I’ve gotten several questions recently from readers wanting to know what changes they would be able to make to American AAdvantage awards after the award chart devaluation on March 22 without having to pay additional miles for their tickets.
I had a pretty good idea how this would work, but I went ahead and asked American.
A one ounce, $15 travel router will let you share a wireless internet connection (even an inflight gogo connection) or turn a wired internet connection into a wireless one. That way you can use more devices than a hotel’s free wifi permits, too.
A week ago I wrote about a Delta flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis that diverted to Salt Lake City due to ‘unruly crew’. After an 80 minute delay the flight continued to Minneapolis — apparently with replacements for 3 of the cabin crew. Delta then sent an apology note to customers for ‘team members’ who ‘did not display their best behavior.’
Now we know the rest of the story.
British Airways flight BA295 from London Heathrow to Chicago turned around two hours into flight declaring an emergency. It landed at Heathrow around 5:30pm local time. The captain told passengers there was a “technical fault” with the plane.
The ‘technical fault’ was landing on 3 sets of wheels instead of 5. Fire trucks responded. Passengers had to disembark in such a way as to not tip the plane.
Wednesday’s American Airlines flight 109 from London to Los Angeles turned back while over Iceland when a couple of passengers and several flight attendants reported feeling lightheaded.
American returned to London where they have significant staff, mechanical, and crew resources rather than diverting to a closer airport — which bore out as the correct choice given that people on the flight were evaluated on the scene but did not require medical treatment. The cause of the incident remains unknown at this point.
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Virgin America CEO Dave Cush was taken by surprise with the question, and he does try to walk his Donald Trump endorsement back some.
The Donald used to have a travel booking site (“The Art of the Travel Deal… There are plenty of other sites out there, but only GoTrump.com gets the best deals.”). He owned an airline and went bust. And he stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
The single most lucrative thing you can do to earn large amounts of miles, quickly and easily, is to sign up for credit cards that offer big up front bonuses.
American said to expect more premium cabin award availability, that there’s be more to come beyond what we’d already seen, and that it would be noticeable.
There’s a ton of flights with at least 4 business and 4 first class award seats available to a variety of destinations. And it is interesting that we are seeing this before premium cabin award prices go up on March 22 even!
Last night I gave a heads up that IHG Rewards Club — the points program for Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, and related brands — would be adjusting the redemption prices at about 8% of participating hotels.
They’re giving a modest amount of advance notice — changes go into effect February 17. That lets you make any future date bookings now at the old price for hotels that are going up.
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 »
