U.S. markets open in 1 hour 53 minutes

  • S&P Futures

    3,859.25
    -14.25 (-0.37%)
     

  • Dow Futures

    31,484.00
    +18.00 (+0.06%)
     

  • Nasdaq Futures

    13,041.25
    -183.00 (-1.38%)
     

  • Russell 2000 Futures

    2,235.90
    -14.20 (-0.63%)
     

  • Crude Oil

    62.09
    +0.39 (+0.63%)
     

  • Gold

    1,809.10
    +0.70 (+0.04%)
     

  • Silver

    28.04
    -0.04 (-0.16%)
     

  • EUR/USD

    1.2160
    -0.0007 (-0.06%)
     

  • 10-Yr Bond

    1.3700
    0.0000 (0.00%)
     

  • Vix

    24.54
    +2.49 (+11.29%)
     

  • GBP/USD

    1.4079
    +0.0014 (+0.10%)
     

  • USD/JPY

    105.2480
    +0.1950 (+0.19%)
     

  • BTC-USD

    46,165.78
    -8,894.12 (-16.15%)
     

  • CMC Crypto 200

    909.40
    -221.93 (-19.62%)
     

  • FTSE 100

    6,598.34
    -13.90 (-0.21%)
     

  • Nikkei 225

    30,156.03
    +138.11 (+0.46%)
     

OWG Offering Travelers a Chance to Win Their Lost Deposits

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

This new airline wants to do things differently by putting the well-being of travelers during the pandemic at the very heart of its concerns

MIRABEL, QC, Feb. 23, 2021 /CNW Telbec/ - As part of its HIGH LOVE campaign, OWG airline is offering travelers who lost their deposit because of the pandemic a chance to recover their money or get a credit toward a future flight. The company wants to use this original promotional initiative to bring a little sunshine into the lives of people whose travel plans were cancelled.

OWG Offering Travelers a Chance to Win Their Lost Deposits (CNW Group/OWG)
OWG Offering Travelers a Chance to Win Their Lost Deposits (CNW Group/OWG)

At the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, a number of airlines had to cancel hundreds of flights. Since they received no assistance from the government, as was the case in the majority of industrialized countries, some transporters found themselves unable to reimburse their customers. Not only did this situation create turmoil for many travelers, it also made them lose trust in their airlines.

"Currently thousands of travelers have fallen out of love with their traditional transporters. This promotion is our way to tell them that our heart is open and that there is always a local Québec based alternative for those who like to travel," said Marco Prud'Homme, President of OWG.

Open to all travelers
Those who wish to participate in this promotion just have to fill out a form on OWG.COM. They will be asked to explain why they deserve to be chosen based on their story – for example, a ruined wedding anniversary, an important trip canceled or any reason justifying why they deserve to win this sum. The questionnaire offers a choice between being reimbursed in cash or in the form of a credit applicable on a future OWG flight – once it's safe to travel again.

Each week, during an undetermined period, the OWG team will select a winner based on the merits of their storyline. A sum equivalent to the lost amount will be delivered in person by an OWG employee.

A HIGH LOVE promotion
OWG is a new airline launched during the pandemic that reinvents the travel experience by taking its travelers to heart. With this novel promotion, OWG wants to help out consumers being held captive by this crisis, as well as promote its services to travelers.

OWG carried out a first series of flights to Cuba this winter with a 94% satisfaction rating. The airline is offering a new formula based on customer satisfaction and personalized service, such as hearty free meals served on all its flights.

About OWG
OWG is a new airline established by Nolinor Aviation. OWG offers regular flights to certain Caribbean destinations with a fleet of 156-passenger Boeing 737-400s. For more details, visit OWG.com or follow @owg on Instagram.

OWG Offering Travelers a Chance to Win Their Lost Deposits (CNW Group/OWG)
OWG Offering Travelers a Chance to Win Their Lost Deposits (CNW Group/OWG)

SOURCE OWG

Cision
Cision

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/February2021/23/c1606.html

Recommended Stories

  • High school football kicks off in Massachusetts after season was delayed by pandemic

    Players and coaches are excited to be back on the field, but the winter weather and COVID-19 restrictions will make things more challenging.

  • Stock market news live updates: Stock futures mixed as tech shares come under more pressure

    Stock futures pointed to another mixed session on Tuesday as tech stocks extended their declines.

