Marriott-SPG Program Future, Emirates, Second City Travel, Chase Sapphire Reserve

The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

• Second City Travel – a cool concept, and important to remember. My favorite second city is Melbourne, Australia, but there are so many other great ones across the world!
  Black Market Cigars in Santa Clara, Cuba.
• Southwest has introduced a standby benefit, but it is so restrictive, that except for a small subset of flights, its not terribly useful. The two most restrictive components: Standby must be requested at the airport, and must be within 2 hours of original flight.
• H/T to Gary for this one – insightful interview of the CEO of Emirates.
• A video blogger experiences Emirates First Class for the first time. check out the video, its a fun watch!
• The worlds shortest international flight – traffic must be horrible, if folks would rather fly 12 miles!

Miles and Points

• The biggest news in the miles and points world this week was the Marriott-SPG Merger being finalized, and the future of Marriott Rewards and SPG. The news is fairly positive in that SPG points will transferred at 3 Marriott Rewards Points per SPG, however, I’m concerned that the likelihood of SPG awards being tripled is on the horizon.
• Seth highlights United’s funky award pricing, and how things will, unfortunately get worse in October.
• Joe opines on a humorous few blog posts from one of the “titans.” Its good if you need a laugh on your Friday morning!
• No more ebay bucks on gift card purchases starting in October.
• From Business Week (H/T Vinh) an interesting read on the Chase Sapphire Reserve (CSR). The analysis is similar to what we’ve seen elsewhere, being the CSR is more rewarding. The thing that is less clear, is how Chase is making this card a profit maker, the implication is that it is through interchange fees, but, I’m skeptical.

Tagging Miles

• More changes to Fulfillment by Amazon Storage Fees – No more exemption for a single unit of inventory.
• Thoughts from Reselling DO 3 – and a sneak peak for Reselling DO 4.
• Tales from Seat 28B – yes, I did actually fly economy!