Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines has eliminated Saver and Anytime awards, and replaced those award charts with a new ‘starting from’ pricing chart for American Airlines flights. There are no changes to partner awards or upgrade awards. And since most American awards were already dynamically-priced web specials, in practice little changes at all.
Here are the full details.
The flight attendant’s vaping is an issue because it’s illegal and subject to fine, not because it’s inherently problematic the way smoking on board would be (exposing other passengers to the smoke).
Most of the time cabin crew are ‘unmonitored’ and while there are procedures, in practice there’s quite a wide latitude for deviation.
If any pandemic precautions were to last it was my hope that actually keeping planes clean would be at the top of the list. At least clear out seat back pockets of trash from the passenger on the flight before you! But with the return to normal has come cleaning cost cuts, too, and prioritizing turning planes quickly during connections rather than cleaning between flights (and, oddly, not doing a proper cleaning job overnight either).
American Airlines will only sell basic economy fares directly, not through traditional or online travel agencies. There are some cheaper fares that they reserve to their own channels as well. But generally speaking there are two sets of fares depending where outside of American Airlines that you book.
Google has just introduced a price guarantee for airline tickets. If you buy a flight they say is at the right price, and the fare drops later, they’ll give you the difference. This should bring more attention to the generally-excellent Google Flights.
Southwest is offering six weeks of a companion pass – bring someone with you when you travel on points or cash for just the taxes – after you take just a single trip.
Register, purchase one roundtrip or two one way flights by April 5, and then travel by May 24. Your companion pass will be valid August 15 – September 30, 2023.
The seal on a $100 bottle of whiskey was “obviously cut” and one-third of the bottle was drained when it was collected at baggage claim. It didn’t spill. And it was packed by an industry professional. Who could have taken the precious Glenmorangie?
A Delta Air Lines passenger reported that they made it to Detroit on Friday, but couldn’t get the last mile home to Cincinnati. There were strong thunderstorms in the area in the evening and that was wreaking havoc with flights. Delta, though, didn’t blame weather and say there was nothing they can do. Instead they rebooked passengers on short-distance final segments using their partner Lyft.
In recent years, Delta has offered the worst customer service by phone with the longest hold times for customers, although of course all airlines have challenges. Fortunately there is a workaround for all of this!
When airlines partner with third parties so that customers earn miles for transactions outside of travel, we normally think of the non-travel partner renting the frequent flyer program to help sell their product. The partner buys miles and is paying for the reward they give to customers, for access to the airline’s customers, and for use of the frequent flyer program’s intellectual property.
But there’s a benefit to the loyalty program beyond the direct revenue for the miles sold.
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 »
