Monthly Archives for February 2024.
Turkish Airlines has updated its award charts and it’s an absolute gut punch to the value of the Miles & More program. But there may still be an opportunity to redeem your miles at the old rates.
The airline lost anti-trust trials over its partnership with American Airlines and its acquisition of Spirit Airlines (for which it was likely overpaying, and would be taking on significant operational complexity to execute the merger). And its CEO announced his exit.
JetBlue elevated airline President Joanna Geraghty to CEO-designate. Now they’ve made another big move.
American Airlines has ceased financial support for a charity aiding flight attendants in need, amidst ongoing contract negotiations and economic pressures, highlighting the airline’s financial austerity measures and the consequent hardships faced by its cabin crew.
United Airlines has over 700 new aircraft on order, even excluding 45 Airbus A350s that until recent Boeing production issues were expected never to materialize. If demand develops to support that sort of growth (though many aircraft on order will allow the airline to replace existing planes) they are going to need more places to send them. And one gap is certainly the Southeastern United States.
With Hyatt expected to onboard some Mr. and Mrs. Smith properties in the coming months, their Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership has been in doubt. Now Hilton has launched a new partnership with SLH.
American AAdvantage has expanded access to Alaska Airlines award space in and out of California with new booking classes at higher mileage prices, but this change poses questions about the potential impact on the value of AAdvantage miles and the program’s overall benefits.
The Boeing 737 MAX 9 was temporarily grounded – and tremendous faith was lost in Boeing – after a the left mid exit door plug detached from Alaska Airlines aircraft N704AL while performing flight 1282 from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California.
The NTSB has now issued a report on what happened, and it tracks what readers of View From The Wing already know: the plane left the factory missing bolts to hold the door plug on, and tracking of defects at Boeing seems to be a problem.
An American Airlines pilot operating flight 1479 from El Paso to Phoenix exhibited grumpy and passive-aggressive behavior, failing to correctly read back ATC instructions and engaging in a contentious exchange with controllers over communication issues.
It seemed like Hertz really got this under control, after bringing in Palantir to help track its rental fleet. So it was pretty jarring to me that a reader recently received the scariest letter than anyone who frequents this blog can get. They rented a car from Hertz. And Herts wrote to them to say the car was missing.
United Airlines’ Super Bowl ad with Kyle Chandler promotes “No Change Fees,” but is misleading about basic economy and how long you can use your travel credits when you cancel a trip. However the broader industry shift to dropping change fees on most fares has meant ticket changes that would have cost customers $10 billion to make.
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 »
