This week’s featured link
Another rescue plan for Alitalia, does it stack up? – Gridpoint Consulting
Curious what the newest version of the “Worst Airline Ever” will look like? It’ll look pretty much the same, just smaller until it’s magically profitable and amazing in 2025. It’s a good thing Italy paid BCG to put together this plan. I like how Robert Boyle at Gridpoint breaks it down, and apparently so do you. This was sent to me by more than one of you. Let’s all just celebrate that Alitalia’s position as the Worst Airline Ever will not be changing anytime soon.
Two for the Road
Emirates‘ President Discusses Retirement And The A380 Fleet – AirlineRatings
You know the old story. I love a good exec interview. Didn’t know Sir Tim Clark was still there despite having planned retirement previously? Surprise!
The Man Who Turned Credit-Card Points Into an Empire – The New York Times Magazine
This is an excruciatingly-long look at Brian Kelly, better known as The Points Guy. I can’t get through it, so I’m posting it here to see if anyone else wants to bother. If you succeed, let me know if it’s worth the read.
14 comments on “3 Links I Love: The Worst Airline Ever is Still Worst, an Emirates Interview, A Long TPG Read”
NY Time article is far too long to read – you’re not the only one to think that way
+1
NYT article was way too long and the approach to points and loyalty programs has been adopted by others many times over, it’s not new or novel anymore and in the post-pandemic world, probably irrelevant.
The Times article is far too long. Frankly I found it incredibly sad. I saw online that Brian Kelly was flaunting the publicity but he failed to miss the tone. It’s incredibly depressing to see leagues of tw@ts obsess over points for their box-checking trips to get the perfect “Instagrammable” moment. Overtourism is (was) real. I’m a Croatian dual citizen and I love the country beyond words but it breaks my heart when I hear screaming hordes of “whoo-oh-my-god’ tourists visiting Dubrovnik only for the Kings Landing Walking tours. The points hype is a HUGE part of this. It’s sad when people travel not for the experience of a new culture but only for the Insta photo or passport stamp. There are countless cities like Dubrovnik that are dying under the influx of 10s of millions of clueless tourists and Brian Kelly is a big part of the problem.
“It’s sad when people travel not for the experience of a new culture but only for the Insta photo or passport stamp. There are countless cities like Dubrovnik that are dying under the influx of 10s of millions of clueless tourists.”
In our new social media world where the selfee & self absorbed rule, this is what you end up with.
Not worth the read. I don’t know how Brian got the NYT to publish a puff piece of this length; the author reveals nothing insightful or new, and the credible accusations against Brian of inappropriate workplace behavior are minimized. I would have loved for it to be more critical of the relationship between the credit card industry and bloggers.
I like The Points Guy’s posts, but there is too much sponsored crap trying to sell me on credit cards. I only have 2 AA credit cards, and I only use one. For the other one, I sign up, get the points, and drop it after a year. Then a year later I do it again. I don’t want to have piles of cards and all that crap.
Same here, but I keep the DL Amex card and go back and forth on WN branded cards.
I managed to finish the NYT article. Half of the article wandered off and talked about the history of airline mileage system, including a side feature of Randy Petersen, and how airline leveraged the the program as a cash flow maker with the banks. Which it then looped back to Kelly and the credit card sign-up affiliate machine, and how the blog pivot to pandemic-related articles. Overall, not much new insight, other than specific amounts TPG was earning from the credit card referrals (which was significant).
I figured one of this week’s links would be about the end of “Caillou”!
Bill – Good riddance! I decided to keep that as more of a Twitter kind of thing. ;)
What will we do if Alitalia gets its act together?
Don’t worry, DesertGhost, that’ll never happen.
It would be like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. Total protonic reversal!