  • Treasury Tweaks PPP Loan Rules to Focus on Smaller Businesses

    The Treasury Department said Monday that it will alter the rules for the Paycheck Protection Program to get more aid to small businesses. For a two-week period starting Wednesday, the program will limit its loans to companies with 20 or fewer employees. President Joe Biden said Monday that the intent was to help mom-and-pop firms that may have been unable to get help from the government so far. “These small businesses — not the ones with 500 employees, but these small businesses that, with a handful of folks, they are 90 percent of the businesses in America,” Biden said at a news conference. “But when the Paycheck Protection Program was passed, a lot of these mom-and-pop businesses just got muscled out of the way by bigger companies who jumped in front of the line.” Established by the Cares Act last March, the PPP provides subsidized loans that are intended to help small businesses keep employees on their payrolls, and companies that meet the program’s requirements can have their loans forgiven. But some larger companies, including many that operate on a franchise model such as fast-food chains and car dealerships, have also benefited from the PPP, which has received $953 billion in funding from Congress. In its effort to get money to smaller and more independent businesses, some of which may lack the banking connections and bureaucratic savvy to get federal assistance, the program is also relaxing some of its rules. Self-employed workers, sole proprietors and independent contractors now qualify for larger loans, despite having no employees, and the program is now open to those who are delinquent on their student loans and to Green Card holders. The bottom line: Scheduled to expire on March 31, the PPP still has about $140 billion in unclaimed funds, but Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief plan would extend the program. The Small Business Administration, which operates the PPP, said Monday that smaller businesses are already beginning to receive a larger portion of the loans, and the more relaxed eligibility rules are expected to drive a new surge of loans in the coming weeks. Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter.

  • 'Retail suckers' with FOMO will eventually get crushed on Bitcoin, says Roubini

    'The reality is nobody knows what the value of this pseudo-asset is. It doesn’t have any value cause it doesn’t have any income, doesn’t have any use, doesn’t have any utility. So it’s a speculative play on a bubble that is self-fulfilling,' says Roubini.

  • Market Wrap: Bitcoin Stabilizes After Margin Calls Fuel Biggest Plunge in Month

    After a lot of drama, bitcoin’s back to trading where it was a few days ago.

  • S&P 500 Price Forecast – Stock Markets Have Pulled Back Yet Again

    The S&P 500 has been in a pattern lately that it sells off early in the day only to turn around and show signs of strength again.

  • Royal Caribbean advance bookings rise with eyes on vaccinations

    The company's shares, down 44% last year, soared 9% in morning trading, as Royal Caribbean said it recorded a 30% increase in new bookings since the beginning of the year when compared to November and December. Analysts have also tipped Royal Caribbean and its peers Carnival Corp and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd to resume voyages gradually in the back half of this year, after the pandemic-triggered months-long halt.

  • HSBC to announce exit from U.S. retail banking, reshuffles top jobs

    HSBC is set to withdraw from U.S. retail banking, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday, as Europe's biggest bank seeks to dispose of a business that has long underperformed. The exit from the U.S. consumer business will form part of the lender's strategy update due on Tuesday, as Chief Executive Noel Quinn seeks to cut costs, boost fee income and continue the lender's shift towards Asia. The sale or closure of its around 150 remaining branches in the United States, after it shuttered 80 last year, would mark the end of HSBC's struggle to turn around a business which has struggled to make inroads against incumbent domestic rivals.

  • Bitcoin Faces Price Turbulence as Market Liquidity Falls, Says JPMorgan

    With liquidity falling in the bitcoin market, smaller trades can have a relatively large price impact.

  • China's central bank joins cross-border digital currency pilot

    China's central bank will join a project looking at using central bank digital currencies (CBDC) for cross-border payments, the Bank of International Settlements said on Tuesday. CBDCs are like banknotes or coins, and give holders a direct claim on the central bank, potentially leapfrogging commercial banks. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has its own domestic CBDC project, the e-CNY, one of the most advanced initiatives of its kind in the world, in which real-life trials took place in several major cities.

  • British Airways owner IAG says pensions deal, loan help boosts liquidity

    British Airways-owner IAG said on Monday it had raised total liquidity by 2.45 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) by deferring pension contributions and finalising a loan, which will help it survive the travel slump for longer. "In addition to these arrangements, IAG continues to explore other debt initiatives to improve further its liquidity," IAG said in a statement.

