Miscellaneous

If your travel schedule has been less busy than normal and you're struggling to requalify for elite status with Southwest, the airline has some good news for you. In two different ways, it has just made earning A-List and A-List Preferred elite status in 2022 (which will last through 2023) considerably easier.

Recently, I've been checking rates at some of the lower category Hyatt properties within easy reach of Los Angeles and London (I'm contemplating a year-end mattress run) and a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that, rather mysteriously, the Hyatt Place West London Hayes wasn't offering any rates past the end of October.

The Marriott Bonvoy program has been on a downhill trajectory for some time (some would say it's been on the decline ever since it gave up the pretense of keeping all the good parts of the SPG program) and with the removal of award charts and the move to dynamic pricing, we've finally reached a point where I've had to sit down and think seriously about whether or not it's worth persevering with the program at all.

Delta has confirmed that as of today, 20 September 2022, customers flying in its Premium Economy cabins (Delta Premium Select) can expect to find an improved dining experience onboard and that starting next month, Premium Economy flyers will start to see new handmade amenity kits waiting at their seats.

American Airlines has today announced that it will be fitting new Business Class and Premium Economy seats on aircraft that it expects to be delivered in 2024 and that select existing aircraft will be getting new premium cabins too.

IHG may not have (yet) published a year-end promotion but we're finally starting to see it offer discounts for stays in the last quarter of 2022 and well into 2023. Its latest sale (for Europe and the UK) is now live and offering savings on bookings made by 4 October.

I can't think of another country that has closed itself off from the rest of the world as tightly as New Zealand has over the past couple of years so it's great to be able to report that it looks like the days of the country's international isolation are coming to an end sooner than we were expecting.

Accor is currently running a sale in which it's offering up to 40% off rates at Fairmont & Sofitel properties in the US and Mexico for stays through the end of the year and this should stack nicely with an Amex offer that has appeared in targeted accounts that gives cardholders a nice rebate.

Marriott's Suite Night Awards are supposed to be one of the best benefits that the Marriott Bonvoy program offers as they're only offered to members who credit a minimum of 50 nights to their Bonvoy accounts in a calendar year, but the more I try to use them the more convinced I am that they're not a particularly useful benefit at all.

Last week, American Airlines used various social networks to share a great picture taken by @bee.kreates and originally posted to Instagram. The picture, as you'll see below, shows a silhouette of an aircraft flying across a Chicago skyline and while it got nothing but positive comments on American's Instagram feed, some of the comments on Twitter were considerably less complimentary.