Raphael Stevens

United Airlines is raising annual fees for its popular rewards credit cards and yearly lounge passes.
The carrier is also changing some of the benefits.
Airlines have been adjusting their loyalty programs to reward their biggest spenders, facing challenges like packed first-class cabins and airport lounges.

A row of United Airlines passenger planes parked at gates at Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado.
Robert Alexander | Getty Images

United Airlines is raising fees for annual airport lounge membership and its rewards credit cards, a test of how much consumers will shell out for popular travel perks.
The carrier announced the changes Monday alongside sign-up bonuses for its co-branded cards from JPMorgan Chase, as well as new cardholder benefits including ride-share credits and award flight discounts.

“Yes, there are fee increases but we were very, very cognizant of ensuring that the value increments and the benefits that are delivered outweigh any increase in the cost of those cards,” Richard Nunn, chief executive of United’s MileagePlus loyalty program, told reporters. United had been working on the changes to its card portfolio for the past year or so, Nunn said.
Airlines have steadily increased the prices of everything from checked bags to seat assignments and offered perks that used to come for free as part of a package when customers sign up for co-branded credit cards.

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United added about 17 million Mileage Plus members over the past “couple of years” Nunn said, and views the new card perks as a way to encourage more United flyers to sign up for the co-branded cards.
Loyalty revenue, including from popular rewards credit cards, has given airlines a windfall. Aside from passenger and cargo revenue, United brought in $3.49 billion in “other” revenue, up 10% from last year, mostly due to an increase in co-branded card spending and other non-airline partners, as well as airport lounge memberships, it said in its annual filing last month.
Here’s what’s changing with lounges:

Starting Monday, United will offer two tiers of memberships to its United Club airport lounge network.
Individual memberships will go for $750 a year or 94,000 United loyalty points, with access for the passholder only.
For customers looking to take up to two guests into the lounge, it will cost $1,400 or 175,000 miles, for United Clubs and Star Alliance partner lounges.
Lounge memberships, including two guests, previously cost $650 a year, though there were discounts for customers with elite frequent flyer status.
Customers with an existing membership will keep the terms that they signed up for until their membership expires.

Here are the credit card fees that are changing and some of the new benefits:

The new fees go into effect with new sign-ups starting Monday, but benefits will be active for existing card members.
The United Explorer card goes to $150 a year from $95, and additional benefits include a $60 rideshare credit.
The United Quest card goes to $350 a year from $250 and includes $100 of rideshare credits, two upgrades to extra legroom seats and $200 in United travel credits.
The United Club Infinite Card goes to $695 a year from $525, which also includes an annual lounge membership, $150 in rideshare credits and the ability to earn Premier 1K elite status through card spending and bonus qualifying points. More

Fast-food chains have been leaning into innovative beverages in the hopes of winning over Gen Z customers.
Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Chick-fil-A are among the chains that have been working on their drink offerings by introducing fun, fruity flavors.
Restaurants typically generate higher profits from beverages than from food sales.

Chick-fil-A pineapple dragonfruit beverages.
Courtesy: Chick-fil-A

Fast-food chains are going all in on fun beverages to attract younger consumers.
Chick-fil-A, known for its straightforward menu of fried chicken and waffle fries, is selling seasonal Pineapple Dragonfruit drinks. Yum Brands’ Taco Bell installed a beverage concept called Live Mas Café inside one of its California locations. McDonald’s is in its second year of testing its drinks-focused spinoff, CosMc’s.

Restaurant operators are betting that drinks with exotic flavors, bright colors and high caffeine and sugar counts will mean higher sales — and better margins.
Fast-food chains are increasingly adding beverage options and widening the number of items within that segment. Refreshers and agua frescas are increasingly showing up on menus, while fast-food chains expand their specialty iced coffee, hot chocolate and energy drink options, according to market research firm Datassential.
Fast-food chains’ recent focus on drinks mirrors the broader restaurant industry as the number of beverage-focused concepts climbs. More regional coffee shops are coming for Starbucks’ crown. Plus, consumers have embraced buying drinks beyond coffee, such as bubble tea and “dirty soda,” the Utah trend of adding syrups, creamers and juice to soda that has spread nationwide.
More and more full-scale establishments are basing their entire businesses on the growing segment. Beverage chains Swig, 7 Brew Drive Thru Coffee and Gong Cha are among the 10 fastest-growing quick-service restaurant chains by sales, according to restaurant market research firm Technomic.
The trend also follows the decadeslong decline in soda consumption since its peak in 2000.