  • Should You Follow Buffett Into Energy Stocks?

    Buffett has lately been doubling down on his energy investments while trimming his tech and banking holdings, and he's not the only billionaire making big moves in energy in 2021

  • Robots on Wall Street Wrestle With Confusing World of Reddit

    (Bloomberg) -- Rocket emojis for stock gains. “Tendies” as slang for profits. GIFs with company tickers.Reddit forum WallStreetBets is hard for humans to follow at the best of times. But spare a thought for the machines.After the retail stock frenzy last month caused unprecedented havoc, hedge funds trawling the platform with algorithms have a renewed sense of purpose in their mission to figure out the next market craze.Yet it’s proving a massive pain. It’s not easy training computers to extract the amateur chatter on message boards into data that’s anywhere fit for trading in the real world.Even for the very basic task of identifying securities, an algo has to learn how to match millennial-speak, memes and typos with the intended subject. And that’s only the start of it.Just ask the people behind the Reddit robots like Stefan Nann.“You cannot just apply the standard English library of words,” said the chief executive officer of Stockpulse, a social-media analytics firm in Germany. “We were reading through these comments and deciding ourselves if this comment is positive or negative -- that’s how we train the machine.”Sentiment analysis on WSB is the latest thing in the world of alternative data, which is projected to grow from last year’s $1.64 billion to $17.35 billion in vendor revenue by 2027. NN Investment Partners and PanAgora Asset Management are among systematic investors who scrape social media for trading signals, while more brokerages are offering clients tools to do just that.For good reason in theory. A strategy of following the herd would have yielded big profits, in retrospect.According to Stockpulse, an indicator measuring GameStop’s buzz on Reddit first peaked in early December, a solid month before its price started climbing. A strategy of simply buying the five companies most discussed on WSB in the previous week could have returned 61% in 2020, a backtest by data provider Quiver Quantitative showed.This is roughly how it works. A Reddit user is waxing lyrical on why BlackBerry Ltd. is worth more than four times its stock price. An algo trained by a vendor like MarketPsych then records the ticker and sweeps the post for trading sentiment signals.It tries to figure out the intensity of bullish calls from cues like “market leader,” emojis, the use of future tense, even expletives. Then the process gets repeated across swaths of securities.“Some are calling us because they’re trying to take advantage of the herd,” said Richard Peterson, a board-certified psychiatrist who founded MarketPsych. “Some are just trying to find ways to protect themselves.”But for the form of artificial intelligence known as natural-language processing, message boards aren’t as straightforward as, say, figuring out signals from a corporate executive on an earnings call.If a new slang emerges, the dictionary for the machines needs to be updated by the humans. Doing this worldwide is even harder. It took some time for MarketPsych’s team to figure out what different emojis mean in different cultures, or that British traders talking down a stock might use more subtle insults.In one example cited by StockPulse, the computer has to learn the difference between “hold” as a verb versus an exchange-traded fund with a ticker containing the same characters.These efforts are in big demand.“At some point it starts to resemble a single hedge fund because they all behave at the same time in the same way,” said Francesco Filia, CEO of hedge fund Fasanara Capital, which started monitoring Reddit internally last month. “You need to be on top of it.”Thinknum and Social Market Analytics are among the growing number of sentiment data providers who’ve recently rolled out products tallying up the stock chatter on Reddit in one form or the other. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, provides access to alternative data sources on the terminal and via the Bloomberg Data License.With individuals now accounting for about a quarter of U.S. equity trading volume, knowing where the retail cash heads next should in theory prove lucrative. Such insights would help the long-short crowd figure where the next market bombs land. The retail army in January famously inflicted a record industry squeeze as they crowded into some of the most hated names to hurt short sellers, or “shorties” in Reddit vernacular.At NN Investment Partners, data scientist Melissa Lin says its signal tracking sentiment in news and social media has been performing better than simply chasing price momentum.But particular forums like Reddit don’t have a sufficiently long history of stock-picking for the data crunching that quants like Lin do. And anecdotal evidence aside, retail investors don’t have a consistently strong track record, she says.“It’s not a simple linear relationship between sentiment and stock returns,” Lin said. “You need a lot more research to filter out the noise to actually make it useful.”Read more: Quants Sound Alarm as Everyone Chases Same Alternative DataEmmanuel Hauptmann says his quant team at RAM Active Investments has recently started monitoring stock babble on Twitter -- which it sees as highly correlated with Reddit -- but his expectations are low.“For the moment we see it as a purely tail risk reduction,” the fund manager said. “We don’t use it as an alpha signal.”Still, even with all the data in the world to track the ebbs and flows of retail sentiment, market timing is everything.“Once people are all-out in your face -- saying ‘I love this, death to the shorts!’ -- that’s too late,” said Peterson at MarketPsych.(Adds tout on alternative-data story)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Broker IG pulls some of its riskier products after GameStop frenzy

