American Airlines Buy on Board Fraud and a Pilot’s Most Interesting Moments

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • A pilot remembers his most interesting moments

  • British Airways website lets you book American Airlines awards again no more requirement to call and deal with BA’s insufferable hold times and fight the agent to waive call center fees.


    American Airlines in Phoenix

  • Jerry Seinfeld says he inspired the Amex Black Card.

    I was waiting for [the crew] to move some cameras, and the crew guy comes up me, he says, ‘You got the Black Card?’ And I go ‘No, what’s the Black Card?’ He says, ‘There’s only three in the world. The Sultan of Brunei has one, the president of American Express has one, and I thought you would have the third one.’ Next morning I call the president of American Express. I go, ‘Is there a Black Card?’ He says, ‘It’s just a rumor. It doesn’t exist.’ He said, ‘But you know what? It’s not a bad idea.’ And so they developed it, and they gave me the first one.

  • How New York strangled mom and pop car rental companies meanwhile I’ve mentioned this before but more on how Enterprise is lobbying to smother sharing economy competition.

  • Several people would have had to look at this buy on board sandwich and actually decide this is something they wanted to sell. (HT: @phxnurse) By the way for an airline based in Texas this is doubly embarrassing since it doesn’t even constitute actual barbecue.

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. Turo IS a rental car company. There isn’t any doubt about it. Its the same as Uber IS a transportation company. Other than lobbyists for the competitors being included in the mails/letters to Turo, the article is just basically another Reason attempt to say that taxes are bad and we should not have regulation.

  2. Isn’t “fraud” a sensationalistic and incorrect word to describe that in-flight sandwich? Obviously, it was a catering screw-up. Did the customer request a refund — or a new sandwich? I am certain one would have been forthcoming. Not every snafu that happens in life needs to be tweeted, yet alone “retweeted.” If a cashier accidentally gives me back the wrong change, should I blog it?

  3. @chopsticks;

    No I don’t think that was a mistake. I’ve gotten similar.

    It is fraudulent marketing with that picture. Has anyone ever gotten a sandwich like that on AA?

  4. A blogger accused of sensationalist headlines to gain clicks? Say it isn’t so!

  5. @chopsticks — no, American offered one thing and they provided something fundamentally different. And since we’re talking **barbecue**, fraud is 100% appropriate.

  6. i’ve had this sandwich twice just last week on two different flights. it actually looked close to the picture. probably just lazy food workers.

  7. I bet that the portion size is already decided, and the laziness manifests in not spreading the miniscule portion over the bread.

  8. Have you guys not seen pics of how *ahem* “ample” Gary is?

    Clearly he takes food very very seriously.

  9. We could all stand to eat less meat and solve a lot of issues in the world. Come to think of it, many of us (at least me) could afford to miss a meal or wind up with this sandwich and would probably be just fine.

Comments are closed.