Two months ago, when Alaska Airlines bought Virgin America for $4 billion, the consensus prediction was that San Francisco-based Virgin would be slowly integrated into Alaska until it was nothing more than a historical footnote. In other words, what customers love about Virgin would be lost in transition. That’s how these transactions typically play out.…
Marriott has discovered Instagram, the popular photo-sharing app, and apparently thinks travelers can be convinced to book Marriott stays by clicking on images associated with hotel destinations. That strategy requires, at a minimum, that prospective customers follow Marriott, in order to view those book-worthy photos. So, for a limited time, Marriott is offering bonus points…
Flying ultra-low-cost airlines like Spirit and Frontier means a bare-bones experience in many ways, not all of them expected. While most customers know they’ll be shoehorned into no-legroom seats in exchange for rock-bottom ticket prices, they are often surprised to discover a less-publicized tradeoff: Neither Spirit nor Frontier participates in the TSA’s PreCheck program for…
If you were to design a travel bucket list around eating, you couldn’t do much better than making it a goal to dine at the top-10 restaurants as defined by the latest World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards. Or the survey’s top 25 restaurants. Or the top 50. Or 100. Because, notwithstanding the top-50 reference in…
Which age group is most likely to use traditional travel agents to book air and hotel stays? I’d have guessed the Baby Boomer generation (which includes me), because we grew up in the pre-Internet days, when the likes of Expedia and Booking.com simply didn’t exist. During my formative years, as a traveler and a consumer,…
Enter the Atout France USA “Lancome Paris 2016” sweepstakes by August 8, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a one-week trip for two to Paris, including air, hotel, and a day trip out of the city. To enter, provide the requested information (name, email, etc.) on the sweepstakes landing page, and press…
For the first time in more than 50 years, U.S. airlines have received federal approval to operate scheduled flight services to Cuba. The six carriers given the green light by the Department of Transportation are American, Frontier, JetBlue, Silver Airways, Southwest, and Sun Country. They can begin service to nine cities in Cuba—Camaguey, Cayo Coco,…
Following is our regular summary of the latest travel news and best frequent traveler promotions reviewed during the past week. If it was a good deal—or a notably bad deal—from an airline, hotel, or car rental loyalty program, you can read all about it here, and plan your travel accordingly. Priceline’s First Choice of Spokesman…
Uber is known, and mostly loved, for its on-demand ridesharing service. Need a lift? Launch the Uber app on your smartphone, and within minutes a car and driver will be idling at the curb, at your service. What Uber didn’t offer was the option of booking in advance, for a pickup at a designated day,…
Rapid Rewards members normally earn 600 points for qualifying car rentals. That’s 600 points no matter how long the rental, or how much the rental costs—not a very compelling proposition, especially for longer rentals. Related: Delta Says ‘Forget the Price, Buy the Experience.’ Should You? Through January 31, 2017, Rapid Rewards members can earn up…
The recent history of travel is in no small part the story of online travel. And that story has yet to be better told than by Skift’s “The Definitive Oral History of On line Travel,” a collection of interviews with the key people associated with the startups of such iconic companies as Expedia, TripAdvisor, Kayak,…