If you fly expensive tickets for work, and then you’re cost conscious on a weekend trip with your family of four, you will be treated well when you fly those expensive tickets – but not on that trip with your family when it arguably matters most to you.
A Florida hotel is suing Southwest Airlines after a flight attendant on layover allegedly tampered with a sprinkler in her room, setting off flooding that spread through guest rooms and common areas. What makes it interesting is suing the employer, which has the deeper pockets but a more tenuous case for liability.
A Delta passenger says crew turned a desperate need to use the bathroom into a security incident, restraining him, exposing him, and denying lavatory access until he soiled himself. He won a $7.2 million verdict, but Delta got it tossed and is now arguing it is immune because law enforcement became involved.
Hertz keeps taking reservations it apparently cannot fill, leaving even its best customers waiting hours for cars, plus why LAX is hemmed in by an endangered butterfly, Aman’s new Texas Hill Country resort, Delta’s uniforms, and more.
Air Canada Aeroplan is changing its award chart again on June 1, and while a few prices go down, this is unmistakably a devaluation. The biggest pain hits long-haul premium cabins, where many of the most useful business and first class partner awards will cost meaningfully more.
The White House is trying to justify a $500 million Spirit Airlines rescue by claiming the carrier is somehow essential to national defense, even though Spirit is a failing ultra-low-cost airline with no obvious military necessity.
United CEO Scott Kirby says the airline is in talks to buy assets from another carrier, a remark that immediately raises the question of whether he means pieces of Spirit or JetBlue. United has been openly hunting for ways to strengthen weak spots in Florida and New York without waiting for a full merger.
ICE was escorting a man who had agreed to leave the U.S. onto a commercial flight from Seattle to New York so he could connect to India. The officers bypassed the boarding gate process, and walked him onto the Alaska Airlines flight at the next gate that was going to Sitka, Alaska, instead.
Flight attendants told them it was the wrong plane. They ordered crew to board him anyway.
American Express just showed that raising the Platinum annual fee does not drive cardmembers away, with retention holding steady even after the refresh and higher pricing. Even more important, existing cardmembers are spending more, net card fees are growing faster than other revenue lines, and Amex is proving that consumers will tolerate a more expensive, credit-heavy card as long as the perks feel rich enough and keep them inside the Amex ecosystem.
Etihad is expanding in two U.S. markets at a moment when Middle East demand looks shaky, adding a second daily Chicago flight and boosting Charlotte to daily service for the summer. On the surface that looks aggressive, but the real play is not local Abu Dhabi demand — it is feeding U.S. traffic to India and South Asia while the airline has aircraft available.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
