Beginning today at 8:00 a.m., travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport will be able to book Uber rides to their homes or hotels. Although both Uber and Lyft have been dropping off passengers at LAX for more than two years, it was only in December of 2015 that Lyft was granted permission for LAX…
I just returned from a holiday-weekend stay at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. There was nickel-and-diming aplenty, beginning with the hotel’s nasty, indefensible resort fee of $29 a night, for rooms that featured neither a mini-fridge (better to drive guests to eat at one of the hotel’s 13 restaurants) nor a coffee maker (better…
Likely in response to JetBlue’s systemwide double-points promotion, in effect through February 29, Virgin America is also offering double points, but only on select routes. Offer Details Between January 19 and February 29, members of Virgin America’s Elevate program can earn double points on the following routes: Between San Francisco or Los Angeles and Austin,…
Most elite members of Delta ‘s SkyMiles program probably didn’t pore over the airline’s recent Investor Day presentation. And of those that did, only a handful got as far as Slide 37 in the 56-slide deck. For their perseverance, they were rewarded with an ugly truth: First-class upgrades, already in scarce supply, are set to…
The Choice Privileges program has distinguished itself in recent years on both the upside and the downside. On the positive side of the ledger, the company has routinely rolled out high-value promotions, even when other major chains were phoning it in with predictable, perfunctory double-points offers. Offsetting those lucrative bonuses, however, and undermining the program…
With almost 1,400 hotels in operation or under development, the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group isn’t the largest of the hotel chains. But with six brands in more than 100 countries, it’s big enough to accommodate the needs of most travelers. That makes its Club Carlson loyalty program a contender. Offer Details Between January 18 and…
Enter the WGBH “Downton Abbey” sweepstakes by March 15, 2016, for a chance to win the grand prize: a six-day trip for two to Great Britain, including air, hotel, some meals, rail passes, and tours of Downton Abbey filming sites. RELATED: Win a 9-Night Trip for 2 to Iceland To enter, provide the requested contact…
Spirit’s widely disparaged leader, Ben Baldanza, may be gone, but the airline’s cheeky, cheesy marketing flies on without him. The latest: If you won a cut of last night’s $1.6 billion jackpot, you can now afford to fly those much more expensive airlines. For the rest of us, we’re still all about saving money on…
That 10 percent AARP discount for Hyatt stays? Per Hyatt’s website: “Act now. Offer Expires January 31, 2016.” AARP claims a membership base of 37 million seniors, defined somewhat generously as anyone more than 50 years old. Common sense suggests that that demographic should be a rich source for travel suppliers: consumers with the time…
Southwest manages to succeed where most companies, and airlines in particular, fail, selling a mediocre product, at a price that is rarely the lowest, racking up an industry-leading record of profitability, all the while maintaining a firm hold on the hearts and minds of its customers. Very few companies make so many people so happy…
United has come in for more than its fair share of criticism lately, from travelers, from employees, from Wall Street. Now, the Department of Transportation can be added to the list of United-bashers. According to a DOT statement: The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today fined United Airlines $2.75 million for violating the Department’s rules…