For tickets purchased starting January 28th, 2020 American is adding a fee for second checked bags for flights to and from South America. This applies to travel to and from Argentina, Brazil, Chila, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay. It does not apply to Colombia, Guyana, or Ecuador.
Meanwhile customers departing on late flights from Peru, be prepared for a significant inconvenience.
American Airlines has suspended is Los Angeles – Beijing and Los Angeles – Shanghai flights between February 9 and March 27. Service continues until February 9 unless there are new developments (such as the federal government ordering earlier cessation of US-China flights) and is attributed to reduction in demand for travel.
Meanwhile in Beijing…
What better name could their be for a frequent traveler than Andrea Worldwide? She’s a United customer who flies “every 10 to 14 days” and earlier this month departing Denver she had a run in with one of the airline’s gate agents. She says she’s a MileagePlus elite member, a status she earns flying for business and taking regular trips to Puerto Rico to visit her boyfriend.
She felt humiliated when a male gate agent stopped her from boarding her Denver – Newark flight because her top was ‘too revealing’.
SoFi Money will give you $25 when you sign up and deposit $100, and you can leverage this by referring friends – which gets you $25 each, and they get $25 for their deposit too. You can get up to $10,000 per year this way.
United Airlines has limited Star Alliance Gold access to lounges across much of its network. This was against Star Alliance policy. Star Alliance policy has been changed to no longer require airlines to offer contract lounge access to Gold members.
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.
Atari is planning to build a video game hotel in Phoenix. Construction is set to begin mid-year.
If all goes well there are plans to expand hotel locations to Austin, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle. That would give Atari a chain of 8 properties offering “retro favorites as well as modern touches.”
A year ago Wyndham doubled the points price of their best hotels abandoning flat 15,000 points per night pricing across all properties and moving to three redemption tiers: 7500; 15,000; and 30,000 points per night.
At the time they shared that hotels would be recategorized annually though they did’t anticipate significant shift. A year has passed and on February 11 they’ll be making annual category changes.
New Boeing 787-8 aircraft that will start coming into the fleet this year will have “an enhanced version of the Collins Super Diamond seat” which means that center seats will come with privacy dividers.
When American likely introduces a new business class seat in 2023 with the delivery of Boeing 787-9 aircraft, those business class seats (which have not yet been finalized) are likely to come with doors.
Old US Airways A321s don’t have life rafts, and have to hug the coastline the whole way. That takes an extra 45-50 minutes of flying each way.
Customers find themselves with more time stuck in a metal tube than they’ve bargained for. And although American says they’re investing to be more sensitive to environmental concerns they continue to burn more fuel than necessary on these trips due to their failure to invest in rafts.
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 »