    In response to a story by the Financial Times, IG said it would be withdrawing less than 8% of the 12,000 leveraged equities products it offers. Leveraged products allow traders to increase their exposure to the market with a relatively small capital investment. Big bets by individual investors, particularly in the shares of U.S. retailer GameStop, have triggered massive price swings in some stocks around the world, leading some people to make hefty profits but leaving others facing large losses.

  • U.K.’s Vaccine Milestone Ignites World-Beating Market Rally

    (Bloomberg) -- A world-leading vaccine campaign is bringing U.K. markets back to life.With one in three adults receiving at least one shot, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has just set out a roadmap for lifting lockdown -- giving cross-asset bulls fresh ammo.Among the biggest moves of late: The pound has rallied faster than any other major currency this year. U.K. stocks have been generating outsized gains in dollar terms. Companies have been enjoying a borrowing bonanza that’s looking historic.For many investors who fled in the aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote, buying Britain looks like a safer bet today.“We refrained from being overweight U.K. equities for many years as it has significantly lagged other regions ever since the Brexit referendum,” said Michael Herzum, head of macro strategies at Union Investment in Frankfurt. He’s now buying the FTSE 250 while selling the Eurostoxx Index.Here’s how the catch-up trade is playing out.Currency SupremacyAs the country delivers one of the fastest immunization programs in the world, the pound is one of the hottest trades in currency markets -- gaining around 2.5% against the dollar this year.Just last week, it breached the $1.40 threshold for the first time since 2018, while surging to the strongest versus the euro since the depths of the pandemic panic last March.The sterling rally may now have fresh legs, as the U.K.-euro area monetary path diverges.“Rates markets are starting to price in a future decoupling between the ECB and the BOE policy outlook, helped by the BOE effectively killing market speculation on negative rates,” said Valentin Marinov, head of G-10 currency research at Credit Agricole.The yield on benchmark U.K. bonds has also risen faster than European peers and U.S. Treasuries in 2021, as markets price in a strong economic rebound and rising inflation expectations.Another gauge of the business cycle signals more good news. The nation’s yield curve -- as measured by the difference between the rates on five and 30-year debt -- is the steepest since 2018 led by moves in longer maturities.FTSE FansEven U.K. stocks are finding more love these days. For years billions have fled the Brexit-lashed market -- dubbed the least-loved region in the world.Now, negative bets are on the wane, according to this month’s Bank of America Corp. survey. A net 10% of respondents have bearish positioning compared with 34% three months ago.Sentiment is following price. While the FTSE 100 is lagging the Stoxx Europe 600 Index this year, on a dollar basis the index is besting a slew of companion gauges in the region.The rise in the British currency has been driving the outperformance of the more domestically exposed FTSE 250 against the exporters-geared FTSE 100 since the market bottom in March 2020.And there may be more juice left in the rally yet with valuations that are cheaper and dividend yields higher than global peers.Borrowing BonanzaAll this is helping U.K borrowers. At 3.8%, the average yield on sterling junk bonds, an indication of borrowing costs, is hovering near all-time lows.That’s pushing sales of corporate bonds in sterling to the fastest annual start in five years. Supermarket chain Asda Group Ltd. showed market hospitality for U.K. risk this month, pricing the largest-ever corporate bond in the British currency at 2.25 billion pounds ($3.15 billion), as part of its buyout financing.Sterling junk debt offers a yield pick-up of almost 180 basis points after currency-hedging costs are taken into account and have outperformed peers in Europe -- a selling point for investors outside the country.“A Brexit deal and the vaccine success means a lot of investors are starting to revisit,” the U.K. market, said Nicolas Trindade, a portfolio manager at Axa Investment Managers, which manages 758 billion pounds ($1.1 trillion).It’s a different story for investment-grade securities that are more prone to rate risk than their euro counterparts. The longer average duration on sterling corporate debt means it suffers as gilt yields rise -- for investors that’s inflicted the biggest year-to-date loss since 2008.(Updates with U.K. plan for economic reopening in second paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • 2 timeless lessons for investors from the past year

    A year ago, the S&P 500 began its sharp descent from its then record high as the coronavirus started to get seriously priced into the stock market.

