Monthly Archives for April 2022.
Over the last several days rumors became clear that JetBlue would announce Boston – London Heathrow service today, using slots they’ve just leased from Qatar Airways. Well, there’s no announcement yet but they’ve front-run their press release by loading the flights into the schedule. And it’s actually more than expected.
Two business class award seats are available a majority of days that the flight operates, between its launch October 5 and the end of the published schedule at the beginning of March.
Hyatt is introducing a new award chart for all-inclusive properties. That’s because they used to have the Ziva and Zilara brand, but are now starting to bring the 100 Apple Leisure Group properties into the World of Hyatt program that they acquired. In fact, 6 hotels are already live and 50 more will be joining the program May 9. Kudos for speed, this took about 8 months from deal announcement rather than the traditional 18 months.
Long telephone hold times are the new normal when trying to reach an airline. They shed reservations agents during the pandemic. At American Airlines reservations agents were moved to the airport. And today’s travelers – predominantly leisure customers – call the airline more than business travelers did.
Add in weather and other problems and hold times spiral out of control. This past weekend we were seeing 5 and even 9 hour hold times to reach an American Airlines agent. Fortunately there are workarounds.
Over the weekend the operation of Southwest, American, Spirit, JetBlue and Delta all melted down. There was bad weather in Florida, and some IT issues, but things were systematically worse than one would expect even given these issues. United was relatively spared.
Getting through to airlines was nearly impossible. Delta has recently made it harder.
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 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.
To much fanfare American AAdvantage announced that its elite members would have access to JetBlue extra legroom ‘Even More’ seats if available at check-in.
In fact it is not available to AAdvantage elites at check-in 24 hours prior to departure, it is only available at the airport when booking codeshares.
I’m a frequent critic of American Airlines but I was very impressed with their domestic catering earlier this week. I wrote separately about breakfast on a 1500 mile flight. I’m now returning to talk about dinner on the way back. It was an improvement over what American Airlines was serving pre-pandemic.
I’m genuinely thrilled to know that I won’t go hungry on a flight if I don’t have time to eat running to the airport or running between connections.
Step inside American Airlines Flagship First Dining at New York JFK and you’ll forget for a moment that this is an airline’s lounge. You’d even forget you’re at the airport, except for the floor to ceiling glass views over the tarmac. The space is serene. The service is excellent. And they’re serving food you’d be happy to eat in a nice restaurant.
It’s even better than when it first opened, and reasonably draws comparisons to first class offerings from Lufthansa in Frankfurt and Air France in Paris.
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 »
