I expect to be on Rudy Maxa’s World nationally syndicated radio program this morning around 10:18am Eastern time talking about how to handle miles and points in death and divorce (fun times!). In addition I’ll be talking these same topics on Rudy’s KFWB 980AM Los Angeles show around 12:30pm Eastern. Listen in if you’d like.
About Gary Leff
American’s Commitment to Elite Members: One Hour Delays Entitle Re-routing Even on Other Airlines or Refund
American’s operational challenges (i.e. pilots deciding to stick it to customers) have been garnering lots of media attention in recent days. They’ve just sent out an email under the signature of AAdvantage President Suzanne Rubin that I much like. I’ll skip the boilerplate intro and then reproduce sections along with my commentary below: Prior to recent issues, American has been running an extremely good operation, with reliability measures at their best levels in many years. The recent delays are due to the increase in maintenance write-ups by our pilots, many right at the time of departure. Our maintenance teams are responding appropriately to such reports, which may cause interruptions in our schedules. I know you will agree that nothing is more important than running a safe and reliable operation. Ensuring the safety of our customers…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 21, 2012
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Lucky reports that British Airways Avios has stopped adding fuel surcharges to award redemptions on Air Berlin which flies New York, Miami, and Los Angeles to Berlin as well as Ft. Myers, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and Vancouver to Dusseldorf. Great cheap way across the Atlantic using British Airways points. Frequent Miler Highlights the MyVanilla Pin-based debit card that’s now available for online ordering. You can use this card instead of an American Express gift card to earn 5 miles per dollar on all of your spending. As a debit card, you can use it to pay taxes at a very small fee. As a pin-based debit card, you should be able to use it to purchase postal money orders (which you deposit in your…
US Airways Changes Terms and Conditions of its Double Miles Offer
On Monday when US Airways came out with its double elite qualifying miles offer for tickets booked on their website and paid for with a Mastercard, I pointed out that the terms and conditions were confusing and left several questions unanswered. US Airways has since updated the terms and conditions to clarify some of those questions. The original, full terms and conditions said: Registration is required. You must purchase a ticket on usairways.com September 17 – October 31, 2012 for travel September 17 – December 31, 2012. Use a valid MasterCard card to get double miles or use a valid US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard card to get double Preferred-qualifying miles on flight activity. US Airways will award miles 6 – 8 weeks after travel has been completed. All Dividend Miles terms and conditions apply.…
300 Free La Quinta Returns Points
Through October 31, La Quinta Returns is offering 300 free points on the page you reach after watching a video. Points should post within 72 hours.
Bits ‘n Pieces from Programs I Don’t Use Much
News and Notes that Won’t Much Affect My Frequent Flyer Life: Spirit Airlines has introduced online booking for award tickets. I don’t have any Free Spirit miles, I love that the airline exists but don’t want to fly them. Their miles have the most draconian expiration policy I’ve ever seen: Miles will expire when an account becomes inactive for a period of 3 months or more. An “inactive” account is one that has no miles credited to it from any source during the preceding 3 months. La Quinta is offering 1000 Delta miles per stay through December 30. I recall from reading the autobiography of Southwest Airlines founding President Lamar Muse that the founder of La Quinta was an early investor and board member of the airline. The chain got it’s name because the cheapest…
American Airlines Pilots Behaving Badly
Yesterday I suggested that American’s pilots were engaged in a sick out because after new contract terms were imposed on pilots through the airline’s bankruptcy process, we started seeing lots of flight cancellations — over 5% on Sunday, again over 5% of the schedule on Monday, and already quite a few for today. I didn’t even get into the really poor on-time percentage being logged by American’s flights, which weren’t unduly affected by weather. It certainly seemed like something was ‘up’. Which was also confirmed in comments I was reading on the post and elsewhere, such as reports of 20-plus minute times to taxi, and planes even being beaten out by tugs moving faster than they were. Sky Talk gets a comment from the airline’s pilots union: “No one at APA has either sanctioned or…
The US Airways Double Miles MasterCard Promotion Is Really Confusing
The offer I wrote about earlier today of double miles on flights if you pay with a MasterCard and double elite qualifying miles if you pay with a US Airways MasteCard is actually confusing rather than simple. Or maybe I’ve just been thinking about it too much? When I wrote the post it seemed so straightforward. You get double miles for paying by MasterCard for any US Airways flights booked at USAirways.com by October 31, for travel through the end of the year (provided you register). But then I got my e-mail from US Airways, and as a co-branded credit card holder the marketing language didn’t even mention the double redeemable miles, just the status miles. Here are the full terms and conditions, it sure seems to leave a lot to the imagination. Registration is…
Double Redeemable and Elite Qualifying Miles on US Airways
US Airways is offering double miles on flights booked at USAirways.com by October 31 with a Mastercard for travel through December 31. And if you pay with a US Airways Mastercard, you get double elite qualifying miles as well. Registration by October 31 is required. The offer does not apply to flights booked prior to September 17, and miles are expected to post 6-8 weeks after travel. Promotion code is MCDM. For a US Airways flyer, this is very cool. The offer covers a full three and a half months of travel. And for US Airways elites who don’t already have the co-branded credit card, it’s a great time. The best offer for the credit card that I’m aware of comes with 40,000 miles after first purchase and no fee the first year. Non-elites get…
Are American’s Pilots Engaged in a Sick Out?
FlightStats.com has some really interesting tools. I’ve written in the past how to use the site to look up award availability on a variety of airlines. You can also look up on-time statistics, taking a variety of slices. One of those is looking at a given airline’s stats for the previous, current, and next day. And looking at yesterday, American Airlines seems to have had to cancel about 5% of its flights. And already today they’ve cancelled a bit over 5% of their schedule. As part of its bankruptcy restructuring, American received court approval to make changes to its pilots contract. (Pilots were the only group that didn’t come to a new labor agreement with the airline, voting down a contract sent out by union leadership.) Last week the airline imposed new terms on its…
