Category Archives for Airlines.
When I was a kid I’d fly and I’d always get wing pins from the airline. If I was bored I’d ask for a deck of cards. I still have several of the decks I received on flights when I was young. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to bring a deck with me, but the airline always had one to give. That era’s over… or is it?
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
Whether we’re flying to New York or Phoenix — or Paris or Sydney — my wife and I have plenty of diapers when traveling with our now-six month old daughter. We have plenty of wipes, replacement outfits, and all the supplies you can imagine. I never used to check a bag on a five night trip, now I’m checking bags for two nights.
I admit it makes me appreciate my business travel more when I can navigate through the airport with just a carry on or even just a laptop bag. Fortunately though my wife has the baby packing down to a science. And just going through diapers we’re less encumbered for the trip home than the way out. Maybe we don’t need to bring as many in the first place?
I’m not looking forward to this, but I’m hopeful that partner award prices don’t change for awhile and that perhaps American (and United) can be convinced to be transparent about partner pricing going forward even as they price their own flights dynamically.
That is of course where the best value lies today from both programs.
Virgin Atlantic unveiled their new business class seat today. It’s an improvement against the current seat. Every seat is angled towards the window, has power, and the center seats in the 1-2-1 configuration have privacy screens. All seats are fully flat with direct aisle access.
It’s an attractive cabin scheme but there’s nothing revolutionary about the seat, in fact my first thought was the goal must be to avoid being better than the new Delta 767 seat that will fly to London.
Naturally if passengers think they’re flying on a 737 MAX, that’s going to raise concerns. And plenty of passengers apparently think that’s just what’s happening — even though of course it isn’t. Instead they’re being freaked out by the seat back safety card on Southwest Airlines.
A month ago I wrote that American would be introducing ‘seat coupons’. Presumably this means that non-elites may be able to earn preferred seat assignments on American Airlines.
Apparently the functionality is now live.
An American Airlines flight attendant shares her Phoenix – Dallas story. The airline’s CEO Doug Parker was on the flight. She was serving predeparture beverages – sparkling water, gin and tonics – when her drink tray went flying.
However she had “a tray of about 8 drinks on it” when a passenger right in front of her “stops in the aisle and backs up,” they “hit[..] the tray and the drinks go flying.” And they went all over… CEO Doug Parker!
A former senior loyalty executive with extensive knowledge of United’s MileagePlus program told me that yesterday’s elimination of award charts was “the day United died.”
United has now followed Delta in ending transparent award pricing, leaving American and Alaska as the only major US carriers with award charts.
American has some of the most complex routing rules of any frequent flyer program. They do not publish those rules publicly. So it’s important to lay out what goes into determining how many miles an award costs, so you know what to expect (and how to save your miles).
You need to know about maximum permitted mileage, the most direct routing rule, and the prohibition on travel between two regions via a third region unless there’s an exception allowing you to do so.
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 »
