Lufthansa Sticks it to Berlin, Hotel Credit Card Scam, and Hawaii Airfares Will Fall

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • The 5 coolest buttons on a 747

  • Lufthansa board member gives the finger to Berlin even as they acquire much of air berlin’s assets.

    “Berlin’s new airport won’t become an air hub, it’s too small for that,” he said.

    He stated that “little will change. Things will stay as they are, we’ll offer Berliners connections to the whole world – over our hub airports.”

    “We already have four hub airport in Munich, Frankfurt, Zurich and Vienna, which are all relatively close together, we don’t need another,” [Lufthansa board member Harry Hohmeister] stated.

  • Airport-provided yoga rooms were a big thing for awhile, but I never see anyone practicing in them. Yoga on the Fly is betting that a paid offering can provide more appealing offerings to customers when it launches in two weeks for a 90 day period in Denver.

    The 800-square-foot location will house five private mini studios. Upon entering the location, passengers will consult with a wellness advisor about their yoga experience, and the advisor will help them select the best class for them. Then, travelers will be shown to their own private yoga space, equipped with a yoga mat, a wireless headset and an iPad. All the yoga classes, which are played on the iPads, are 8-20 minutes long.

  • I’ve heard of this hotel credit card scam before but never heard of it actually happening to anyone. (HT: Basil K.)

  • Delta is hiring more than 1000 flight attendants

  • Airfares expected to drop with Southwest’s arrival in Hawaii

    “What may happen is that airfares will go down, bringing more people,” said Gary Leff, an airline analyst who writes the View From the Wing blog. “But that may be balanced by more people driving up hotel prices once you’re there.”

    …Leff said another key factor is the push from Alaska Air Group since last year’s Alaska-Virgin America merger for more California market share.

    “Now that they’re in a real battle for the West Coast and supremacy in California, this is a huge hole in their route network,” he said.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. That idiot gave his/her entire credit card number, verification code AND address to the “front desk” over the phone? Ha!

  2. i don’t fault LH for not having much desire with a full-scale TXL/BER hub.

    between the core hubs FRA MUC ZRH VIE, the specialized hub BRU, the focus cities GVA DUS, and the Eurowings low-cost hub CGN (i expect this will be moved to DUS instead), LH Group has their hands REALLY full (and that’s within a really small span of continental europe if you map it out)

    unlike Alitalia, LH doesn’t waste time hubbing at the capital for the sake of it

  3. What happens if I previously bought tickets for next June? Can I get a refund for the amount it may have dropped!

  4. @Tina, Seldom, except in the unlikely event you purchased a fully refundable fare. You paid a price that was acceptable to you at the time. If the fares would go up, would you volunteer to pay more to make up the difference? If airlines had to reimburse part of the purchase price every time a customer found a new fare between the time of the purchase and the time of the flight there would be no incentive to offer sales, and they’d have to employ a big staff for the purpose of verifying it and giving away money, something which they would not consider a desirable use of resources.

  5. “That idiot gave his/her entire credit card number, verification code AND address to the “front desk” over the phone? Ha!”

    Get ’em to hang up quick: Ask them YOUR name. “What, you don’t know the name of the guest in this room?”

  6. RE: Credit card scam, someone tried it on me while I was overseas earlier this year. I told them I don’t give info like that over the phone but I’d come down to the front desk to re-run the card. *click*

  7. I just napped at the MIA yoga room on the arrival level–with ear plug and eye mask it worked beautifully and I woke up refreshed.

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