Category Archives for Airlines.
If you’re a British Airways silver you can use American Airlines business class Flagship lounges even on domestic flights. If you’re a BA Gold you can use partner first class lounges, even if you’re flying economy, like Cathay Pacific’s Wing or Pier or Qantas first class lounges.
Royal Air Maroc is back with its status match offer, this time including to top tier Platinum which is oneworld emerald and comes with access to partner first class lounges.
The lowest wages are earned by the newest flight attendants. This structure is something unions have bargained for over decades and multiple contracts. Low wages to start, and higher wages as seniority grows, is something that benefits more senior crewmembers. The airline ultimately doesn’t care nearly as much about how the cost of flight attendants is distributed across flight attendants.
Though the union itself is responsible for low starting wages, AFA-CWA union head Sara Nelson says that it’s actually… sexism.
Spirit Airlines sent a 6 year old flying alone to the wrong airport in Florida. They wound up hundreds of miles away from their waiting family. The child’s first time ever on a plane was taking a trip from Philadelphia to Fort Myers. The airline sent them to Orlando instead. The airline told his grandmother, who was waiting at the gate, that he “missed his flight.” Despite security protocols, she said that she “ran inside the plane to the flight attendant” and asked her, Where’s my grandson? He was handed over to you at Philadelphia? The flight attendant said “No, I had no kids with me.” Then the child called (impressive for a six year old!) saying he’d landed. His luggage went to Fort Myers, his grandmother drove to Orlando to collect him. Spirit is…
The lesson here is that contract airlines reflect on the carrier whose brand they fly under. She wasn’t an ‘American Airlines’ employee, but American still has to answer for her. And that means the quality of that airline and its staff matter. It isn’t enough to say “not us, different airline.”
Passengers in the exit row have to be willing to assist in an emergency. But if they’re drinking they may be impaired in their ability to assist.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue is the best frequent flyer program in the SkyTeam alliance. It’s legions better than Delta SkyMiles. At the airline’s investor day, they explained how they’ll be doubling down on the loyalty program to drive profits, as relayed by Brian Sumers in his invaluable Substack. U.S. airlines see loyalty programs as cash cows. That’s not as true elsewhere. In Europe and Australia, credit card interchange is regulated, so rewards card deals aren’t as lucrative. In Australia, we’ve seen Qantas make each point worth less in order to keep awarding around one point per dollar for credit card spend. (Card fees have gone up, and in some cases points-earning has been capped.) In Europe the cards themselves aren’t as profitable, and the deals look different. For instance a past Air France-American Express…
Before the pandemic the American Airlines co-brand portfolio had the largest charge volume, but American, United and Delta were all over $100 billion annually.
In June Delta Air Lines made big news claiming to have broken away from the pack reporting that “approaching 1% of U.S. GDP” in charge volume on their co-brand cards. They appeared to suggest over a quarter trillion dollars being spend on Delta American Express cards.
Only the Department of Transportation has authority to police loyalty programs, and according to the DOT Inspector General the agency has improperly ignored complaints about frequent flyer programs. That appears about to change.
A flight attendant insisted that parents of a young child give up their baby’s seat so that a someone with a disability could have it. The parents refused.
Since children under two aren’t required to have a seat, the crewmember thought that they could sit on a parents lap.
What I’d really love is access to AA20 benefits, 20% off revenue flights and 20% off award travel as well.
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 »