“As the consumer moves away from the traditional soda, there’s an opportunity for operators and different brands to bring something signature to the table that is more in line with their brand in certain instances, but also an opportunity to potentially charge a little more,” said Michael Parlapiano, managing director of the Culinary Edge, a consulting firm that has helped Noodles & Company, McDonald’s and First Watch on menu offerings.

Attracting Gen Z

Restaurants are hoping hot chocolate and flavored lemonades can help build loyalty with Gen Z consumers.
Compared to previous generations, Gen Z is the most open to new flavors and comes from the most diverse backgrounds. Gen Z’s openness gives fast-food chains more latitude to explore more unusual offerings, such as butterfly pea or ube, according to Parlapiano. Monin, a French company best known for its flavored syrups, tapped yuzu, an East Asian citrus fruit, as its flavor of the year for 2025.
Traditionally, large fast-food chains are less likely to experiment with such audacious flavors, but even they have stepped outside of their comfort zones. For example, Wendy’s current lemonade lineup includes blueberry pomegranate and pineapple mango — two choices that have paid off for the burger giant.
“Our premium craft lemonades are also incredibly loved by our customers, and this product over-indexes with Hispanic consumers and Gen Z,” Wendy’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer Lindsay Radkoski said at a recent investor event.

An exterior view of a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, on May 19, 2024.
Paul Weaver | SOPA Images | Getty Images

Restaurants have also been inspired to mix different drink trends favored by Gen Z, hoping that the unique mashups will attract adventurous consumers.
For example, the soaring popularity of bubble tea, with its chewy tapioca balls, has inspired restaurant chains to add their own boba-inspired touches to drinks beyond tea. CosMc’s, the McDonald’s spinoff, offers dried blueberries and fruity popping boba as customizations for some of its drinks. Shake Shack’s tropical kiwi lemonade includes tiny pieces of kiwi inside the drink, adding a new texture and evoking the chewiness of boba pearls, Parlapiano said.
While different than a traditional soda, restaurants’ foray into drink innovation often means just as much sugar, if not more, depending on the syrups and add-ons. But that doesn’t change Gen Z’s appetite for them.
“We think of it as ‘little treat’ culture. What I can spend is in the grand scheme of things, not a huge sum of money, and yes, I can splurge on this big sugary drink,” said Claire Conaghan, trendologist and associate director for Datassential. “I think the younger consumer is pretty aware that they’re full of sugar, but they’re OK with that as their preference for where they get their sweet treat.”

The Sour Cherry Energy Burst drink at CosMc’s has fruity boba.
Stacey Wescott | Tribune News Service | Getty Images

Beyond the soda fountain

For some chains, beverages have taken center stage as an area for improvement — and future sales growth.
“We recognize that it’s not just about carbonated sodas anymore,” El Pollo Loco CEO Liz Williams told CNBC. “So we did a deep dive in beverage innovation this year.”
El Pollo Loco’s expanded drink offerings now include more flavors of its Aguas Frescas, which are fruit-infused waters. Future drink innovation could mean following the mashup trend, such as selling horchata coffee, Williams said.
Wendy’s also wants more of its customers to order drinks. Roughly 30% of Wendy’s customers do not add a beverage to their order, according to a recent investor presentation.
“This is an opportunity for growth when these are highly profitable,” Wendy’s U.S. President Abigail Pringle told analysts.
In many cases, beverages generate higher profits and are easier to add to menus than a new food item. While a customer sees a new flavor, for the workers making the drinks, it’s just swapping out a syrup flavor or adding a new drizzle on top. With just a little more labor, restaurants can charge a lot more. Plus, syrups also usually have longer expiration dates than food items and are easier to store, according to Datassential’s Conaghan.
Wendy’s new focus on beverages dovetails with its strategy to keep growing its breakfast sales. When the chain launched its breakfast menu nationwide for the first time in early 2020, the early morning menu featured only a few coffee options, such as its Frosty-ccino, which has since been replaced by the Frosty Cream Cold Brew.   
“Our next horizon of growth at breakfast is in beverages,” Radkoski said.

