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.
American Airlines is eliminating their mileage upgrade award chart August 12th. They’re replacing it with ‘instant upgrades’ using cash or miles. You’ll be charged a variable amount for upgrades, and you pay either the asking amount in money or the ‘equivalent’ in miles which will mean a low value per mile (almost certainly something around 1 cent per mile or a little higher or lower). This copies Delta Air Lines, and represents a significant hit to the value of miles for upgrades.
On June 9, blogger JT Genter was kicked off of American Airlines flight AA106 from New York JFK to London Heathrow for moving a flight attendant’s bags out of the premium economy overhead bins and into coach.
The flight attendant whose bag was moved responded in the comments to my story about this.
If you’re a Marriott member, you shouldn’t think of yourself as a guest. Instead, you’re the product that Marriott sells to hotel owners. That’s why the head of one ownership group refers to Bonvoy members as “leads.”
There were 230 passengers and 12 crew onboard – and there was one survivor, who walked away from the crash. Thirty eight year old Ramesh Vishwaskumar Bucharvada, who was seated in 11A behind an emergency exit, is being treated at a nearby hospital.
If your unaccompanied minor is a seasoned enough traveler to be on their own, they may be seasoned enough to have PreCheck! Make sure they pack their ID, even though they do not usually need one for domestic travel.
Blogger JT Genter of Award Wallet writes that he was kicked off of an American Airlines flight from New York JFK to London Heathrow on Monday after moving someone’s bag from the overhead bin above his seat in premium economy.
After a brief, steep climb to roughly 625 feet, the aircraft issued a mayday, lost radio contact seconds later, and came down in the densely populated Meghani Nagar district.
When the ‘solo traveler surcharge’ news was first broken by Thrifty Traveler, Delta and United pulled these fares from the market. American – which by all accounts was first to implement this idea – pulled only some of their fares. However, they’ve largely returned.
The airline can start putting up flight attendants in much lower quality hotels during their layovers. Instead of business class hotels, we could start to see hovels.
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 »
