Monthly Archives for July 2018.
If you’re in the aisle seat, is it fair game to go to sleep?
And if you’re not in the aisle seat — and you have to use the lavatory — do you wake the person sitting next to you in order to get up and go, or do you hold it?
Does it depend on how long the flight is?
Here are the top 10 airline routes by revenue. It’s fascinating data. And one airline’s flying generated over a billion dollars last year on a single route
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.
A couple of months ago I witnessed what may have been a world record hookup in the air, introduction-to-couple on a 140 mile Austin – Houston United flight.
These inflight couplings happen more often than you’d think. But one new coupling is very special because the entire budding relationship was live tweeted, and because the person doing the tweeting called it sort of like Babe Ruth pointing towards center field and calling his home run shot in the 1932 World Series.
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.
American is expected to relax the most draconian restriction on their lowest-price Basic Economy fares, and that points to the failure of the overall basic economy strategy. Perhaps as early as next month they will once again allow customers on these lowest fares to bring both a personal item and a full sized carry on bag onto the plane.
Earlier I wrote that Iberia again confirmed they’re honoring the deal of the year. You could earn 9000 Avios per flight booked, even cheap sub-$30 one way flights, and you wouldn’t even need to fly in order for the points to post.
As several readers have reported the points are now posting to accounts though it can take time for everyone to get theirs, do not panic if your points have not posted as of this writing.
This morning I >a href=”https://viewfromthewing.com/2018/06/23/deal-of-the-year-through-this-weekend-only-90000-points-for-300-1-3-of-a-cent-per-point/” target=_blank>wrote about the 90,000 Avios for under $300 deal and how Iberia was freezing new accounts and even telling some customers that because they living in a country other than the one whose Iberia website they used for the booking they wouldn’t be eligible for the offer.
I suggested we needed to be patient, that it was likely a better deal than Iberia had intended, but that in the absolute worst case it appeared that Iberia would be refunding tickets purchased by those who just wanted to take advantage of the points offer and not actually fly.
Star Alliance member Asiana is suffering widespread delays for catering and many flights are leaving without meals at all, even on trips as long as twelve hours.
Reportedly on Sunday “51 flights departed behind schedule and 38 left the airport without meals to feed passengers.” Then on Monday “18 out of 75 international flights operated by the carrier were delayed more than an hour and 16 short-haul flights to Japan and China even departed from the Incheon International Airport without in-flight meals.”
I view this as good news. First, don’t panic. The promotion was ill-thought out by Iberia. It was more generous than they would have wanted to be. It was also taken advantage by customers at scale, which is a benefit, it’s easy for a company to stick it to or ignore one customer by Iberia is going to have to deal with this.
We’ll just wait it out and see how it resolves, but in the mean time they’re already seeming to understand that if they don’t honor the offer the absolute minimum they’re going to have to do is refund tickets.
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 »
