Category Archives for Airlines.
Starting next year, American will install high speed internet in its two-cabin regional aircraft. That means Embraer E-175, Bombardier CR7 and CR9s. Their 50 seat Embraer E-145s will remain dark. The process is expected to take two years to complete.
One passenger documented the hotel that American Airlines provided them when they were stuck in Charlotte. It appears to be the Wyndham Garden Charlotte Airport Southeast. This is not your average Hilton or Marriott.
President Biden sent out an odd tweet about airline consumer protections on Wednesday. He claims that airlines did not used to provide refunds when they cancelled flights, but thanks to his administration they do now. That just is not true.
A passenger on board American Airlines flight 2829 from New York JFK to Phoenix was called out by flight attendants over their political sweatshirt. The sweatshirt apparently said “Palestine.” It also appeared to define Palestine… more broadly than Gaza, the West Bank, and parts of East Jerusalem.
The airline is now being called “rascit” (sic) because they made the passenger turn their sweatshirt inside out in order to fly “jus bc it said Palestine.”
When Etihad brought back the A380 to London Heathrow, award space (often for the full cabin) was wide open. That’s how I grabbed three seats for myself, my wife and my daughter to fly London – Abu Dhabi and back earlier this month, using American AAdvantage miles.
I’ll be looking to see whether the first apartment opens up on New York JFK – Abu Dhabi, and if it does I’ll make several speculative bookings if possible – as a way even to get to India, the Mideast, and even Africa and Asia (even if booked as separate awards). I’ve flown this product many times and it’s really special.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants is railing against the National Mediation Board and its decision. But the board is dominated by Biden administration picks (2-1), and includes a former lawyer for a flight attendants union. This is not a group biased against labor, or against cabin crew.
They weren’t going to hand the Biden administration a holiday hot potato heading into holiday travel and re-election, though.
I see how this may work within IAG and its network of airlines (e.g. British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus) but there are open questions about whether this might extend to Finnair which is adopting Avios as its currency or with Qatar Airways which uses Avios.
Give A Mile’s Year-End Campaign To Raise United Airlines Miles Give A Mile’s Year-End Campaign To Raise Air Canada Points Regular readers may know that I joined the board of Give A Mile about a year ago. There aren’t enough opportunities to use miles to accomplish charitable objectives. Most are airline-selected corporate charities. Give A Mile is unique because they take donations of miles and actually use the miles to book flights for a really worthy cause: helping people to be together with loved ones in their last moments. The goal is that people shouldn’t die alone. This is a small organization with a strong cadre of volunteers. There’s not much overhead. There’s no marketing department. Just people committed to do some good using miles. I’ve given a lot of my own miles to the…
In the end dressing nicely and whispering revenue management won’t get you first class, and neither will pretending to be a cocktail even though cocktails are free in first class.
A ‘Club Platinum’ subscription for 899 euros (US$982) gets you: 54,000 miles up front 8,000 miles per month that’s 150,000 miles total, plus silver status, premium boarding, and 400 status miles per month.
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 »
