DJ Mustard — not to be confused with Colonel Mustard in the library with the wrench — has become the latest TSA ‘good catch’. TSA at LAX must be a whole different organization than the folks in the rest of the country missing 91% – 95% of the dangerous items going through security checkpoints.
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.
I frequently refer to the legacy US Airways fleet as a ‘basket of deplorables’. We’re four years into the merger and they never added seat power or extra legroom seats to most of the planes. The old tattered first class seats on A321s have gotten new seat covers, but they didn’t even clean the seats themselves from the scuff marks and pen drawings that have accumulated over the years.
That’s just what we can see. Here’s something I hadn’t considered: the air vents on those planes.
It turns out that there are even better fares than the two I covered earlier in the day and from even more cities: roundtrip business class fares starting at $513 from Orlando, Chicago, Los Angeles or New York to Lima, Peru on Aeromexico, and $616 business class roundtrips to several cities on Star Alliance carrier Avianca: Panama City $616; Lima $644; Cartagena $650, and Quito $653.
On the heels of the $1091 roundtrip from New York to Chile in business class there’s also a $659 roundtrip from Los Angeles to Lima, Peru on Aeromexico.
SkyTeam member and Delta vassal Aeromexico is publishing an amazing fare from New York to Chile. You can fly most any time in business class for under $1100 roundtrip. And if you catch Aeromexico 787s you’ve got a fully flat business class product.
Singapore Airlines has announced ‘new fare types’ that will go into effect January 20th.
They’re introducing higher award change fees, the elimination of upgrades on the cheapest premium economy and business class fares, and seat selection fees on the cheapest coach tickets. At the same time more economy fares will become upgradeable (at a higher mileage cost) and the cheapest coach fares will earn a lot more miles.
Order your whisky neat you’ll get a full pour and the bartender won’t try to give you something cheaper than what you’re ordering. Add a few drops of water or some ice if you’d like after that.
In 40 hours I enjoyed tasting whiskey and eating some great food. I didn’t try any hot chicken, didn’t check out any of the music scene, but that’s alright I’ve definitely decided Nashville is worth returning to.
Qantas today has announced new Melbourne – San Francisco service with a Boeing 787, although we don’t yet have a launch date beyond “late 2018.”
This move surprises me because it front runs any renewed application for a new joint venture with American, and raises the bar for how much service and what new routes would be offered in the absence of such a deal (even if the total number of flights doesn’t grow).
With airberlin going out of business we saw several airlines offering to status match elite members of the topbonus frequent flyer program. Two among them are oneworld members Finnair and Iberia. Iberia is also proactively working to poach Lufthansa elites through this program as well.
LAN and Royal Jordanian offer status match programs anyway but those require flight(s) with those carriers. The Finnair offer was silver with a challenge for Gold. Iberia though offers a straight tier match.
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 »
