The percentage of American Airlines seats occupied by award customers has been lower than that of competitor airlines and had been declining ever since US Airways management took over at the airline. American was been filling about 6% of seats with ...

American Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability and more...  In This Issue...  American Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability  TSA Security Screening Bins Have More Germs Than the Monkey in Outbreak  Media Mogul and Hotel Owner Denied Check-in Because He Wouldn’t Take Off Prescription Sunglasses  Marriott Fixes Program Rules for Suite Upgrades, Platinums Now Entitled to Standard Suites  Guess Who Says He Was On the Quarantined Emirates Flight Today? This is Awesome  People Pay More to Fly Delta for One Simple Reason  Marriott Elite Challenge is Back, Platinum Status With Just 16 Nights  More Recent Articles This email contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. American Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability The percentage of American Airlines seats occupied by award customers has been lower than that of competitor airlines and had been declining ever since US Airways management took over at the airline. American was been filling about 6% of seats with awards compared to nearly 8% at United and Delta and 13% at Southwest. AAdvantage President Bridget Blaise-Shamai reported in June that they're "on a path towards putting our availability much more closer to the competitive levels of like a Delta or a United." Continue reading American Reveals How They’re Doing Improving Award Availability...          • Email to a friend • TSA Security Screening Bins Have More Germs Than the Monkey in Outbreak The TSA makes most travelers take off their shoes, many go barefoot on germ-laden floors. And most of us assumed, I think, that they weren't doing much to wash or sanitize bins. Your fellow sick passengers touch the bins, they even put their dirty tissue sand handkerchiefs in them before going through the nude-o-scope. TSA employees get gloves to wear, passengers don't. Continue reading TSA Security Screening Bins Have More Germs Than the Monkey in Outbreak...          • Email to a friend • Media Mogul and Hotel Owner Denied Check-in Because He Wouldn’t Take Off Prescription Sunglasses Robert L. Johnson is best known for founding BET, Black Entertainment Television in 1979 and selling it to Viacom for $3 billion in 2000. He serves on boards like Lowe's, the NBA Board of Governors, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture and is a past board member of Hilton Hotels, General Mills, and the United Negro College Fund. He's an accomplished man, he's well traveled, and he owns hotels -- his RLJ Lodging Trust owns about 150 of them. So he's certainly used to checking into hotels. But not this one. Continue reading Media Mogul and Hotel Owner Denied Check-in Because He Wouldn’t Take Off Prescription Sunglasses...          • Email to a friend • Marriott Fixes Program Rules for Suite Upgrades, Platinums Now Entitled to Standard Suites When the new Marriott program launched their terms and conditions said that Platinums would get an upgrade if available at check-in to an 'enhanced room'. That's not what we were promised. The terms now say that a Platinum is to receive an upgrade to the best room available up to and including suites. Of course there are some limitations. Continue reading Marriott Fixes Program Rules for Suite Upgrades, Platinums Now Entitled to Standard Suites...          • Email to a friend • Guess Who Says He Was On the Quarantined Emirates Flight Today? This is Awesome This morning an Emirates flight was quarantined on arrival at New York JFK with sick passengers on board. Some initial reports suggested that 100 were ill. Emirates said it was 10. The most recent information we have is that 19 passengers were deemed to have medical issues. Ten were transported to the hospital, while nine declined medical treatment and were released. What do we know at this point? That Vanilla Ice says he was on board. Continue reading Guess Who Says He Was On the Quarantined Emirates Flight Today? This is Awesome...          • Email to a friend • People Pay More to Fly Delta for One Simple Reason Delta's Executive Vice President and CFO Paul Jacobson spoke this morning at the Cowen and Company Global Transportation Conference. He put up a standard Delta chart showing that customers like the airline more than their competitors, and so customers are willing to spend more to fly Delta. Jacobson offered this startling statistic. Delta had 5000 cancellations due to maintenance in 2010 and this year there will be "fewer than 100." He says that's "down 99% since 2010." Continue reading People Pay More to Fly Delta for One Simple Reason...          • Email to a friend • Marriott Elite Challenge is Back, Platinum Status With Just 16 Nights Now that the new Marriott program has launched they've re-opened status challenges. Normally Gold status requires 25 nights in a year and Platinum status requires 50 nights. However you can call to sign up and a Gold challenge requires 8 nights in 3 months, and a Platinum challenge requires 16 nights in 90 days.mo Continue reading Marriott Elite Challenge is Back, Platinum Status With Just 16 Nights...          • Email to a friend • More Recent Articles Emirates Flight Quarantined at New York JFK With Sick Passengers On Board American Relaxes Basic Economy Restrictions Today, Admits It Was All About Making You Pay More Free Upgrades to Cathay First Seats on Sydney Route and a Park Hyatt GM Talks Upgrades Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airline or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.     Safely Unsubscribe • Archives • Preferences • Contact • Subscribe • Privacy Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC • 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123 • Sudbury, MA 01776, USA