Category Archives for Airlines.
Delta has doubled or in some cases even tripled those higher prices. It’s possible to spend 650,000 miles roundtrip on a simple business class partner award to Europe.
United marketed the end of change fees as permanent, but in the airline industry permanent means for now, until we change our mind. It appears they’re experimenting with bringing back change fees.
Virgin Atlantic is offering a 50% rebate when redeeming their points for award travel on their own flights by November 7 for travel through March 25, 2023. While there are ways to get more value out of this than it first appears, simple business class redemptions – even with 50% of your points back – aren’t such a good deal.
United is expanding at Chicago O’Hare and increasingly American is the number two carrier there. Years ago the city had a sprawling international route network, selling flights to Moscow and Delhi. Now American’s flying from Chicago is mostly domestic.
At an internal meeting earlier in the month led by Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja, an employee asked about the draw down in Chicago flying and in particular why American isn’t flying from Chicago to Hawaii.
Citibank is surveying potential changes to its premium American AAdvantage credit card which comes with Admirals Club lounge membership. Generally they appear to be looking to raise the card’s $450 annual fee, and begin charging for authorized user cards (since those cards also grant lounge access). In the surveys I shared they’re playing around with partner offers – such as statement credits from Hyatt, Lyft, Avis, and DoorDash – to see whether those help them raise the card’s annual fee even higher.
Buried in the notes about benefits the card would offer for additional Loyalty Points after $40,000 and $90,000 spend in a year is a reference to a higher number of Loyalty Points associated with American Airlines Gold and Platinum status.
The notion that airlines even sell seats with six extra inches of legroom on many domestic flights, as the President suggests, is fanciful. Three inches is far more common. Airline passengers skew quite well off, relatively few marginalized Americans fly regularly. It seems odd to suggest that they are disproportionately harmed (or, for that matter, that they are buying up to extra legroom seats).
Aeroplan is unique in offering a status level between 25,000 and 50,000 elite qualifying miles. Their 35,000 point level isn’t Star Alliance Gold, so doesn’t entitle the member to lounge access on partners. But it has come with access to Air Canada’s own lounges. That’s changing next year.
American Airlines expects to begin taking delivery of new extended range narrowbody planes – the Airbus A321XLR – starting in the first quarter of 2024.
At an internal meeting, a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing, executives at the airline discussed how they plan to deploy the plane.
In general there’s a branded marketing tie-in to these tarmac transfer deals, best thought of as a merchant-funded offer conceptually similar to statement credits and elite status provided through credit card issuers. Here Jaguar’s electric I-PACE is what’s being promoted, showcased for the very customers that United values most. There’s even a 50,000 mile offer for buying one.
A week ago I was first to cover that Singapore Airlines would drop Dom Perignon from its first class and Suites cabin, though generally still offer two outstanding choices: Krug and Taittinger Comtes de Champagne.
It turns out that the reason for the change isn’t budgetary (they got a great deal from Taittinger) or a sourcing problem (there’s no Dom Perignon supply chain breakdown) but rather the airline, which was at one point reportedly the world’s second-largest purchaser of Dom, has been shut out from access.
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 »
