News And Notes For Wednesday, June 18th, 2013

Marriott Rewards has reestablished a partnership with American Airlines’ AAdvantage program so you can earn miles in their program when you stay and redeem points for AAdvantage miles.  This partnership died a few years ago.  While I can’t say I was that sad to see it go (since I’m a Hyatt and Starwood guy) it did mean that the occasional Marriott stay I logged had to be credited to something else, such as (shudder) Marriott Rewards points.  More choices=better for the consumer.

Hyatt has opened a new Hyatt Regency in Gurgaon, India (near Delhi and Jaipur).  I really like the mock-ups of the rooms.  Hyatt continues to deepen its reach in a country where they have 20 properties, including 3 Park Hyatts.

Hack My Trip has a sneak peek at United’s new gate agent interface.  Who knew?  Instead of a bunch of lines of text blinking on a background they would decide to use things like a mouse and a visually clear interface.  How very 2002 of them!

I don’t spend a lot of time covering Delta since I think their program is a very weak value proposition.  But, I couldn’t help throwing in my two cents on Delta’s recent decision to eliminate mileage earning on some of its Skyteam alliance partners.  Who knows what Delta will do next, but I find it interesting how much power it appears Delta has when it comes to its alliance partners where it can essentially tell them they no longer want to reward Delta customers for flying on their partner airline.  They’re probably still happy to sell miles to that partner in case someone like Korean Air wants to reward you using SkyMiles.  And, I’m sure they offer them at very good price….