Category Archives for Airlines.
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards is encouraging new member signups with 5000 bonus points getting members to a reward faster. This helps demonstrate the value of the program to the member, when they redeem they’re more likely to stick with the program.
As in many states, Republicans in Texas are pushing voting law changes. They’ve passed a new bill in the state senate that “would limit early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting and bar local election officials from proactively sending vote-by-mail applications.”
Now that Delta has embroiled itself in the controversy of Georgia’s new voting law, former San Antonio Mayor, President Obama’s HUD Secretary, and 2020 Democratic presidential primary contender Julian Castro is calling on Texas-headquartered American Airlines and Southwest Airlines to stake out positions on the law.
In December Alaska Airlines introduced The Safety Dance, taking the Men Without Hats’ classic and applying it to air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To celebrate joining the global oneworld alliance today, Alaska Airlines has released a new version of their Safety Dance featuring cameos by employees and executives from oneworld partner airlines. It may just be the best thing that happened in March.
Alaska Airlines joined the oneworld alliance today. You still can’t use Alaska Airlines frequent flyer miles for travel on oneworld carriers that weren’t already the airline’s partners before this move. But the big news of the day, I think, is the announcement of reciprocal elite upgrade benefits between Alaska Airlines and American Airlines.
Delta is offering at least a 50% elite qualifying bonus on all travel for the rest of 2021, and a 75% bonus for premium cabin travel, under the banner of Medallion Accelerator. For the first time at Delta award travel will count towards earning elite status from April 1 through December 31, 2021 as well.
Delta Air Lines told employees they helped write Georgia’s new voting law. They dug in deeper defending their position that they ‘made the bill better’ and refused to criticize it.
Facing online and media controversy, and a supposed-consumer boycott, they’ve now reversed course. After first congratulating themselves on it, and then refusing to criticize it, CEO Ed Bastian now says it’s abhorrent.
Air Canada Aeroplan has just announced all elite status is being extended through the end of 2022, while still doing a good job of rewarding and incentivizing travel this year. They’re also pausing mileage expiration through January 2022.
Last Friday Delta Air Lines told employees they were part of crafting Georgia’s voting restrictions bill offering that their “state government affairs team..heavily engaged on this issue, holding meetings with state elected officials on both sides of the aisle in order to make sure the Delta voice was well represented and heard.”
CEO Ed Bastian refused to condemn the legislation, claiming they made it better, and at most was willing to acknowledge that “concerns remain.” Today the airline released a video to employees defending this position.
American Airlines took a Boeing 737 MAX out of service on Monday after it experienced a pitch trim issue enroute from Miami to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
Ultimately the pilots of the aircraft remained in control and landed safely. The system worked as it should. Extra attention, though, will be likely paid to this incident because it involved elevator trim and the MAX, even though it doesn’t appear to have involved the MCAS system.
Air France KLM just announced that they plan to move to ‘continuous pricing’ rather than filing fares and managing availability on specific flights. They think that, on average, they can charge consumers about 10% more for tickets than they do today.
Several other airlines are working on the same thing. Here’s how it works.
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 »
