Sean “Diddy” Combs, who settled rape and abuse allegations with the singer Cassie last week, faces growing scrutiny in the midst of his push to refresh and expand a business portfolio he spent decades cultivating.

In a letter filed with a New York court Friday before the settlement, the London-based spirit maker Diageo cited the accusations to bolster its monthslong effort to prevent Combs from serving as the face of DeLeón tequila, which he has run in a joint venture with it for a decade.

The letter came after a series of lawsuits Combs filed against Diageo, whose other brands include Johnnie Walker, Don Julio and Smirnoff.

In May, he accused the company of pigeonholing DeLeón and Cîroc, the vodka he fronted for 15 years, as “Black brands” for “urban” consumers, allegedly violating an equal treatment provision in their contract. In a subsequent October complaint, Combs said Diageo had blackballed him from the spirit industry over his racial discrimination claims, which have been put on ice until next spring. He alleged in last month’s retaliation suit that the company was sending him the message “speak up and you will be punished.”

Diageo ended the Cîroc partnership over the summer, saying at the time that Combs had breached his contract. But the parties are still feuding over the use of up to $15 million in advertising and promotional budgeting, some of it for DeLeón’s marketing next year.

Combs attended a party in 2019 featuring Cîroc, the vodka line he fronted for 15 years.Kevin Mazur / Getty Images for Sean Combs

In recent months, Diageo has argued in court documents that Combs’ accusations of racism, which it denies, have already made him an ineffective spokesperson. The new “public and disturbing accusations” against him risk “devastating and permanent damage” to the tequila brand, the company said Friday, adding that one influencer had already asked to cut ties with DeLeón on moral grounds.

In its court letter, Diageo pointed to a statement by Combs’ lawyer to The New York Times indicating he was aware that Cassie wanted to expose details of their relationship for at least six months before they emerged publicly. That period, the company said, “happens to correspond with the pendency of Combs Wines’ original lawsuit against Diageo.”

Diageo declined to comment beyond the statements in the court documents.

A spokesperson for Combs didn’t comment on the Diageo dispute but said the decision to settle with Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, “does not in any way undermine his flat-out denial of the claims. He is happy they got to a mutual settlement and wishes Ms. Ventura the best.”

In the days since the rape accusations emerged, scrutiny of Combs and members of his business circle has intensified. On Wednesday, his music label, Bad Boy Records, was sued along with its parent company and former president, Harve Pierre, accusing Pierre of sexually assaulting an unnamed assistant at the label.

“The allegations are from many years ago that were never brought to the attention of the company,” a Bad Boy Entertainment spokesperson said. “Neither the plaintiff nor the executive are current employees of the company. We are now investigating the allegations, and our top priority is the safety and well-being of our employees.”

Pierre didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Monday, a co-host of a podcast on Combs’ Revolt media network announced she wouldn’t participate in a third season.

“I am a [sexual assault] survivor & I cannot be part of a show that’s supposed to uplift black women while @Diddy leads the company,” Dawn Montgomery, who hosts “Monuments to Me,” a podcast about Black women’s issues and successes, posted on X.

Montgomery told NBC News that she empathized with Cassie’s allegations. “I cannot sign back on and say that I want to be paid to do a podcast where a few of the episodes were probably going to reflect this conversation,” she said. “Diddy and his people could never do anything towards me to make me feel like I needed to continue to be quiet.”

Revolt didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Old interviews with Combs’ associates addressing his alleged behavior and new comments critical of him have circulated on social media. Some users included the phrase “Surviving Diddy,” an apparent reference to the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” which featured accounts of women who accused the R&B artist of abuse over several decades. Kelly is serving time in prison for multiple sex crimes convictions.

At a performance in Los Angeles last weekend, the singer Kesha dropped lyrics referring to Combs in her 2009 hit single “Tik Tok,” whose opening line mentions him.