Taco Bell Chief Marketing Officer Taylor Montgomery reveals the second location of the Live Más Café.
Courtesy: Taco Bell

Likewise, Taco Bell focused on the future opportunity presented by beverages during its investor presentation earlier this month.
“We believe that beverages can be a new core craving for Taco Bell, and we see a line of sight to building a $5 billion beverage business by 2030,” Taylor Montgomery, Taco Bell’s North American chief marketing officer, said in an investor presentation earlier this month ahead of the brand’s Live Mas Live event.
Taco Bell is looking to its new Live Mas Café concept to inform future drink innovation. In December, the chain opened the first location inside an existing store in Chula Vista, California. So far, it has helped the restaurant achieve double-digit transaction and sales growth, according to Taco Bell executives.
The Live Mas menu features more than 30 drinks, spanning different day parts. Highlights include refrescas that are caffeinated with green tea or Rockstar energy drinks; Churro Chillers; and a “Dirty Baja,” made by adding cream to its signature Baja Blast Mountain Dew.
“Things that we’re learning within the Live Mas Café concept, we’re pulling out and trying to scale across all of our units in the U.S.,” Montgomery said, adding that the company wants to aggressively expand the Live Mas Café this year.
Later this year, Taco Bell plans to bring its Dragonfruit Refresca to all U.S. restaurants.

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French luxury retailer Printemps opened its first U.S. store in New York City.
The company, which was founded in 1865, has 20 department stores in France
It is opening the store at a time when luxury sales have slowed around the globe.

Printemps’ new store is located in New York City’s Financial District. The store has creative merchandise displays, such as in its sneaker room.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

A piece of Paris has landed in New York City.
French luxury retailer Printemps officially opened its first U.S. store this week in the city’s Financial District. The retailer celebrated its opening on Friday, which coincided with the start of spring — its namesake.

The 55,000-square-foot store spans two floors and carries a wide range of merchandise, including clothing, shoes, handbags, makeup and more. About 25% of its brands are either not available or rare in the U.S., such as the Joseph Duclos brand, a French luxury name that made a handbag sported by Taylor Swift, Printemps CEO Jean-Marc Bellaiche said.
In an interview with CNBC, Bellaiche said the retailer aims to stand out from other luxury players with the store’s eye-catching architecture; unique mix of popular luxury brands and hard-to-find French brands; and programming and services, which include beauty and spa treatments and clothing and accessory repairs.
Printemps Group was founded in 1865 and operates 20 department stores in France. Compared with its French stores, the U.S. location has more of an experiential bent, with rotating displays of merchandise resembling pop-up shops and food concepts, including a restaurant and a café with French pastries. Its playful design is inspired by a Parisian apartment, and it is located at One Wall Street, a historic Art Deco skyscraper.
For instance, one of the highlights of the Printemps store is the Red Room. The Art Deco-style room was decorated floor to ceiling with red and gold mosaics by master muralist Hildreth Meière and completed in 1931. It was previously a reception room and banking hall for the Irving Trust and Bank Company, and was designated an interior landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Printemps restored the room and turned it into a “shoe forest” where shoppers can browse for footwear or order a glass of wine at a nearby bar.

