Monthly Archives for June 2023.
American Airlines flight 715 today from Venice to Philadelphia diverted today for a medical emergency. It was a crewmember on board in distress. And unfortunately 38-year veteran flight attendant Carol Wright passed away unexpectedly.
Airline domestic first class isn’t a marker of wealth, since a large subset of passengers able to pay for air travel can pay for first class as well as it often isn’t that much more. But it hasn’t really ever been a marker of wealth.
Twenty years ago 90% of seats up front were going to upgrades, which frequently meant business travelers who weren’t poor by any stretch but often in the middle rungs of the corporate ladder. Who is flying up front has changed a bit, especially with managed business travel still down, but it hasn’t matched the mythology of the product in decades.
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.
There are some situations where getting one card precludes you from getting something else, whether it’s the best deal on a mortgage (usually not an issue, but always best to be safe before applying) or another credit card. When there’s a tradeoff you have to consider which choice delivers more value to you.
This was a failure of U.S. authorities – suspecting someone as a drug courier over behaving like an airline employee. It was a failure of Canadian authorities, arresting someone based on a fallible test and locking them up for a week while slow-walking a real test. And it was a failure of the passenger, who didn’t secure legal representation (though as a 22 year old kid on an airline income that’s not surprising).
When Juanie boarded her Delta Air Lines flight, she found that she was seated next to a woman who had a pitbull sitting in her seat. The woman asked Juanie to give up the seat for her pitbull – and, Juanie says, the dog owner became aggressive when she declined.
Back in the fall I wrote that Citi would be ending the benefit of no annual fee authorized users with Admirals Club access, and likely raising the annual fee on the card itself as well. The ability for a single $450 annual fee to generate 11 cards (primary plus up to 10 authorized user cards) each with the ability to enter Admirals Clubs and also bring up to two guests was simply too good a deal.
Qatar has prioritized their loyalty program over the past three years, making improvements like awarding miles even before you fly, at a time when Emirates has largely been lighting its program on fire and Etihad has undergone a series of more modest devaluations. This change makes Privilege Club more than just a program for redeeming QSuites.
If your status is ending, consider booking as much future travel as you can, because some of your benefits will likely apply to trips booked before your status expires for trips that occur after.
You can book extra legroom coach seats with your status, where that benefit applies, and those seat assignments will usually stick. And here’s an interesting wrinkle with checked baggage, too.
A Frontier Airlines mechanic was working to replace a lavatory mirror on a ten year old Airbus A320 (registration N228FR) acquired in 2015 from now-defunct Monarch Airlines in Tampa back on February 20th. He saw something behind the mirror that looked like a postcard. He read it, and – he says – he was “blown away.”
He had found a photo of a 4 year old girl named Grace Kelly riding an airplane, and on it was a note from her grandparents.
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 »