A 2016 fragrance photo shoot for Sean John, the popular streetwear label Combs launched in 1998.Penske Media via Getty Images

The pushback follows a flurry of business moves by Combs, 54, over the last 12 months.

He announced in September that he was returning publishing rights to some Bad Boy artists, telling Variety he was “doing the right thing” by making good on plans in the works since 2021. Several artists criticized the offer, saying they’d been asking for the rights for years but were unlikely to earn much from music that was more profitable decades ago.

In February, he rebranded his Combs Enterprises as Combs Global to reflect his evolution “as a business leader and a bigger vision to build the largest portfolio of leading Black-owned brands in the world.” The venture includes Empower Global, an e-commerce marketplace launched in 2021 aimed at supporting Black entrepreneurs.

The refresh came three months after Combs agreed to acquire a pair of cannabis operations in a deal valued at up to $185 million at the time, but the plan fell through in July after the merger that would have spun them off collapsed. In May, Combs rolled out a new R&B label, Love Records, as part of a deal with Motown Records, under which he released his fifth studio album in September.

Combs, whose net worth has been estimated at $1 billion, shot to fame in the early 1990s as a music promoter-turned-talent director before he set out to run his own label, with Bad Boy Records representing artists from the late Notorious B.I.G. to Faith Evans. One of his earliest major ventures outside music was in fashion, with the Sean John streetwear label, which launched in 1998. Combs sold the bulk of the brand in 2016 for an estimated $70 million, then bought it back from its bankrupt owner for around $7.5 million five years later.

A Macy’s spokesperson said the retailer began phasing out Sean John starting this fall in a move unrelated to the allegations against Combs. Other major sellers of the line, including Nordstrom and Saks Off 5th, didn’t respond to requests for comment; neither did Sean John’s parent company.

Some crisis communications experts said Combs’ quick settlement of the abuse claims could blunt further damage to his brand and businesses.

“Diddy avoided much of that pain by getting this thing resolved quickly,” said Evan Nierman, CEO of the public relations firm Red Banyan. “I think resolving the legal matter and having it completely closed to their mutual satisfaction is going to help inoculate him against seeing his career permanently destroyed.”

He said he wasn’t surprised that other celebrities and major brands largely haven’t weighed in. “I expect people to remain quiet on the topic now while it’s in the headlines,” he said, adding, “This is not going to have a lasting damaging effect on him.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday ordered Toyota’s credit arm to pay $60 million for tricking customers into unnecessary products that it then made unreasonably hard to cancel.

The agency said thousands of borrowers complained that Toyota Motor Credit employees had added extra products to their loans, racking up fees for the company at consumers’ expense. It then made it unreasonably hard for consumers to cancel those services.

Toyota Motor Credit is based in Plano, Texas, and it provides financing for people buying cars through Toyota dealerships.

The company admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

The CFPB said the company will pay $32 million to consumers who did not receive refunds they were owed; $9.9 million to consumers who tried to cancel their policies but were unable to do so; $6 million to consumers who were harmed by false information sent to a consumer reporting company; and $52,000 for those who were given inaccurate refunds. Toyota’s finance arm will also pay a $12 million penalty to the agency’s victim relief fund.

In one example, the CFPB said Toyota Motor Credit told customers that if they wanted to cancel extra products bundled into their car loans, they should call a hotline that had been set up to frustrate them. Employees who answered the phone were told to continue promoting the products until the customer asked them to cancel three times. At that point, the employee was supposed to say that the only way to cancel was to file a written request.

More than 118,000 customers called that hotline from 2016 to 2021 alone.

In addition to paying the fines and restitution, the agency said Toyota Motor Credit will also be required to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted coverage, inform consumers that they can cancel the products online or in writing, and monitor dealers to make sure they don’t add products to customer loans without the borrower’s consent. The company will also be prohibited from tying employee compensation or performance metrics to consumer retention of bundled products such as the ones at issue in the case.

