Category Archives for Airlines.
United has now done something that seems like it could be following Delta’s model. They’ve filed Economy Plus fares that treat their extra legroom seats as a separate cabin. These fares come with free Economy Plus seat assignments, rather than paying extra for extra legroom seats.
A year and a half ago United Airlines President Scott Kirby shared a plan with investors to offer a separate ‘domestic premium economy’ product. This could be the start of that plan.
Avios is a driver of profit, strong relative to size and regulation, but does less of a good job driving airline revenue that one would expect. Most program members are inactive, which isn’t surprising, and members prefer inflated award costs of cash co-pays (fuel surcharges).
For the past few months there been a glitch with certain awards booked on the American Airlines website, where baggage allowance information wasn’t being added to tickets. The airline doesn’t have a solution yet, but they’re taking action to avoid spreading the problem.
Delta CFO Paul Jacobson spoke at the Baird 2019 Industrial Conference this morning, throwing shade at American’s CEO Doug Parker and talking up how his airline has transformed the way it sells elements of the flight experience that used to be available for no charge for passengers often on a first-come, first-served basis.
Star Alliance program Avianca LifeMiles will sell you miles and is offering up to a 145% bonus through November 12.
You can fly business class to Europe for 63,000 miles each way or Southeast Asia for 78,000. First class (Lufthansa) is 87,000 miles each way between the US and Europe. And that’s before special deals or cutting the cost with lower-cabin connecting flights.
Business class saver awards can be a challenge using American AAdvantage miles. American rarely releases saver inventory on their own planes, and they don’t have as many partners as United does (Star Alliance is bigger than oneworld).
Finding business class awards for more than one or two people is even harder. So when there’s business class award space to Asia for a family of four that’s really notable.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker spoke this morning at the Baird 2019 Global Industrial Conference, making the case for why the airline’s financial performance will improve. His message seemed to boil down to: we’re going to do what other airlines are doing, so our performance should revert towards the mean. In other words, by copying other airlines, if they make money American should too.
Airlines frequently offer elite status buy back (pay to get this past year’s status) or buy up (pay to get a higher status) offers. On their face they seem expensive. Here’s how to know whether they’re right for you.
There are two questions to ask about the elite status you’re considering.
Here’s how American Airlines scores its customers. American Airlines has a system called Helix that it uses to tell employees when to go ‘above and beyond’ for a customer. It’s used by reservations, agents at the airport, customer relations, baggage services and others as a way to know when it’s ok to spend more on a customer.
The goal of the system is to accommodate high value customers who are at risk of defecting to a competitor. Helix will display an Eagle ranking from 1-5 for each customer. This ranking is updated each day and depends on a combination of revenue and how badly you’ve been treated by the airline. You’re only going to get special treatment if your ranking is 3 or higher.
A new matching services hopes to connect passengers who need to travel with their kids with nannies to help them inflight in exchange for travel assistance or cash.
The business is called AirPair (pairing up people for air travel, and sounds like au pair).
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 »
