Category Archives for Airlines.
Lufthansa’s transatlantic joint venture partner United Airlines eliminated award charts and introduced dynamic award pricing to their own flights (but still prices partner awards based on their hidden chart). Here they followed Delta’s lead.
Now a Lufthansa executive has revealed that the Miles & Mile program plans to move to dynamic pricing of awards.
Air Italy, 49% owned by Qatar Airways, is a partner of British Airways and their mileage currency is Avios.
The airline will sell top tier Gold status for 500 euros (US$558) or Silver status for 200 euros (US$223).
United is offering 35% off economy plus (extra legroom) seat assignments for June travel if you pay by May 27. Not valid for basic economy tickets.
They actually ran 50% off for travel during the second half of March. United, it seems, upsells to economy plus seats the same way that American Airlines sells miles. They maintain a high regular price so they can frequently offer seats at a discount.
Each month Air France KLM offers ‘promo awards’ discounted awards you can book from specific cities to anywhere in Europe over a close-in two month period.
In addition to these they’ve just announced a set of special promo awards bookable May 22-24 for travel September 1 – December 12.
American’s saver award US-Europe price is 57,500 miles one way. They almost never release those. The lowest AAnytime price is normally 110,000 miles. However American is discounting summer business class AAnytime award travel to and from Europe, and the prices aren’t bad.
American Airlines and Dallas Fort-Worth airport announced an agreement to support up to $3 to $3.5 billion for terminal improvements including piecemealing a new terminal F and refreshing terminal C.
The airport is in the midst of negotiating its new master lease, and American represents 86% of passenger traffic, so they have the lion’s share of say. (Indeed, together with their joint venture partners they’re able to exercise de facto control.)
American Airlines has gone for an injunction against their mechanics’ union, accusing them of a work slowdown leading to “650 flight cancellations and more than 1500 maintenance delays” affecting 125,000 customers, according to a letter sent to employees. They contend that the degree of issues they’ve faced would be “one-in-one billion” if left to chance rather than the result of “concerted activity.”
Delta’s new SkyClub in the Austin airport opens Tuesday morning. It’s gorgeous on the inside, features more substantive food options than the United and American clubs in the same airport, and features an furnished outdoor observation deck area with misters for the summer heat and heat lamps for the few days each year it’s cold.
For an outstation hoping to become a focus city like Austin this new club is an absolute winner — and will be a draw for flying Delta.
Throwaway ticketing – buying a ticket to a different city than the one you’re actually traveling to in order to save money – is against the rules at most airlines. It’s against the rules, that is, unless you get your ticket issued in Italy with certain airlines, which turns out to be surprisingly easy to do.
It’s a mistake to start with the operation rather than the customer. It’s also a mistake to start with competitors rather than customers. Understand what your customers need, and use that to make decisions around how best to provide that.
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 »