The agency said the unnecessary products included Guaranteed Asset Protection, a type of insurance that covers the difference between the amount a consumer owes on their auto loan and what their insurance pays if the vehicle is stolen, damaged or totaled; Credit Life and Accidental Health coverage, which covers the remaining balance on the loan if the borrower dies or becomes disabled; and vehicle service agreements, which reimburse borrowers for parts and service beyond what is covered by the manufacturer’s warranty.

The CFPB said those products averaged $700 to $2,500 per loan.

The agency also said the company knowingly gave false information to ratings agencies, hurting their customers’ credit scores by telling the reporting companies the consumers were missing their payments when they had actually returned the vehicles they had leased.

Cruise CEO and co-founder Kyle Vogt has resigned from his role at the autonomous vehicle venture owned by General Motors, according to a company statement sent to CNBC on Sunday.

Mo Elshenawy, who previously served as executive vice president of engineering at Cruise, will now serve as president and CTO for Cruise, the company said. 

Vogt confirmed his resignation Sunday night in a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter. He did not give a reason for the resignation, and said he plans “to spend time with my family and explore some new ideas.”

The departing CEO also offered words of encouragement, writing: “Cruise is still just getting started, and I believe it has a great future ahead. The folks at Cruise are brilliant, driven, and resilient. They’re executing on a solid, multi-year roadmap and an exciting product vision. I’m thrilled to see what Cruise has in store next!”

Vogt’s resignation follows a string of missteps by Cruise.

As CNBC previously reported, the company issued a voluntary recall affecting 950 of its robotaxis, and suspended all vehicle operations on public roads following a series of incidents that sparked criticism from first responders, labor activists and local elected officials, especially in San Francisco. 

In one serious incident in October, the human driver of another vehicle struck a pedestrian in San Francisco at night, tossing her into the path of a Cruise self-driving car, which then drove over and dragged her.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles suspended Cruise’s deployment and testing permits for its autonomous vehicles after that incident. “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits,” the regulators said in a statement at the time.

In orders of suspension the California DMV issued to Cruise, the regulators accused the company of failing to give a transparent account of what happened during the pedestrian collision.

Separately, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Cruise to determine whether its automated driving systems “exercised appropriate caution around pedestrians in the roadway,” according to a filing on the agency’s website.

GM purchased Cruise in 2016. It then brought on investors such as Honda Motor, Softbank Vision Fund and, more recently, Walmart and Microsoft. However, last year, GM acquired SoftBank’s equity ownership stake for $2.1 billion.

GM execs, including CEO and Chair Mary Barra, had hoped the startup would be ramping up a driverless transportation network this year, and hoped Cruise would play a notable role in doubling the company’s revenue by 2030.

In October 2021, GM said it expected “new businesses” such as Cruise and its BrightDrop commercial EV business to grow from $2 billion to $80 billion during that timeframe.

According to its most recent quarterly update, GM has lost roughly $1.9 billion on Cruise between January and September 2023, including $732 million in the third quarter alone.

Barra also serves as chair of the Cruise board of directors. Former Tesla and Lyft executive Jon McNeill, a member of GM’s board of directors since 2022, was appointed vice chairman of the self-driving unit’s board following Vogt’s resignation.

Alex Roy from transportation consultancy Johnson & Roy told CNBC, “Responsibility starts at the top. If Cruise is going to survive, and they have great technology there, the CEO had to go.”

“I suspect at least one more high level exec will have to resign — anyone who made the call to obfuscate or omit information in communication with the California DMV,” he said. “In my opinion, Cruise has been too slow in taking steps to rebuild trust with staff, regulators and the public. Executive departures are table stakes.”

Vogt’s resignation comes roughly two years after he was reappointed as CEO, following an unexpected departure by Dan Ammann, a former GM executive, in December 2021.

Ammann, a former investment banker, began leading Cruise in 2019 after serving as GM’s president and chief financial officer before that. He was credited with the 2016 acquisition of Cruise.

The United Auto Workers announced Monday that employees at each of the Big Three U.S. automakers officially ratified new contracts.

