Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest Airlines is out with a double elite qualifying offer on paid tickets, allowing award travel to count towards status as well, and pairing it with increased status-earning from spend on a Southwest Airlines credit card all between March 1 and May 31, 2023.
Traditionally a pilot at a regional airline might start out earning less than $50,000 per year, but get hired on by a major airline and that goes up quickly into the six figures, and well over $300,000 for senior captains flying widebody aircraft overseas. Some earn over $400,000.
Yet we’ve heard a lot of complaining by pilots recently. Contracts are open for negotiation at American Airlines, Southwest, and United.
With the window shutting to earn status for the new year closing on Tuesday night, customers were calling in. This is a new system (Loyalty Points) and a new cutoff (February 28, not December 31). And telephone hold times became excruciating, as numerous customers shared to social media. Wait times stretched in some cases over 5 hours.
American Airlines became the first U.S. airline to offer a guarantee that families could sit together, by writing it into its customer service plan. That’s a commitment which is enforceable by the Department of Transportation.
Conservative groups have targeted American Airlines over its push for diversity hiring and that’s… a little weird?
The publicity is actually good for American Airlines, burnishing its credentials with a group like the NAACP which had previously issued a travel warning against the company. And it’s odd for conservatives who used to believe that companies should be free to hire as they wish.
When Lufthansa first started teasing their new first class product, it didn’t look especially impressive. Details began leaking out that suggested it was going to be very nice and indeed they’re out with a lot more information now and it looks awesome.
However new first class will be on some of their Airbus A350s, and those that have it will offer just a single row of three seats. Do not plan on flying this with your points.
United Airlines MileagePlus is somewhat less lucrative for the airline than American’s and Delta’s frequent flyer programs. You can get some insight into the economics of their loyalty program from their latest SEC 10-K filing as well as disclosures made around raising debt backed by the revenue from its mileage offering.
Delta hasn’t been nearly as aggressive with mileage partnerships over the past several years, outside of its main credit card partner, as competitor airlines.
That could be changing. Through March 31, 2023 hotel and car rental bookings through their portal earn qualifying dollars towards SkyMiles elite status.
American Airlines offers some nuggets which provide insight into the AAdvantage program, buried in this SEC filing which is over 200 pages long (plus attachments). The biggest takeaway is that fewer seats on American Airlines are filled with passengers redeeming miles than at Delta or Southwest.
It’s remarkable how airlines in Europe, the Middle East and Asia can serve amazing meals on short flights, while U.S. airlines serve such lower quality food on flights that are much longer.
But just because you’re flying a European or Asian airline in business class doesn’t mean all of the food is going to be impressive.
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 »