The store also will include Maison Passerelle, a fine dining restaurant steered by Gregory Gourdet, a two-time Top Chef finalist and three-time James Beard award winner. It will open in April.
Printemps is opening the U.S. store as luxury spending slows across the globe. Even some wealthier consumers have pulled back on discretionary purchases because of inflation and economic uncertainty. In China, a key market for higher-end goods, luxury spending has not bounced back to pre-pandemic levels.
Sales in the global luxury industry are projected to grow 1% to 3% annually through 2027, according to a report last month by consulting firm Kearney. The report attributed the slowdown to weaker demand among Chinese consumers, inflationary pressures in the U.S. and economic uncertainty fueled by trade disruptions and policy changes by the Trump administration.
That is a marked change from 2020 to 2021, when global luxury spending jumped about 27%, according to Kearney’s report. Global luxury spending across goods and services totaled an estimated $500 billion in 2024.
Still, Brian Ehrig, one of the report’s authors and a partner in Kearney’s consumer practice, said the U.S. remains an attractive market for luxury brands because of consumers’ resilience.
“On a relative basis, we have the healthiest economy, if you look at the major economies,” he said. “And then the other thing is, Americans love to shop.”
Ehrig added that other high-end retailers have doubled down on investments in large and eye-catching physical stores, too, such as LVMH-owned Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton opening new stores in New York City. He said the in-person experience is more critical in a sector where items come with such high price tags and expectations for personal service.
“There’s something special about being in a luxury retail store, about the way you’re taken care of and you’re made to feel like a VIP when you’re there,” he said. “And there’s just no way to do that online or on an iPhone.”
Other internationally based retailers with lower price points are expanding and opening more stores in the U.S., too, including Ireland-based Primark and Spain-based Mango.
For Printemps, the U.S. opportunity became clear, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic, as more Americans visited Paris and came to its stores, Bellaiche said. In terms of sales, Americans are the third-largest spenders for Printemps after the French and Chinese, he added. Yet, Americans are closing the gap, with sales to American customers tripling from 2019 and 2024, he said.
Even with its luxury focus, Laura Lendrum, CEO of Printemps America, said the store mixes in more approachable items for tourists or aspirational shoppers who may stop by for a cup of coffee or browse for a $50 gift.
Here’s a look inside the store:

Printemps turned the Red Room into its shoe department. The mosaic-covered space was designated an interior landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

Customers can also stop for a drink at the Red Room Bar, which is on the ground floor of One Wall Street. It’s one of the food and bar offerings that the retailer added to try to attract store visits and drive repeat visits.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

Salon Vert is one of five food and beverage concepts inside Printemps’ New York City store. It is a Paris-inspired raw bar. The store also includes a cocktail bar, restaurant and café named after Printemps’ founders Jules and Augustine Jaluzot.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

The store’s beauty department is in a hallway that links the building’s original Art Deco tower and its newer section. It will include some brands that are new to the U.S., such as French fragrance makers.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

While browsing for beauty items or clothing, customers can stop by The Champagne Bar.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

When shoppers enter Printemps from Broadway, they will walk into a multicolored marble space with casualwear and gifts. They can also order coffee or a croissant at Café Jalu, which is named after Printemps’ founders Jules and Augustine Jaluzot. The store’s design is inspired by a Paris apartment, and this space is intended to be the playroom.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York

The Boudoir-themed room in Printemps New York will display Printemps’ evening and vintage clothing. It will also showcase fine jewelry.
Courtesy: Gieves Anderson for Printemps New York More

London’s Heathrow Airport resumed flights late Friday local time after a nearly daylong outage.
The airport, Europe’s busiest, was closed due to a fire at a nearby electrical substation, disrupting nearly 1,000 flights.
As the fire appears to be outside of airlines’ control, flight compensation may not be payable, according to a note issued by Citi on Friday.

London’s Heathrow Airport closed Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a power outage, disrupting travel for tens of thousands of passengers planning to fly in or out of Europe’s busiest airport.
The first flight since the closure departed late Friday local time, and Heathrow posted on X that it hopes to run a “full operation” on Saturday.

More than 800 flights were canceled in and out of the airport on Friday, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware, as of the most recent update, upending travel at the major hub and connecting airport.
Airlines warned travelers that disruptions could continue into the weekend, and Heathrow posted that travelers shouldn’t go to the airport unless advised to do so by their airline.

FlightTracker data after a major electrical fire near Heather International closed the airport on March 21st, 2025
Source: FlightTracker24

London’s Metropolitan Police said that while there was “no indication of foul play,” the counterterrorism division would now lead the investigation into the fire.
“Given the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command is now leading enquiries,” the force said in a post on X.
“This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace to minimise disruption and identify the cause,” it said.

“Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage across the airport. … Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored,” a Heathrow spokesperson said earlier Friday.

