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 & #PaxEx:
- Scott asks – is Southwest Airlines targeting PreCheck members for A List status?
- Connectivity is bigger and bigger for the Passenger Experience (#PaxEx). The Wandering Aramean reports that Gogo has signed a big deal with Air Canada for their 777 and 787’s. It’ll be Gogo’s 2Ku solution.
- United is a very interesting place right now, at least according to this Forbes article.
- Malaysia launched their new Business Class seat, and it looks nice... if you don’t believe me, just take a look at this trip report from the Australian Business Traveller
- Also, from the one, the only (knewly renamed) Mr. Arameans – Baltia is considering domestic operations. This is just a humorous read, given the long road Baltia has taken.
- Omar at Travel Summary shares his experience traveling as a Muslim. This is perhaps timely, given the latest attack in Belgium. That said, there are good people and there are bad people, regardless of their faith, or any other discernible characteristic.
Miles and Points:
- Seth observes that some loyalty programs are really working the “get out the vote” effort for the Freddie Awards this year. If you haven’t voted yet, you really should, there’s only a week or so left, you know!
- Pizza in Motion shares what is sounding like a pretty wonderful Hyatt Promotion, the opportunity to earn up to 75,000 bonus points. Of course Ed says:
And, I don’t think this is generous enough to move SPG or Marriott to drastically improve their next offering.
I’m not sure I agree – Marriott on average offers between 35-50k points, at least my offers, and I feel like Marriott points are valued significantly less than Hyatt points. But, only time will tell, how Marriott will respond.
- And if you’re trying to think of the most efficient way to get those 25 nights, well, check out what Chasing the Points offers, as a way to get Diamond status for $1376.
Reselling:
- Vinh illustrates the value of patience when it comes to reselling.
- Oren reports (and there have been others), that Amazon is restricting some ASINs from being sent in to be Fulfilled by Amazon. It’s not terribly surprising, as more folks get into this gig, Amazon can only build warehouses so quickly.
- Vinh shares how to change the title or name of a product on Amazon – it is not nearly as intuitive as one would hope, but perhaps that’s a good thing to make it harder for others to make inaccurate changes.
Tagging Miles posts:
- Really short week, this is my post and hopefully the only time I need to Cancel a trip due to injury
It’s funny – you called my post timely, others say it’s the worst timing. Don’t you love the internet?!
@Travel Summary – It may not be a popular opinion, but I think that while some are calling for greater screening / security / insert kneejerk reaction, it is important to realize what kinds of measures have been in place since 2001, and what good people have had to endure. I’d ask have those measures helped? But its really hard to gauge the answer. Its like asking whether your anti-virus software is working…
I think it’s pretty clear that Hyatt doesn’t move in lock-step with their competition, especially given that they didn’t even offer a 1Q promo. In times of strong Hyatt promos, Marriott still ran weak ones from time-to-time and SPG came with a bit of weak sauce here and there. Ultimately, though, it’s occupancy and average rate (or anticipated occupancy and rate) that is driving down the need to offer lucrative promos. This one from Hyatt surprises me a little bit, but I suspect they’re testing a few things to see if it moves the needle.
@Pizza – I agree, Hyatt is up to something. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is along the same strategy they played with the status matches late last year on the heels of the Marriott-SPG tie-up. They got a lot of people to move their business to Hyatt. This could be a promo geared toward incentivizing those new folks to keep their business with Hyatt.