In mid-July Citibank points suddenly became transferable to American Airlines. That was a huge surprise and for many cardmembers with Prestige and Premier products a nice increase in the value of their points. Citi hadn’t had one of the large U.S. airlines as a transfer partner.
In fact, it was odd that American Airlines wasn’t a transfer partner before this. And odder still that the relationship was introduced as temporary, running only though November 13.
The Citibank and Barclays premium consumer cards get a year’s grace period on their spend threshold bonuses for elite status under the new Loyalty Points system of qualifying for AAdvantage elite. The Barclays business card, however, does not.
And, it seems, Barclays wasn’t just able to remove this benefit from its applications and instead has taken the applications down – they can’t promise something to cardmembers they aren’t going to deliver.
Singapore Airlines sweats all the small details, not just the mechanical ones. They built a model Airbus A380 using manila envelopes and the seats inside the plane even reclined. Tag line: “It’s the small details that make giants in the sky.” Bingo.
Which brings me to meal service on American Airlines.
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 Airlines has more debt than competitors and financially underperforms the industry. It’s had unhappy investors, unhappy employees, and unhappy customers. In fall 2019, after American lost its joint venture with South American megacarrier LATAM to Delta, there was a lot of speculation that management would be ousted. There was a low-level leadership reshuffle, but no one at the top left.
Rewards credit cards frequently cost merchants more money to accept than plain vanilla credit cards without rewards. Merchants want to accept credit cards – it’s good for their business – but they’d love to pay less for the service. Many associations of retailers turn to governments or the courts to try to force lower fees from Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
One of the arguments employed by merchants, to disguise self-interested behavior, is ‘concern for the pooor’ claiming that the rich benefit from rewards while the poor face higher prices as a result.
Rewarding customers who spend more on tickets isn’t the same as rewarding customers who are most profitable to an airline company, let alone incentivizing customers towards becoming more profitable.
Three years ago the CEO of Singapore Airlines described what they would do with their new first class on board the upcoming Boeing 777-9 as a “quantum leap” in their design offering.
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.
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.
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 »
