Category Archives for Airlines.
What’s new, generally speaking, is that several carriers have amended their policies to actually reimburse you when they’re unable to provide you with a room and you book one yourself.
And the largest U.S. airlines have committed to put you on another airline when major delays are their fault, but there’s fine print – often doing the bare minimum to get a ‘check mark’ on the new Department of Transportation customer service comparison chart.
Generally speaking airlines were already on the hook for lodging and meals during controllable delays, however they’ve made explicit commitments here that include reimbursement when they can’t provide a hotel and specific amounts for meals.
Taiwan’s StarLux will start flying to the U.S. in April though for now they aren’t saying more than it’ll be a West Coast destination. They have plans to “gradually expand to other destinations” and also fly to Europe.
Monday night I wrote about the American Airlines flight from Miami to London that diverted to Bermuda stranding passengers inside the terminal for 21 hours.
For the first 11 overnight hours of their stay passengers report that they received water and pretzels. American Airlines says this is because of Bermuda’s Covid rules, but the government there says this isn’t true.
Throughout the pandemic I’ve been telling people they needed to pay attention to Covid-era entry rules not just for their destination – did they need a test? proof of vaccination? could they visit at all? – but also for any connecting points along the way. You don’t want to get stuck in an airport where you can’t enter the country, in case your flight gets cancelled or you miss your connection.
But there’s not a lot you can do when your plane goes mechanical and you’re not allowed into the country. Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to American Airlines flight 38 from Miami to London Heathrow on Sunday evening.
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is ‘how can I donate miles to charity?’ And the problem is that you really can’t unless you want to give to one of a handful of pre-selected groups your frequent flyer program endorses, or you want to directly book an award for someone out of your account. But this is not always true and you can make a difference.
An American Airlines passenger needed to get travel for work, and work involved using an empty bucket. He had to be at work before stores opened the next morning. And that meant he’d have to bring the bucket with him on his flight. So he brought it along as checked luggage. The bucket made it!
I’m shocked to see that Alaska Airlines appears to have wide open award availability for Singapore Airlines business class awards between the U.S. and Asia. In fact it seems they have at least as good availability as is offered to Singapore’s own members.
Alaska Airlines does a nice job taking care of customers one at a time – not always and in every case, of course, but on the whole my dealings with them have been just a touch more ‘human’ than average for the U.S. airline industry. So it didn’t surprise me to see this tweet about Alaska successfully recovering a laptop left on one of their planes.
This shouldn’t be a standout, but how often do you expect to actually receive valuables returned to you if you’ve left them on a plane?
Business class award space flying long distances can be tough to get when you want it. There’s one approach that isn’t written about very much, but that can get you the seats you want – when you want it – on a great airline: waitlisting.
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 »
