Category Archives for Airlines.
Now that the Small Business Administration has released detail on the businesses receiving $150,000 or more in “PPP” loans, I was curious to see if there was any ‘double dipping’ by airlines, taking advantage of their own dedicated payroll support and also PPP funds which were meant to allow small businesses to continue to pay their employees.
It turns out there were at least 10.
Late last year American Airlines started locking AAdvantage accounts and cancelling pending award travel for people they believe took advantage of a ‘loophole’ to sign up for multiple Citibank credit cards.
Several customers whose accounts were shut down filed complaints with the Department of Transportation. American has now responded to a formal complaint, and reveals a lot about what they know – and how they know it.
After a medical diversion a family was given the private jet treatment by Spirit Airlines.
The airline dropped the family off in Turks & Caicos. The girl recovered. But they were stranded – the local airport was closed to commercial traffic, and the they hadn’t even intended to leave the country so weren’t carrying passports. So the very next day Spirit actually sent a plane to bring the family back to Puerto Rico.
Australian Jessican Tam reports that when she cancelled a Qatar Airways roundtrip business class ticket from Jakarta to London, and they accidentally refunded AU$28,179,789.36 – or about $19.7 million at today’s exchange rates. She’s even shared a screen shot of her bank balance.
Southwest is offering a 30% bonus on points that post to your account between August 1, 2020 and October 31, 2020 under the ‘credit card’ category. You’ll earn this bonus if you have at least 6000 credit card points post during the promotion period, and you can earn up to 25,000 bonus points. These points count towards a Companion Pass, which itself has reduced requirements to earn this year already.
Emirates has 115 Airbus A380s. Those offer a lot of capacity when flying is at such low levels. And Emirates is an international airline, they aren’t flying domestic routes which have fewer restrictions around the world. Their on board bars are designed precisely not to social distance. And showers, while in normal times cleaned between each use, are both an expensive amenity (carrying all that water means burning fuel) and represents use of the same space by multiple passengers.
To bring the A380 and its amenities back means air travel recovers, and social distancing is no longer required to fly.
We know that people carry the SARS-CoV-2 virus with them from one country to another, one city to another, one planes. However we haven’t traced outbreaks to contact on planes anywhere in the world. One of the reasons that’s usually cited for this is the use of high efficiency particulate (HEPA) air filters.
What are HEPA air filters, do all planes have them, and why do they work?
The advice when an airline goes bankrupt is to get your money back for future tickets from your credit card company. If a business doesn’t provide the services you paid for, your credit card company will get you your money back (usually).
German law has an interesting quirk though. Apparently people who pay for services they haven’t received are considered unsecured creditors in bankruptcy, and getting your money back via a credit card chargeback is considered ‘queue jumping’.
It makes sense why American and United would sell every last seat on a plane customers are willing to buy, why Southwest doesn’t lose as much capping load factors and why doing so – they believe – will help them capture market share, and why Delta would take a more ‘premium’ approach that includes blocked middle seats.
When supermodel Chrissy Teigen has an opinion on aviation, you take it seriously. She’s got the bona fides. This time, though, she’s gone off the deep end calling American Airlines management murderers for selling middle seats on their planes.
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 »
