Texas travel

Travel + Leisure names 2 stunning Texas hotels among best of 2020

San Antonio's Hotel Emma has won yet another award.

Each year, Travel + Leisure unveils its highly anticipated World’s Best Awards, based on readers' picks for top hotels, resorts, cities, islands, spas, and more.

The 2020 World’s Best features the top 15 city hotels in the continental U.S., and two Texas properties have made the coveted list. The awards were based on a survey that closed in early March, before the pandemic truly gripped the U.S. Hotels were rated on their facilities, location, service, food, and overall value.

San Antonio's Hotel Emma takes the 15th spot, scoring 93.92 out of 100 points. Once a 19th-century brewhouse, it is now an award-winning, 146-room riverfront hotel, serving as the Pearl's flagship property in downtown San Antonio. Travel + Leisure notes that Hotel Emma “proudly showcases its past as a landmark brewery and stocks its mini-bars with South Texas treats.”

This is just the latest in a long list of accolades for the stunning spot. The hotel, which regularly ranks among the most lucrative in the state, was named the 10th best hotel in the U.S. by U.S. News & World Report earlier this year. And in 2018, Fodor's named it one of the most incredible hotels in the world.

The palatial Post Oak Hotel in Houston, owned by billionaire Tilman Fertitta, comes in even higher at No. 6, scoring 94.77 out of 100 points. Since opening in 2018, the Post Oak has received its share of awards, including being named Houston’s only AAA Five-Diamond hotel. The hotel is known for its sunset helicopter excursions, Rolls-Royce chauffeuring, and $1 million wine room.

And No. 1? That honor goes to The Mark in New York City, a hip inn in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, with a score of 96.24.

Sadly, no Dallas-Fort Worth properties made the list this year.

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Holiday Travel News

American Airlines briefly halts flights nationwide for technical issue

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

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American Airlines briefly grounded flights nationwide Tuesday due to a technical issue just as the Christmas travel season kicks into high gear.

American flights were cleared to fly by federal regulators about one hour after a national ground stop order was issued by federal regulators.

Just before 8 am Dallas time, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all American Airlines flights grounded in the U.S. at the airline’s request. American had reported a technical issue affecting its entire system with millions traveling for the holiday.
The ground stop, according to the time stamps on the FAA's orders, lasted exactly one hour.

American has not expanded on what technical issue grounded the flights and the airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The groundings couldn't come at a worse time for the millions of travelers expected to fly over the next 10 days. The Transportation Security Administration expects to screen 40 million passengers over the holidays and through January 2.

Many flights during the holidays are sold out, which makes cancellations even more disruptive than during slower periods. Even with just a brief outage, the cancellations have a cascading effect that can take days to clear up.

In December 2022, Southwest Airlines stranded 2 million travelers, and Delta Air Lines suffered a smaller but significant meltdown after a worldwide technology outage in July caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.

Southwest was ordered to pay a $35 million fine as part of a $140 million settlement to resolve a federal investigation into the Christmas debacle of 2022.

Excluding the settlement, the nation’s fourth-biggest airline by revenue said the meltdown cost it more than $1.1 billion in refunds and reimbursements, extra costs and lost ticket sales over several months.

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