Monthly Archives for April 2018.
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.
Thursday night’s American Airlines Raleigh – Washington National flight, AA5580, got out of hand.
Two women sitting next to each other on the Bombardier CRJ-700 regional jet got into each others’ personal space. One woman describing herself as “fat” says her seat opponent was unhappy she was spilling over into the next seat.
That’s literally a 114% increase for business class and 167% increase for first class.
Search Air China award space on the United, Aeroplan, or LifeMiles sites and then ring up Virgin to book. Have them set up the award over the phone and then transfer points online while you wait with the agent to issue tickets. I’ve only ever booked roundtrip but reportedly one ways are now possible.
On May 11 Amazon is raising the cost of Prime from $99 to $119 — a 20% hike on their 100 million members.
I get value out of it at $10 a month, but I’d rather pay less. There are several discount programs – and a way to lock in current pricing indefinitely, too.
In January China flexed its muscles against Marriott at a time that the US President began making rumblings of a trade war. They shut down Marriott’s booking engines in the country. Marriott Marriott fired an hourly worker who rather innocuously ‘liked’ a tweet about Tiber and even removed a banned book from one of their hotels.
At the time I wrote that China would be cracking down on airlines, too. American’s website for instance listed Taiwan separately from China.
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.
I wrote the other day that the draft FAA bill being debate by the House included criminalizing passenger speech. If you ‘verbally assault’ an airline employee, you probably shouldn’t be allowed to fly, but this law will raise the stakes with law enforcement too.
That’s not all that’s in the bill that passed the House and now moves on to the Senate.
Marriott is enforcing wall mounted toiletry dispensers in the showers of their managed North American properties. They’re not the only ones going in this direction, it’s cheaper and they get to pretend their motivation is the environment.
I have five concerns with wall mounted dispensers replacing individual bottles.
Two years ago I shared a trick to dealing with a stinky lavatory. You wouldn’t think this would be a major problem in the grand scheme of things, but it is — both from a passenger experience perspective but also for airline operations. British Airways once had to turn around a Dubai flight because the lavatory smelled so bad.
The kosher meal chicken was flavorful, spicy even, and the smoked whitefish was tasty. The pineapple upside down cake dessert was excellent.
The Muslim meal chicken was the spiciest food I’ve had on a US airline in a very long time, but it wasn’t just heat it was a complex heat. The dessert was a butterscotch tart which was delicious.
American has to be spending more on their special meals than on their regular meals.
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 »
