Category Archives for Airlines.
Palestinian Airlines is being liquidated by the Palestinian Authority. It hasn’t flown in 6 years but has continued to serve as an employer in Gaza. Down to just two Fokker 50 aircraft those were returned from lease by Niger Airlines during the pandemic.
Star Alliance member EVA Air has wide open business class award space from Los Angeles to Taipei (and beyond in Asia) for August 2021 through end of schedule.
International travel right now isn’t an option for most – especially to Asia – but come summer 2021 the world is likely to look a lot different than it does today. I’m betting that late summer and fall travel is going to be possible, and mileage trips are exactly what you want to be booking given the flexibility to cancel and redeposit miles. I’ve got an Asia trip on the books for the back half of 2021 already myself.
In general Virgin Atlantic has some of the least valuable miles but their points are ubiquitous since they’re a transfer partner of Chase, Ameriacn Express, and Citibank. They do have real sweet spots. My favorite is using their miles for ANA first class round trip to Tokyo for just 120,000 miles.
Perhaps their most useful redemption was award travel on Delta. Not anymore. And without any notice, boom, during the pandemic.
Alaska Airlines is offering a 50% elite qualifying miles bonus their own flights January 1 – June 30, 2021. No registration required, and this is a bonus towards elite status qualification and not bonus miles you can spend on award travel.
American is at a cost disadvantage relative to the industry. Management won’t want to seek a strategic restructuring. Chairman and CEO Doug Parker owns approximately 2.4 million shares of the airline’s stock. However American remains at greater risk of bankruptcy than rivals, that hasn’t ended with the close of 2020 (though vaccines improve the carrier’s prospects), and talk of bankruptcy risk certainly hasn’t been “nonsense” as veteran airline journalist Ted Reed claims at Forbes.
A husband and wife boarded their flight on American Airlines from Charlotte to Jacksonville along with their 4 year old and 2 year old and two grandparents. American kicked them off because their two year old wouldn’t keep her mask on. They had no issue on their inbound flight, just their onward connection. And the woman says her daughter was eating, which is allowed.
American Airlines staff in Charlotte reportedly threatened to ban the whole family from the airline.
The U.S. government held a call with airlines today discussing a possible Covid-19 testing requirement for all passengers coming to the U.S. following a similar requirement imposed on arrivals from the U.K. on Monday (including U.S. citizens). Airlines hope a negative Covid-19 test will replace an outright ban on non-citizens who have traveled to certain countries in the past 14 days.
American Airlines became the first U.S. carrier to fly the Boeing 737 MAX again yesterday, after the aircraft’s ungrounding.
Huge mistakes were made engineering this plane. I believe it is now safe, but many people are worried and don’t want to fly the plane. Here’s what American Airlines will let you do if they change your itinerary so that it is operated by a 737 MAX.
Alaska Airlines, based in Seattle, has been an all-Boeing operator. They acquired Virgin America which flew Airbus narrowbodies. It’s seemed from the beginning that they’d eventually dump those planes, and now the fate of Alaska Airlines Airbus A319s and A320s is sealed with Alaska’s order of 23 additional Boeing 737 MAX 9s.
Yet it appears Alaska is talking to Airbus about what to do with the 30 Airbus A320neo orders it inherited from Virgin America – and instead of cancelling, it’s possible they could be converted to A321XLRs.
2020 has been a hard year, but it’s almost behind us. And I’m excited to start traveling again, I’ve been plotting out several trips for the summer and fall of 2021. I’m only booking my airfare with miles, though, because of how flexible that can be.
A Bask Savings Account is a great way to earn these miles, and it’s great that the new customer bonus offer has been extended.
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 »
