Monthly Archives for May 2019.
Bank of America has several lesser-known but still excellent rewards credit cards. They will approve at most 2 cards every 2 months, 3 cards every 12 months, and 4 cards every 24 months. That limit applies to Bank of America cards only, rather than being like Chase which looks at the cards you’ve opened from all sources.
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.
Frequent flyer award tickets are supposed to reward loyalty. They don’t feel very rewarding when they come with a cash co-pay in the form of fuel surcharges which — for economy redemptions — can be almost as much as the cost of a paid ticket. (We’ve even seen instances in the past where British Airways fuel surcharges on an award ticket were more expensive than the cheapest fare you could buy with cash.)
Hawaiian Airlines accidentally started imposing the mother of all carrier-imposed surcharges on its awards last week, and they are “deeply sorry.”
Two weeks ago I wrote that Via Air hadn’t shown up at an airport they were supposed to fly to and no one knew why. Even the airport itself couldn’t reach the airline to learn more.
Now it appears that airline has shut down its commercial service entirely, with the exception of a single route. The airline is blaming a lack of pilots. Two weeks ago they also blamed the FAA for “slower and more methodical” oversight following the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX, an aircraft Via Air did not operate.
Passengers aren’t supposed to be able to board the wrong plane. Boarding passes are scanned at the gate. There’s a manifest — airlines know how many people are supposed to be onboard. When passengers are in the wrong seat, there’s usually another passenger assigned that will say something. But it happens. Occasionally one person, or a couple traveling together, wind up in the same city.
Spirit Airlines has probably the worst reputation of any airline in America. The problem is that reputations lag reality. First of all Via Air is far worse. And second Spirit has made tremendous strides.
It’s easy to anchor on Spirit as the airline who believed their business model required customers thinking they offer a bad product, who refused a pregnant woman water during a two hour tarmac delay and that wouldn’t refund a Vietnam veteran cancer patient’s tickets when he became too sick to fly to see his daughter in the hospital. And that’s why this spoof video of a Spirit Airlines customer service center is so funny.
Airlines have an incentive to blame factors beyond their control for delays. If the cause is weather, air traffic control, or a similar issue they’re going to owe customers a lot less (if anything at all) compared to when a delay is ‘controllable’ or their fault — such as when a flight goes mechanical or when crew simply don’t show up. (EU rules are somewhat stricter.)
Customers can be sitting at their home airport and will get frustrated when they’re delayed by weather only to look out the window at blue skies, knowing weather is clear at their destination.
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.
Prior to deregulation the Civil Aeronautics Board ‘experimented’ with the idea of price competition and allowed airlines to undercut Southwest Airlines prices. Southwest, flying only inside Texas at the time, wasn’t subject to CAB price regulation.
Texas International Airlines (which would later acquire Continental, Eastern, People Express, and Frontier) along with Braniff started offering $13 fares between Houston and Dellas. Not to be undercut, Southwest introduced a two-tiered fare structure, rebating each customer paying full fare with a bottle of liquor. Southwest became the largest liquor distributor in the state of Texas.
The new Delta Sky Club has a gorgeous bar, and the best feature is an outdoor ‘Sky Deck’ overlooking the East runway. But what if you combined the two features? One of the very best uses of Delta SkyMiles is redeeming small numbers of miles for premium drinks.
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 »