Canceled and diverted flights

More than 120 flights were already in the air when the closure was announced and were diverted or returned to their originating airports, according to Flightradar24. Nearly three-quarters of the flights scheduled to depart from Heathrow, or 500 flights, and half of the arrivals destined for the airport, 300 flights, were also scrubbed.
Airlines around the world due to operate flights into and out of Heathrow told passengers to stay home.
The fire and airport closure left thousands of travelers stranded. British Airways was the most affected airline, with over half of its Friday schedule canceled.
The airline said it would offer “flexible options” for rebooking to passengers set to travel to or from Heathrow on Friday through the weekend, in an online post.
“Our teams are currently working hard to review our long-haul schedule as well as the implications for our schedule tomorrow and beyond,” it said in a statement.
As the fire appears to be outside of the airlines’ control, they may not be required to cover compensation, according to a note issued by Citi on Friday.
American Airlines, a British Airways partner across the Atlantic, said almost 20 flights from Thursday were diverted or canceled and that it provided overnight hotels for affected customers. It canceled another 20 on Friday.
It was not clear when its operations would resume, and a spokeswoman for American said it would restart Heathrow operations “when airport conditions allow.”
European travel and leisure stocks fell on news of the airport closure.

‘Catastrophic’ fire

Workers investigate the electrical substation following a fire at an electrical substation supplying power to the facility, in London, United Kingdom on March 21, 2025. The UK’s Heathrow Airport announced early Friday that it has been forced to close following a fire at an electrical substation supplying power to the facility. (Photo by Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Rasid Necati Aslim | Anadolu | Getty Images

Ed Miliband, U.K. energy minister, described the fire as “catastrophic,” according to Reuters, adding that the airport’s backup generator had been affected by the blaze.
Speaking to ITV’s “Good Morning Britain,” Miliband said the National Grid told him “it’s like a fire they’ve never, kind of, quite seen anything like the scale of what happened before,” according to a post by the program on X.
Miliband added that the National Grid was trying to use another backup system to restore power to the airport.
Power cuts also affected about 16,000 homes around the airport. As of 8 a.m. GMT, electrical supply was restored to all but around 4,900, according to the U.K. energy company Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks.

Travel chaos as London’s Heathrow remains closed. Here’s what airlines are telling passengers

‘It makes Heathrow look quite vulnerable’

Heathrow Airport has an estimated 1,300 takeoffs and landings at the airport per day, according to its website. It handled a record 83.9 million passengers last year — a nearly 6% increase from 2023.
Speaking to “Good Morning Britain,” Miliband said on Friday, “We’ve got to understand why this happened, and we’ve got to work out what the lessons are for the resilience of our infrastructure.”

Firefighters douses flames of a fire that broke out at a substation supplying power to Heathrow Airport in Hayes, west London on March 21, 2025. 
Benjamin Cremel | Afp | Getty Images

He said the National Grid is looking at whether there is “sufficient resilience” in place at the airport, given that the fire also affected a backup generator.
“It makes Heathrow look quite vulnerable. And therefore, we’ve got to learn lessons … about not just Heathrow, but how we protect our major infrastructure,” Miliband said.
Willie Walsh, CEO of the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, an airline industry group, criticized Heathrow Airport for being “totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative,” in an online statement, describing it as a “total planning failure” by the airport.
Walsh questioned who would cover the costs of the resulting travel disruptions.
“We must find a fairer allocation of passenger care costs than airlines alone picking up the tab when infrastructure fails,” he said. “Until that happens, Heathrow has very little incentive to improve.”

‘Very wide’ implications

Anita Mendiratta, a travel and tourism advisor and founder of consultancy AM&A, described the implications of the fire and closure of the airport as “very wide.”

“What we also need to take into account is over and above passenger traffic, over 4,000 tons of cargo go through Heathrow every single day,” she told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”
More than 1.4 million tonnes of cargo flew in and out of Heathrow in 2023, according to a post on the airport’s website, with 90% of goods transported in the hold of passenger aircraft.
Airport officials said they will update travelers “when more information on the resumption of operations is available.”
Travelers can check Heathrow Airport’s website or social media platforms, including X, for the latest information. More