It had been clear for several days that the contract would win approval. The union said 64% of employees at Ford, Stellantis and General Motors voted to accept the deals, which were won after a six-week strike.

The new contract will give union workers an immediate pay increase of 11%, and union members will get a total pay increase of 25% over the course of the 4½-year deal. The new contracts also reinstate cost-of-living adjustments, let workers reach top wages in three years instead of eight, and protect their right to strike over plant closures.

The contracts were negotiated after members of the UAW went on strike from Sept. 15 until late October, in its first simultaneous strike against Ford, GM and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler and other brands.

According to the UAW’s ratification trackers, 70.0% of employees at Stellantis and 69.3% at Ford voted for the new contracts. The vote was far closer at GM, where just 54.7% of voting members approved. The trackers show that 102,679 workers voted out of about 146,000 UAW members employed by the Big Three.

The new contracts are set to expire April 30, 2028. With ratification almost complete, the union is beginning to turn its sights toward Tesla and Toyota, whose U.S. workers aren’t unionized.

Max, the streaming service previously known as HBO Max, is lowering the price of its ad-supported product over the next week as it tries to win more subscribers to its low-priced, commercial-driven services.

From this Monday to next Monday, Nov. 27, new and returning Max subscribers will be able to sign up to the streaming service with ads for $2.99 a month as part of the Black Friday deal. The promotion will last for six months.

A subscription to Max with ads typically costs $9.99 per month.

Max ad-free plans cost $15.99 and $19.99 per month.

HBO is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which was formed by the $43 billion combination of WarnerMedia and Discovery in April 2022. The company changed the name of HBO Max to Max this May.

Earlier this month, Netflix said it had 15 million subscribers to its lower-priced plans with advertising.

Streaming services have been raising prices this year and also putting more emphasis on plans that include ads, as their lower prices are enticing to consumers while the advertising revenue the companies get helps to make up for the lower cost.

The future of OpenAI appeared in limbo Monday, with hundreds of company employees signing a letter calling on the board to step down after it was unable to reach an agreement to bring back ousted CEO Sam Altman.

Altman, whose departure from OpenAI was announced Friday, joined Microsoft early Monday after a weekend of boardroom drama that sent shock waves across Silicon Valley. Altman will lead a new artificial intelligence project at Microsoft, the tech giant said early Monday after rumors swirled that he could make a dramatic return to the company he helped build into one of the world’s hottest startups.

Hours later, a letter, which was first reported by Wired and journalist Kara Swisher and later shared with NBC News, said OpenAI employees would resign and possibly join Microsoft ‘unless all current board members resign, and the board appoints two new lead independent directors, such as Bret Taylor and Will Hurd, and reinstates Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.’

An OpenAI spokesperson said the letter had been shown to the board.

‘Your actions have made it obvious that you are incapable of overseeing OpenAI,’ the letter reads. ‘We are unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgement and care for our mission and employees. We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.’

As of late Monday morning, more than 700 names appeared on the letter, though NBC News has not confirmed all had chosen to sign it. Many of them had published identical posts on X reading, ‘OpenAI is nothing without its people.”

OpenAI has about 770 employees, the spokesperson said.

Ilya Sutskever, a board member and co-founder of OpenAI whose name also appeared on the letter, posted to X that he regretted his role in Altman’s exit.

He appeared to imply there were ongoing efforts to bring Altman back.

“I love everything we’ve built together and I will do everything I can to reunite the company,” he wrote.

Altman quoted the post, adding three hearts.

Emmett Shear, a co-founder and former CEO of the video streaming platform Twitch, confirmed that he would be the new interim CEO of OpenAI.

OpenAI, founded in 2015 with money from several tech billionaires, has emerged in recent years as the leader of a new wave of AI technology best known by the chatbot app ChatGPT. That app rocketed to popularity almost exactly a year ago, demonstrating the huge strides AI has made and making OpenAI the hottest tech startup on the planet.

Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella announced the Altman hire on X just before 3 a.m. ET, more than 48 hours after OpenAI’s board of directors said it “no longer had confidence” in Altman — a leading figure in the tech industry’s efforts to grapple with the promise and potential dangers of AI.

Microsoft is a major financial backer of OpenAI, and it has invested billions since its first funding deal in 2019. Since then, OpenAI has become the most visible of a new generation of AI companies — its ChatGPT, a large language model chatbot, is widely used and has become a symbol of everyday AI innovation.

Nadella said Microsoft was still committed to supporting OpenAI, which now has a new leadership team, while confirming that Altman will lead a ‘new advanced AI research team,’ alongside Brockman, an OpenAI co-founder who was pushed off the company’s board and later quit as its president Friday.

‘We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,’ Nadella said.

Altman reshared the post, adding: ‘The mission continues.’

OpenAI said it cut ties with him after a review found he was ‘not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.’

Brockman said Friday in a post to X that he and Altman were ‘shocked and saddened’ by the board’s decision but added that there are ‘greater things coming soon.’

CNBC reported Sunday that some OpenAI investors were pushing for Altman to be brought back after Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati was named interim CEO.

But Shear confirmed on X early Monday that he would instead be leading OpenAI.

He laid out a plan for his first 30 days, including hiring an independent investigator ‘to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report.’

Shear said that ‘OpenAI’s stability and success are too important to allow turmoil to disrupt them like this,’ adding that ‘I have nothing but respect for what Sam and the entire OpenAI team have built.’

Amazon is dialing up the pressure on corporate employees who haven’t complied with the company’s return-to-office mandate. 

Staffers who don’t adhere to the policy, which requires employees to be in the office at least three days a week, may not get promoted, according to posts on Amazon’s internal website that were viewed by CNBC.

“Managers own the promotion process, which means it is their responsibility to support your growth through regular conversations and stretch assignments, and to complete all the required inputs for a promotion,” one post says. “If your role is expected to work from the office 3+ days a week and you are not in compliance, your manager will be made aware and VP approval will be required.”

A separate post on Amazon’s internal career platform for employees says, “In accordance with Amazon’s overall approach to promotions, employees are expected to work from their office 3+ days/week if that is the requirement of their role.”

The post goes on to say that managers are working with Amazon’s human resources group to “monitor adherence” to the in-person work requirement, and “this will continue as we evaluate promotion readiness.”

Some details of the new guidance were previously reported by Business Insider.

Brad Glasser, an Amazon spokesperson, confirmed the announcement in an email.

“Promotions are one of the many ways we support employees’ growth and development, and there are a variety of factors we consider when determining an employee’s readiness for the next level,” Glasser told CNBC. “Like any company, we expect employees who are being considered for promotion to be in compliance with company guidelines and policies.”

Tensions have flared between Amazon and some of its roughly 350,000 corporate employees since the company began its return-to-office push. In May, the company began requiring that staffers work out of physical offices at least three days a week, shifting from a Covid-era policy that left it up to individual managers to decide how often team members should be present.

Following the mandate, a group of employees walked out in protest at the company’s Seattle headquarters. Staffers also criticized how Amazon handled the decision to lay off 27,000 people as part of job cuts that began last year.

Employees circulated an internal petition urging CEO Andy Jassy to drop the return-to-office requirement, but the company hasn’t budged. In recent months, Amazon informed some staffers they must relocate to central office hubs in different states if they want to keep their jobs, prompting some to quit, CNBC previously reported. 

Amazon’s stance has changed multiple times since the start of the pandemic in 2020. At first, the company said it would return to an “office-centric culture as our baseline.” But as other tech companies leaned toward more flexible work arrangements, Amazon relaxed its position.

The company later announced the RTO mandate, which CEO Andy Jassy said would lead to a stronger company culture and collaboration between employees. Amazon has a remote work exception in place and considers requests on a case-by-case basis.

