Category Archives for Airlines.
American Airlines now sells ‘Business Plus’ fares that include Flagship check-in, Flagship First Dining access (currently only available at New York JFK, Miami and Dallas Fort-Worth) and a third checked bag.
View it as bundling Flagship First Dining into the fare, but beware this is useful only at a limited number of airports.
On Sunday aa passenger in Dallas had their bag taken at the gate. The gate agent reportedly “tag[ged] them without asking final destination,” didn’t give customer a claim tag and told them to “them to look for it at [their] connecting airport NOT final destination.” They thought they’d never see their bag again.
The flight’s captain, though, wasn’t having any of this.
Delta once said ‘if everyone’s elite, nobody is.’ But if everyone has lounge access, nobody does. To mitigate overcrowding Delta and American Express worked on getting Delta premium card customers access to (also overcrowded) Centurion lounges, and to build Centurion lounges in some Delta terminals.
That hasn’t solved crowding because more people have access, and are trying to use the lounge, than there’s space. That can mean lines to get in – a wait list.
Someone asked on Twitter why American Airlines has the requirement for three separate fields to log in – the account number, password, and last name. In other words, why isn’t account number and password enough? I happen to know the reason, and it’s mildly interesting.
Some people suggest messaging Delta rather than calling when it’s impossible to get through but that can be just as futile, as one passenger who took to social media explained after being told of a more than 11 hour wait time to connect with an agent.
The Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling against Southwest Airlines on Tuesday that is both almost self-evident in its simplicity as it will be surprising to some to see.
The Court ruled 8-0, with Justice Thomas writing the opinion and Justice Barrett not participating in the case, that ramp workers loading and unloading baggage and cargo are engaging in interstate commerce.
The airline didn’t just offer the status challenge, what they’re highlighting as unique is that they actually had a communications plan with members who registered to get more information from the customers in exchange for 500 miles (where they want to travel) and then followed up marketing destinations to those members.
American Airlines flight 4837 from Indianapolis to Chicago rejected takeoff on Saturday morning when smoke was reported in the cabin. The Republic Airways Embraer ERJ175 was accelerating on runway 5L at the time.
Some of the 67 passengers on board were “crying and kind of screaming and you could see people praying,” according to one man on the flight, after they “started seeing smoke coming from the cabin door and smelled something burning.”
United Airlines probably does the best job of making additional award space available to elite members (even Silver) along with cobrand credit card customers. That extra inventory is real.
What a lot of American AAdvantage members don’t realize is that Executive Platinum (and Concierge Key) members also have extra award availability.
It seems to me that it is one thing to save a seat or even a row, and other thing entirely to save multiple rows. Still it is not against Southwest’s rules. I’m not sure how a passenger trying to save a row behind them would block a passenger from sitting there, but social custom seems to make it a plausible strategy.
Is saving multiple rows of seats going overboard? Would you honor someone’s claim that they’re saving seats in a row they aren’t physically in?
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 »
