American Airlines Takes 3 Months Of Interest-Free Financing From Its Flight Attendants [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • After American Airlines kept flying through the holidays with premium pay and a perfect attendance bonus – that could equal up to three months’ of comp – flight attendants will actually have to wait three months from the end of the program to get their perfect attendance money.

  • No seat back screens, but inflight entertainment.

  • The Boeing 777 was a winner, but I’m not sure I’d realized how well the Airbus A330 has done.

  • Two Passengers Robbed During Flight To Miami and since the money – $4000 in one case – was taken from carry on bags, Aerolineas Argentinas says it’s the passenger’s responsibility.

    “Two passengers who stated that they were missing cash and two other passengers claimed that their hand luggage appeared in a different place than the one they had left at the start of the flight, without missing anything,” they assured Aerolineas Argentinas.

    It was also confirmed that two people had been identified as suspicious by the crew , due to their movements during the flight and because they were the only ones who changed seats. “Under the seat of one of them, a small clip was found that would have contained part of the missing money,” it was detailed.

  • There’s been a lot of stress over close-expiring BinaxNOW tests from eMed…

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  1. While I don’t know the specifics of the holiday attendance bonus offer, the deferred payment date is not unusual for bonuses and AA might be doing the flight attendants a favor.

    Under Internal Revenue Code section 409A, the flight attendants earned the bonus in 2021 and that income would be included in their 2021 gross income — even if paid on 1/1/2022. However, if the bonus included a vesting provision that required continued employment with AA through 3/31/2022, then that income would not be included in their 2021 gross income — but rather in 2022.

    Such a vesting provision is VERY common with bonuses. And, as much as it would be nice for the flight attendants to receive their bonus sooner rather than later, they might appreciate the deferral of income tax more. AA would not be able to claim the expense for tax purposes until it was paid — so, no tax benefit for AA.

  2. Sounds similar to bonus points offers from shopping portals, airline programs, etc… Spend × amount and get x miles(8-10 weeks later!)

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