“Teams tend to be better connected to one another when they see each other in person more frequently,” Jassy said at the time. “There is something about being face-to-face with somebody, looking them in the eye, and seeing they’re fully immersed in whatever you’re discussing that bonds people together.”

Sam Altman has joined Microsoft to lead a new artificial intelligence project, the tech giant said early Monday, after he was ousted as CEO of OpenAI in a move that sent shockwaves across Silicon Valley.

As rumors swirled that Altman could return after a weekend of boardroom drama, Microsoft announced he would join them instead and Emmett Shear, a co-founder and former CEO of the video streaming platform Twitch, confirmed that he would be the new CEO of OpenAI.

The chairman and CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, announced the Altman hire on X just before 3 a.m. ET, more than 48 hours after OpenAI’s board of directors said they “no longer had confidence” in Altman — a leading figure in the tech industry’s efforts to grapple with the promise and potential dangers of AI.

Microsoft is a major financial backer of OpenAI, one of the world’s hottest startups, and has invested billions since its first funding deal in 2019. Since then OpenAI has become the most visible of a new generation of AI companies — its ChatGPT, a large language model chatbot, is widely used and has become a symbol of everyday AI innovation.

Nadella said Microsoft was still committed to supporting OpenAI, which now has a new leadership team, while confirming that Altman will lead a ‘new advanced AI research team,’ alongside OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, who was ousted as its president on Friday.

‘We look forward to moving quickly to provide them with the resources needed for their success,’ Nadella said.

Altman reshared the post, adding: ‘The mission continues.’

OpenAI said it cut ties with him after a review found he was ‘not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities.’

Brockman said on Friday in a post to X that he and Altman were ‘shocked and saddened’ by the board’s decision, but added ‘greater things coming soon.’

CNBC reported on Sunday that some OpenAI investors were pushing for Altman to be brought back, after chief technology officer Mira Murati was named interim CEO.

But Shear confirmed on X early Monday that he would instead be leading OpenAI.

He laid out a plan for his first 30 days, including hiring an independent investigator ‘to dig into the entire process leading up to this point and generate a full report.’

Shear said that ‘OpenAI’s stability and success are too important to allow turmoil to disrupt them like this,’ adding that ‘I have nothing but respect for what Sam and the entire OpenAI team have built.’

OpenAI was this year ranked number 1 in CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list of the most impressive and fastest-growing private companies. The company rose to prominence in 2022 when it released ChatGPT to the public, allowing people to generate complex and detailed responses to simple text questions and prompts.

This year’s post-pandemic travel boom is continuing into the holidays.

Nearly half (48%) of Americans plan to travel between Thanksgiving and mid-January, up from 31% last winter, a recent Deloitte survey found. AAA expects 55.4 million travelers to venture at least 50 miles from home during the Thanksgiving period alone, a 2.3% increase from last year.

That means if you’re hitting the roads or the slopes this season, you’ll have lots of company. Here’s what to expect as you pack your bags for a winter getaway or to visit loved ones.

Airline ticket prices are falling even as more Americans intend to fly.

Deloitte found 33% of holiday travelers plan to take a domestic flight, up from 29% last year. Despite the strong demand, airfares were more than 13% cheaper last month than at same time a year ago, federal inflation data shows.

Domestic tickets are expected to be noticeably cheaper this season. Round-trip flights within the United States are set to average $268 during Thanksgiving (an annual decline of 14%) and $400 around Christmas (down 12%), according to the booking platform Hopper.

It’s more of a mixed picture for foreign getaways, for which Deloitte foresees softer demand.

Hopper expects international airfares to ease over the Thanksgiving holiday versus last year, but popular destinations in Mexico and the Caribbean are set to stay 5% to 11% higher than before the pandemic. And global flights around Christmastime are generally expected to stay elevated, according to Hopper, “with fares to all destinations outside the Caribbean and Oceania higher than 2019 and 2022 prices.”