  • Nigeria’s Crypto Ban Fuels Mistrust in Government

    A central bank ban on crypto transactions is at odds with the government's goal to build a digital economy around blockchain technology.

  • Texas Deep Freeze Delivers Macquarie $210 Million Windfall

    (Bloomberg) -- The Texas deep freeze that upended the U.S. energy market has delivered Macquarie Group Ltd. a windfall of as much as A$270 million ($210 million) amid wild swings in gas and electricity prices.The Sydney-based investment bank on Monday raised its profit forecast, citing increased demand for its gas and power supply services in the U.S. At the same time, Griddy Energy, a household supplier in Texas that’s backed by Macquarie Energy is handing out massive electricity bills to residents who used power when wholesale prices were spiking.Read more about soaring Texas electricity bills hereMacquarie is the second-biggest physical gas supplier in the U.S. behind BP Plc, and typically moves gas between different parts of the country based on last-minute customer needs.Last week the bank profited as its major clients -- including energy companies -- sought to buy and move higher-than-expected volumes of gas and electricity to their customers amid the crisis in Texas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The price of physical gas, which is normally less than $3 per million British thermal units, skyrocketed to as much as $1,250 in some locations last week.As the cold blast froze oil and gas wells, sent electricity prices to record highs and caused blackouts for 5 million homes and businesses, more of Macquarie’s customers ordered gas for Texas that had to be shipped from other parts of the country, the person said.Consumers are now feeling the impact of the huge price swings. Griddy customers in Texas are being handed massive utility bills some as high as $8,000. The supplier charges electricity based on real-time prices in wholesale markets, therefore passing the costs straight on to consumers. Griddy saw the problem developing and even urged its retail customers last weekend to switch to another provider. By Sunday last week, 20% managed to do so.A Giant Flaw in Texas Blackouts: It Cut Power to Gas SuppliesMacquarie’s commodities business is unusual among banks in the U.S., where counterparts such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley have had to curb commodities trading activities to satisfy regulators. But Macquarie, which expanded its commodities operations by purchasing Cargill Inc.’s power and gas trading business in the U.S. in 2017, doesn’t trade commodities with its own balance sheet, the person said.In its profit upgrade, Macquarie said the “extreme winter weather conditions in North America have significantly increased short-term client demand for Macquarie’s capabilities in maintaining critical physical supply across the commodity complex and particularly in relation to gas and power.”After two weeks ago saying earnings in the year ending March 31 will be “slightly” down on last year’s result, Macquarie on Monday forecast profit would now be up 5%-10%. That implies net income of about A$2.87 billion ($2.3 billion) to A$3 billion, compared to A$2.73 billion a year earlier.The improved outlook sent Macquarie shares to a one-year high in Sydney trading. The stock was up 3.7% to A$147.56 at 3:50 p.m. in Sydney, the highest since Feb. 21, 2020.(Adds information on electricity bills in sixth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Who is responsible for the world’s garment workers?

    Factory workers in Cambodia and Bangladesh are going hungry as Western clothing brands halt production, leading to tough questions about who is responsible for their plight.

  • Cost of flood damage to U.S. homes will increase by 61% in 30 years

    Rising sea levels and extreme weather could cause $20 billion of flood damage to at-risk U.S. homes this year, rising to $32 billion by 2051, according to research from New York-based flood research non-profit First Street Foundation published on Monday. "Increased awareness of flood risk and rising future insurance costs impact perceptions of value, which will impact real estate markets," said Matthew Eby, founder and executive director of First Street Foundation. The cost of flood damage was approximately $17 billion annually between 2010 and 2018, according to testimony https://science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Grimm%20Testimony.pdf from Federal Emergency Management Agency representative Michael Grimm.