This week a survey from US Bank has us wondering if a new travel card with transferable points is coming, JetBlue is desperately trying to cut costs, and tourism is reaching maddening levels in Europe.
Survey Says… US Bank Considering Travel Credit Card with Transferable Points to Airlines & Hotels
US Bank sent out a survey recently that’s giving Grant (of Travel with Grant) new-credit-card-launch vibes and after looking at the survey screenshots in his post, I tend to agree with him. The survey led with “your insight will help us shape cardmember experiences”, for example. Perhaps more interesting though is that it went on to say “How important is it to have the ability to transfer rewards points?” Check out Grant’s post for his speculations on some of the other survey questions.
Grim Memo: JetBlue Parks Planes & Cuts Routes To Reduce Losses
JetBlue has been working hard trying to resolve their challenges with profitability, but decreasing demand for air travel in general has made this hard. Thus, their efforts continue. Some of the things they’re planning on trying for example are withholding planned updates to a few of the classic A320s they’d intended to update by 2026, reducing capacity on lower-demand flights and possibly even closing down some under-performing routes (in favor of higher profit alternatives). In addition, they’ll also restructure some leadership roles and begin scrutinizing business travel expenses of their own. In his article, Ben at OMAAT thinks the solution could lie in simply speeding up the plans for their fleet-wide first class.
Protesters against overtourism take to the streets of southern Europe
On Sunday, protesters in Barcelona blasted tourists with water guns and proclaimed “Your holidays, my misery” as part of coordinated anti-tourism demonstrations all across Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Protestors in these highly visited destinations feel that over tourism is increasing housing prices and simply making it miserable to be a resident. One protestor said for example, “I’m very tired of being a nuisance in my own city.”
And on a related note…
The Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, shuts down to sound the alarm on mass tourism
Just one day later, what started as a routine staff meeting at the Louvre turned into a spontaneous strike which halted entry for hours. Again, the frustrations erupted from a sense that the Louvre is both over-visited and understaffed. While there are plans in place for renovations to better accommodate large crowds (and especially the crowds around the Mona Lisa specifically,) that will take years. In the meantime, annual operating subsidies have been shrinking while the volume of tourism is growing, and the staff are fed up.
This got me thinking about my own travel habits a bit. Obviously many of us prefer to find travel destinations that still feel more like real places than they do tourist checklist stops, but those are by definition hard to come by, and inevitably we end up in tourist hubs too – at least I do. And once I’m there, it’s almost embarrassing to skip the one thing that place is most known for. But if I’m being honest, despite studying art in University and having an ample appreciation for art history, the hours I spent exploring the Louvre like everyone else don’t really stick out in my memory as particularly impactful, and I don’t feel all that glad I went. Maybe I should therefore give myself more permission to skip anything that only interests me because it’s supposed to.
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One of the quandaries of this fixation – I mean hobby – is that there’s a serious paucity of points hotels in out of the way places to help absorb costs so we often end up going to the more popular places that do have points hotels. That means missing out on a lot of nice places at times.
Conversely, great value on points hotels can easily be what decides whether to go somewhere. I wouldn’t have visited Budapest, Malaysia, Zagreb, Lombok, Singapore, and countless other places if it hadn’t been for free hotel stays due to points.
Thinking back on my favorite moments over many decades of travel almost none of them were at major tourist destinations. I don’t think it is all that difficult to find places to visit that are off the beaten path, but sometimes you have to throw out the guide book. Rent a car, get out of the big cities, and in most places you will find an endless numbers of wonderful places to visit that aren’t crowded. Or try getting off the train at one of those stops between point A and point B and see what you find. Even if I am planning to visit some well known places I always set aside at least part of my trip for this type of travel, and it never disappoints.
Given US Bank’s track record with credit cards over the last 18-24 months, it is reasonable to question what any such card will be six months after it is released. And, will any such card be another me-too card with nothing more than what is already out there? Even if points can move between cards
Hey Carrie, thanks for linking to my US Bank post and for sharing your thoughts on over-tourism. When I was younger, I used to go to museums, walk around, and take lots of photos on my phone. I called it “Thousand Pictures Day”. Days later, I never got around to looking through all the photos. Nowadays, I tend to walk through museums and only stop at pieces that catch my attention and I do not take many photos, instead, I try to live in the moment 🙂
This is a great idea. A few years ago I realized that my photos often missed the little things that make a place special, so I started taking less photos overall but putting more effort into capturing photos of everyday life. It could be a residential street, the shelves in a grocery store, or a sign on a wall. It forces me to pay attention to where I am, and when I am back home it is these photos, more than the splashy IG moments, that bring the sense of place back to me.
I would t fly Jet Blue again if they paid me.
Unless and until they get a reasonable facsimile of customer service (chat that works, US call centers, agents who are empowered to help, and air times measured in minutes instead of hours, and rational automatic rescheduling of canceled flights, they will watch my points sit there forever and never see any of my money again.
6 times is more than enough for me
I’m hopeful to use my stash of 200K JB points for travel on United with the Blue Sky partnership. We will see how useful that partnership is…
There is nothing embarrassing about skipping a tourist trip and replacing with something unique and less common.