offers but often I’ll see others post about deals that aren’t available to me. Nick from Frequent Miler found out that AMEX will set your offers to where you are at the time. So if you’re out of town, check the AMEX app for offers and you might get in on a good deal that you otherwise would miss out on.
- Every time Marriott announces details about the combination of Starwood Preferred Guest and Marriott Rewards there are plenty of people going through the details. Many SPG platinum members were happy Marriott announced that Platinum members would get free breakfast at hotels, including the previously excluded Courtyard brand. Lucky from One Mile at a Time writes about how people quickly noticed that breakfast isn’t included at Courtyards on the newly released list but instead you’ll get a $10 credit per day for up to two people. I was thinking about this but then realized that we don’t have status, so what difference does it make to us? Then I remembered that Sharon might have Marriott Platinum status next year, so it does matter to us. Finally, I stopped worrying because we don’t like eating hotel breakfasts anyway and might get more out of a $10 credit we can use to buy waters, coffee or a drink at the bar.
- Finally, if you write several posts about a trip to Japan, I’m probably going to read them all. This week, Gary from View From the Wing shared his trip on the Narita Express train, review of the Park Hyatt Tokyo and detailed reports about his visits to three of the best sushi establishments in Tokyo.
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