Monthly Archives for November 2016.
A Qantas passenger Barry Johnston who flew Sydney – Los Angeles on July 18, 2015 is suing the airline because his seat kept reclining and “the back cushions fell to the cabin floor” causing him discomfort – and ultimately harm to his 43 year old body
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
United debuted their new Polaris lounge at Chicago O’Hare in the old club and first class lounge space at gate C18 today. This is a business (and first) class lounge. It is not a Star Alliance Gold lounge and not a United Club.
There’s a trend towards modestly improving membership-based lounges and substantially improving business class only lounges at least at United and American. As with changes to frequent flyer programs the best service and benefits go to those spending the most on a given trip, not over the course of a year or a lifetime.
Airlines have been trying to goose lagging stocks with share buybacks. Fundamentally airline stocks haven’t performed because there’s little chance of significant profit growth and spending cash to retire shares underscores that: it suggests that there’s no more profitable investment in front of the business, which suggests it’s not a strong growth play.
British Airways is looking to automate its service by getting passengers to swallow a pill that will communicate your needs to their crew.
The idea is to adapt technology currently in use in hospitals which, for instance, monitors whether patients take their pills so that cabin crew can stay up to speed with everyone onboard. This seems to go to great lengths to make sure customers don’t press the flight attendant call button.
American is temporarily re-branding their existing Flagship lounges as International First Class lounges as it prepares to introduce brand new business and first class Flagship Lounges in the coming months.
That’s because these new Flagship Lounges are going to be a new concept, rolled out as renovations to existing lounges and new builds are completed starting this spring. We’re going to see New York JFK opening first in a few months, followed by LAX by mid-year.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Up until now if you wanted to redeem GarudaMiles for travel on their own flights you had to endure “award redemption in six easy steps.” Roughly speaking Garuda Indonesia’s frequent flyer program thought it was Korean. North Korean.
For all intents and purposes the introduction of online redemption makes Garuda Indonesia an actual partner of Citi ThankYou Rewards, not merely a theoretical one.
US airlines haven’t offered premium economy products on their own flights. American’s new premium economy, launched on the Boeing 787-9, is the first.
US airline frequent flyer programs haven’t offered the option for redeeming miles for premium economy.
Interestingly Delta SkyMiles is the first of the major US frequent flyer programs to offer premium economy redemption.
Elaine Chao, former Labor Secretary and former Deputy Secretary of Transportation, will apparently be nominated to become Secretary of Transportation.
She’s also former President of the United Way and a former board member of Northwest Airlines. Prior service at DOT includes a stint as deputy administrator of Maritime Administration.
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 »
