American Airlines started selling ‘basic economy’ fares two months ago. These fares try to make the travel experience difficult enough that you’ll spend more for less restrictive tickets.
These fares were launched in 10 markets. And now the airline has data on how the fares are doing.
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.
Delta adopted a revenue-based frequent flyer program for frequent flyer earning two years ago, and removed their award charts to reduce transparency with members. (They intended to do full revenue-based redemptions but were surprised by member pushback in focus groups.)
Naturally United and then American followed because they blindly copy Delta the way fast food restaurants locate stores near McDonalds on the belief that McDonalds is smart and knows what they’re doing.
Over the history of the airline industry in the United States, carriers have been subsidized and then protected by government. Prices even used to be set by government, and no shows were a lot higher than they are today.
The story of how airlines started overbooking and why they do it much less than they used to is a fascinating one. It actually begins with the Post Office.
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.
Etihad is now selling miles, the price is reasonable, so this could be useful to top off an Etihad account, take the place of transfers from American Express or Citibank, saving those points for something else, or work in conjunction with transfers, you may not have enough Amex or Citi points on their own for the award you want but this option leverages your transferrable points.
The next IHG Rewards Club promotion is in the process of going live. It came right up for me, though if I use Google Chrome’s incognito mode I get the ‘promotion ended’ page from their last offer.
They’re coming out with ‘Accelerate’ again for stays between May 15 and August 31 you earn even more points. And in some ways it’s my favorite hotel promotion — not as much for its richness as much because it is sort of fun. It’s tough to get a thrill over double points for stays you’re going to make anyway.
We first learned from passengers what happened on board the United flight where a passenger was dragged off by Chicago Aviation Police and bloodied in the process.
This week, through released documents, we learned the Police version of events.
United has announced the results of reviewing its procedures in the aftermatch of Dr. David Dao’s bloody removal from a flight earlier this month. There are several policy changes and they tell me their goal is to reduce involuntary denied boardings to zero.
When a man was dragged off a United Express flight from Chicago to Louisville and bloodied after refusing to give up the seat he was sitting in so that employees could travel on the flight and operate a flight back to O’Hare, it was a cultural moment of sorts.
In American Express’ first quarter earnings call they shared that their costs to provide benefits are going up. One of the reasons they called out for this surprised me.
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 »