Airlines and aviation officials sound confident about handling the holiday crush. While major U.S. carriers — including American, Delta and United — expect record passenger numbers this Thanksgiving, many are touting their readiness for the season.

“We are now so much better prepared for these extreme weather events,” Southwest’s chief operating officer, Andrew Watterson, told investors on a recent earnings call, referring to the carrier’s holiday meltdown last December.

American Airlines is reassuring customers that it “has been running the most reliable operation of any U.S. network carrier for the past 14 months.” And United unveiled a new boarding process last month that it says should speed up the process.

Track records for flight cancellations and missing luggage have improved ahead of the holidays. About 1.7% of flights were canceled during the first eight months of this year, much better than the 3.0% rate for the same eight-month period last year and 2.3% in the comparable stretch of 2019, the Department of Transportation reported. And in August, the latest month with available data, the mishandled baggage rate dropped to 0.61% from 0.75% the month before.

A broader push to streamline and automate operations “will continue to help curb mishandling as we approach the holiday season,” said Nicole Hogg, head of baggage for SITA, an air transport IT company. But travel experts still suggest adding an AirTag or other digital tracking device to your luggage, especially during busy travel periods.

“Mother Nature will cause some number of cancellations, guaranteed,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of the airfare tracking site Going. But he noted that “cancellations caused by the airlines — the most galling for travelers — are at multiyear lows” and added that many carriers have bulked up on pilots, planes and staff.

“The entire industry was snakebit from last year’s debacle,” Keyes said, “and airlines have adjusted their operations accordingly.”

More holiday travelers are set to book rooms than exclusively bunk with friends or family this year. Deloitte found 56% plan to stay in hotels, a sharp jump from 35% in 2022.

That could push up room rates, which were already 0.8% pricier in October than the year before. Jan Freitag, director of hospitality analytics at the commercial real-estate research company CoStar, said this season’s strong travel numbers will likely nudge Christmastime room rates above last year’s levels. In the first full week of November, they were up 4% in the U.S. from the same week a year ago, averaging $156 per night, CoStar said.

Price-conscious Christmas travelers might want to “book early to lock in lower rates, shorten their trips or trade down to a different class of service,” said Freitag, or else take their chances with last-minute reservations. Inventories will be slimmer in the eleventh hour, but hotels may still cut prices on unsold rooms.

Baby boomers, who represented just 21% of those traveling during the holidays in 2022, are expected to make up 29% of travelers this year, Deloitte projects.

“Last year, older Americans were more likely to cite potential travel disruption and health as reasons to avoid travel,” said Steve Rogers, managing director of Deloitte’s Consumer Industry Center. “But this year, inflation, health and travel disruption concerns may have eased, and boomers are making up for lost trips.”

Gen X travelers will also comprise a greater share of holiday travelers, Deloitte said, growing from 26% last year to an expected 29% this season. Millennial and Gen Z travelers, by contrast, are expected to fall back a bit — with millennials going from 36% of holiday travelers last year to 31% this year, and Gen Zers from 14% to just 8%.

How much each age group shells out over the holidays remains to be seen. The market research firm Future Partners found in a survey last month that boomers tend to have bigger full-year travel budgets — of around $4,408, above the $3,785 national average. However, PwC expects older travelers to trim their holiday travel spending by 22% since last year, partly so they can take more trips throughout the year.

“On the flip side,” said Jonathan Kletzel, PwC’s airline and travel practice leader, “Gen Z is making the biggest increase in their [holiday] travel spending, landing around 23% higher than last year.”

This year 75% of holiday travelers plan to use credit cards to cover at least part of their expenses, according to a recent NerdWallet/Harris Poll survey, even though about 8% of those who charged holiday travel costs last year are still paying them off.

Americans have piled on credit card debt this year even as rates have surged. But stiffer interest fees appear to be making some holiday travelers a bit more cautious than last year, when 85% put at least some holiday travel costs on plastic, NerdWallet found.

