Three years ago American Airlines and Qantas announced an expanded joint venture. American was launching Sydney and Auckland service, Qantas Sydney – San Francisco. And they indicated there would be more new routes in the offing as a result of the partnership.
They proposed to extend their partnership to coordinate schedules and pricing and share revenue on Pacific flights (but not Hawaii routes). The Obama administration said no.
In a move that should surprise absolutely no one the Fair Fees Act isn’t a part of FAA reauthorization that will be voted on this week.
The FAA reauthorization bill includes a number of provisions other than ‘Fair Fees’ that are worth noting.
I stayed 100 nights with Starwood in 2016 and was assigned an Ambassador for 2017. My Ambassador was excellent.
However members certainly have had varied experiences. Different Ambassadors provide different levels of service. Each person has different skills. The program itself provides guidelines but some go above and beyond. And workload matters. Now that the program is scaling to support top elites at Marriott too, Marriott’s metrics are being put into place.
At an employee Crew News session this past week a pilot asked American Airlines President about weight restrictions flying Hawaii back to the mainland of the U.S. using Airbus A321 aircraft. American cannot fly as many people back to the mainland as they fly from the mainland to Hawaii.
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 Express offers its Global Dining Collection program to The Platinum Card from American Express cardholders and to Centurion (Black Card) customers.
These are top restaurants where American Express has an arrangement to set aside some tables for cardmembers. You’ve had to make bookings through their concierge service. They’ll be launching searches for reservations, including special set-aside availability, through the American Express mobile app first in the UK starting next month and then in the US next year.
Delta has been running sale after sale on award redemptions recently. Make no mistake charging fewer miles for a ticket is better than charging more miles. But there’s been tremendous euphoria in the blogosphere about how valuable Delta SkyMiles have become. That’s just falling for Delta’s hype and doesn’t make sense at all.
American Airlines is in the process of rolling out a new “Hotel, Meal & Transportation (HMT) system” that will replace vouchers for hotels and meals during irregular operations with “a virtual credit card for hotels and meals.”
Vouchers can be emailed to customers or printed, so that vendors no longer need to return paper vouchers for payment.
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.
Last night United’s San Francisco – Newark redeye, flight UA1796, was delayed for a much shorter period of time than you’d expect when when a bird found itself trapped and flying around inside of the airline’s Big Metal Bird.
United’s Newark-bound stowaway was captured and released. When it arrived at Newark on its own it declared, “boy are my arms tired.”
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 »
