Monthly Archives for August 2022.
American Airlines AAdvantage elites – even mere Gold members – can register for Hyatt Explorist status for 90 days. Then there’s a path to keep status through February 2024.
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.
This month the German government extended its mask mandate for travel through April 2023. But this week German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Canada and went maskless.
LATAM ran a status match for residents of Colombia only back in the spring. Now they’re after U.S. residents with this new offer.
ExpressJet Airlines has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ceased all flight operations. Among other things they blame high fuel costs and the inability to sell hotel travel packages. However if your business model isn’t resilient to sub-$100 fuel you were doomed to fail.
Last year ExpressJet, 49% owned by United, shut down its Embraer ERJ-145 operation, kept one plane and their operating certificate, and since the fall flew as aha! to 11 cities from a hub in Reno. As I wrote at the time, “using high seat cost regional jets on leisure routes. What could possibly go wrong?”
Air Canada has had a long, hot, miserable summer of flight cancellations, delays, and lost luggage – that puts the dreadful performance of U.S. airlines to shame. And even when their flights do take off, it’s no bed of roses, as one woman found out after being offered nothing to eat on a 10 hour flight except a bottle of water and a napkin.
For the past 9 years Swiss has only made its first class award space available to top elite members of the Miles & More frequent flyer program. So if you have United, Air Canada, Avianca or other Star Alliance miles you’ve been shut out from redeeming for this product.
Delta Air Lines is offering generous business class saver award availability on its New York JFK – Zurich flight in November. Here’s availability for four passengers using 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles apiece to take this Delta flight.
The American Airlines flight attendants union is reporting that the airline is firing three times as many cabin crew for cause as they would in a normal year. This isn’t a bad thing, for customers or for flight attendants!
To be clear, a route operated by a CR2 is better than a route that doesn’t have air service. And in some cases that’s the relevant margin on which the decision gets made. But that may not be true for every route Air Wisconsin operates for American. It’ll be a downgrade in passenger experience, but still a better passenger experience than a wagon train or horse drawn carriage.
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 »