“One way travelers are finding balance between the experiences they want and an increase in costs is through points and customer loyalty programs,” said Kletzel.

A Morning Consul report this month backed that up, showing across-the-board jumps in consumers planning to use rewards for bookings at hotels, travel companies and airlines this season. The share of those making points-based travel reservations through credit card programs rose 13% this Thanksgiving from last year and 9% for the winter holidays.

“A lot of people are sitting on more credit card rewards and/or hotel points than they realize, and about a quarter didn’t redeem any over the past year,” said Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate. And because travel points typically don’t gain value once netted, he said, “it makes sense to earn and burn rewards strategically.”

T-Mobile is once again being accused of failing to protect sensitive consumer data after an employee at one of its retail stores stole nude images from a customer’s phone when she came to trade in an old device, according to a lawsuit filed Friday. 

The incident is similar to at least eight others levied against T-Mobile in the past, according to court records and news reports. The lawsuit comes as wireless companies and other tech giants face increasing pressure from lawmakers to do more to protect customer data. 

The suit, filed in Washington state court, accuses T-Mobile of failing to properly train its retail workers and “turning a blind eye” when employees use their access to steal customer data under the guise they’re helping them with repairs and data transfers.

“For almost a decade, T-Mobile customers across the United States have regularly reported, evidenced by news stories and lawsuits, instances of retail store employees stealing their intimate videos, explicit photos, and bank accounts,” the suit charges. “Nevertheless, T-Mobile has failed to implement any common-sense security hardware or software to protect consumers from their data and privacy being exploited during ordinary transactions at the T-Mobile store.”

T-Mobile didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The victim, who is only referred to as “Jane Doe” in the complaint, states she went to a T-Mobile store at the Columbia Center Mall, about 200 miles southeast of Seattle, last October to upgrade her iPhone XS Max to an iPhone 14 Pro Max. While there, she handed the old device off to an employee so he could transfer her data to the new device. 

While the worker had the phone, he found nude images of the victim and a video of her having sex with her partner on the camera roll of the XS Max and sent it to himself on Snapchat, the lawsuit states.  

Once the transaction was finished, Jane assumed her data was wiped from the old phone until later that evening, when she checked her Snapchat and saw that the images had been sent to an unknown account, which police later traced back to the T-Mobile employee.

“Anxious and concerned, Jane hastily returned to the T-Mobile store with her mother to speak to the store manager,” the lawsuit states. “During this time, while Jane was seeking assistance at the T-Mobile store, the unauthorized person continued to log into her social media accounts on the iPhone XS Max.” 

At first, staff claimed there had been no trade-ins that day, but with help from mall security and local police, Jane’s old phone was found in the back room. 

“Rather than helping Jane out in the face of the sexual privacy crime, the T-Mobile manager said if Jane wanted access back to the old device that had been weaponized against her, Jane would need to pay them the amount that they had discounted her for the trade-in,” the lawsuit states. “Jane’s mother on Jane’s behalf surrendered and paid the amount.” 

The employee was later charged with first degree computer trespass, a felony, and disclosing intimate images, which is a crime in most states, according to the lawsuit. He pleaded guilty last month, the suit says. 

The lawsuit was filed by Carrie Goldberg and Laura Hecht-Felella at the New York-based C.A. Goldberg firm and Emma Aubrey from the Washington-based Redmond Law Firm. 

Goldberg, who frequently takes on tech giants for failing to protect consumers, called her latest suit a “classic case of a gargantuan company” chalking off customer injury as a cost of doing business. 

“T-Mobile has long known that its negligent hiring and absent consumer safety policies will result in at least some of its customers becoming sexually exploited,” Goldberg told CNBC.

“T-Mobile has big incentive programs to induce customers to upgrade their devices and turn in their old ones. But the ugly truth is that T-Mobile knows that employees sometimes steal customers’ most intimate images and videos from the old devices they relinquish,” Goldberg added. “This case shows that nobody should feel their privacy is safe at T-Mobile.”