Back in April I shared details of the new American Airlines safety video. The airline held off releasing it because of the Covid-19 pandemic. I only posted an 18 second snippet to offer a taste, looking forward to the airline’s planned release.
Now, however, the video is playing temporarily on 70 aircraft so I’m happy to share it in full.
Whether 2021 status requirements are set too high or too low really isn’t clear yet, because we don’t know what travel is going to look like even as it starts to come back once the pandemic begins to get under control. And not all benefits are scarce, so that more elites mean fewer benefits for those who earn it ‘the hard and usual way’.
If it turns out there are too many elites, how a program handles that is still entirely within their control. But we’re going to have to wait to see how the 2021 travel year develops, and how programs continue to respond. Laying out elite qualifying criteria is the start of this, not the finish.
Gogo has gotten out of the business of providing inflight internet to commercial airlines and will focus on the private jet market instead. They sold their commercial aviation business to Intelsat.
Intelsat believes it can negotiate more favorable terms with airlines (raise prices) and offer more bandwidth (allowing Delta to make internet free to passengers). Intelsat will lease Gogo’s air-to-ground network for 10 years as part of the deal, because commercial airlines (especially regional jets, which largely lack the capacity for satellite internet antennas) still use the technology.
On Wednesday, December 2nd American AAdvantage members can go to the Promotion Center in their mileage accounts to find a free gift (miles, lounge passes etc) and register for a targeted promotion.
Delta, which can go hundreds of days at a time without cancelling a flight, cancelled hundreds of flights in days over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Delta blames Covid-19, offering “We didn’t expect the effects of a sharp increase in capacity in the last part of the month to be compounded by rising number of positive COVID cases and quarantine requirements among pilots and other factors.”
The two airlines submitted copies of their agreement to the Department of Transportation for review on July 22, 2020. The review requirement isn’t just for codeshares and frequent flyer program tie ups as announced but also for “long-term wet leases involving a substantial number of aircraft” – a wet lease provides not just planes but also crew.
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.
There are active discussions around what to do with the Airbus A321T premium configured fleet and a report suggests that there’s a plan to rip out the interiors and replace them with the standard domestic ‘Oasis’ offering.
The A321T offers 10 first class, 20 business class, 36 Main Cabin Extra (extra legroom coach) and 36 economy seats and is used on premium cross country routes. Moving to ‘Oasis’ would mean these planes would lose seat back television, a lot more seats would be squeezed in, and there would no longer be a lie flat business class or first class product.
Hyatt is cutting in half the number of nights required to earn elite status in 2021, and extending several promotions into early 2021. You can earn status easily just with a Hyatt co-brand credit card too.
Marriott is offering about 90% of their 7500 hotels at off peak redemption prices for bookings made by December 14 and stays through February 28, 2021.
A Marriott spokesperson says “Of the 90% of properties offering solely off-peak rates, about two—thirds of those properties had previously been offering a mix of rates during the promotional stay period.” And that just shows that Bonvoy has been gouging members for redemptions at a majority of its hotels.
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 »
