Monthly Archives

Monthly Archives for January 2020.

Hyatt Regency San Francisco Offers Free Night Awards Again, Can We Win Over Andaz Maui Too?

by Gary Leff on January 9, 2020

Jan 09 2020

The Hyatt Regency San Francisco has been a long-time, repeat scofflaw of Hyatt’s loyalty program. They have played games to avoid offering rooms to program members for points. However they are once again making award nights available.

Back in 2015 their strategy was to only make standard rooms available as part of ‘packages’ (such as with breakfast or parking included) and thus those rooms were not available for points stays. I pushed and got that fixed, but it’s a game of whack-a-mole and they were back to their old tricks.

American Is Now Retrofitting 737s AGAIN To Fix Poorly Thought Out First Class Cabin

by Gary Leff on January 9, 2020

Jan 09 2020

American created ‘Project Kodiak’ to tweak first class: Fixing row 1’s legroom, fixing underseat storage, improving separation between first and coach, and adding tablet holders and USB power to first class.

Kodiak retrofits are underway. One surprise is that it appears there’s a plane with seat back video in for retrofit, ripping out TV screens. American had previously said that these planes would receive their retrofits last so that customers could keep screens as long as possible. That appears not to have been accurate.

American AAdvantage Is Keeping Award Charts, And More Backstory From The Program

by Gary Leff on January 9, 2020

Jan 09 2020

Brian Kelly from The Points Guy interviewed American AAdvantage President Bridget Blaise-Shamai and got some interesting tidbits from her – that they don’t plan to eliminate award charts like Delta and United have – and some answers that I’d, shall we say, take issue with.

Customer Missed Birth Of Their Child After Being Downgraded By American Airlines

by Gary Leff on January 9, 2020

Jan 09 2020

n America Airlines passenger tells the story about buying a paid transpacific business class ticket on American Airlines but being downgraded for their Chicago – Tokyo flight a few weeks ago when their inbound Boston – Chicago flight was delayed.

The passenger says their Boston – Chicago flight was running late due to crew availability (a flight attendant “had woken up late and was on her way”) and that meant arriving into Chicago 45 minutes late. They had to run to their connecting gate, but they made it while the Tokyo flight was still boarding.

Willie Walsh Retiring As Head Of IAG, and British Airways CEO Doesn’t Get The Job

by Gary Leff on January 9, 2020

Jan 09 2020

Willie Walsh is stepping down as CEO and from the board of of IAG, the parent company of British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling effective March 26 and retiring June 30. He’s 58 years old and has talked about retiring by 60, though this is ahead of schedule. He’ll be replaced by Luis Gallego, CEO of Iberia – and not by the CEO of British Airways.