Category Archives for Airlines.
This week we learned that American Airlines is gutting the ability to earn elite qualifying dollars from credit card spend for next year.
Barclays representatives are saying that they are unable to upgrade customers from Red to Silver at this time and that this is a requirement of American Airlines because of a loophole created by this change.
During European low cost carrier Ryanair’s investor call their CEO Michael O’Leary declared that “more airlines [will] suffer casualties” (go bust).
Here’s his argument. He’s been right and wrong on this topic before.
Basic economy is an attempt by the major airlines to raise revenue by offering a worse product.
The notion here is that the cheapest fares get called basic economy, and you have to spend more to avoid those restrictions. It’s a price increase that applies to customers that are willing to pay more to avoid the least comfortable travel an airline offers.
A journalist recently asked me how it’s possible for low cost carriers to make money intentionally selling $7.50 tickets?
The answer is three-fold.
American AAdvantage has an uncompetitive million miler program, recognizing lifetime loyalty, and they’ve made it worse over the past few years. There are two higher elite levels than there used to be, and lifetime elites are now at the bottom of the upgrade list. That’s easy to fix.
On Sunday’s Southwest Airlines flight WN5421 from Houston to Albuquerque a man was arrested on arrival after being “accused of touching a woman’s breast while he was sitting behind her” on the flight.
The man says he doesn’t remember doing this, that he was asleep most of the flight, however when he was arrested he also explained “the president of the United States says it’s OK to grab women by their private parts.”
Last Tuesday United turned a Chicago O’Hare to Chattanooga, Tennessee around because they realized the plane was too big for their ground equipment.
The flight took off from O’Hare and made it about halfway when the pilot announced they’d be turning around returning to Chicago because the plane was too large.
Two years ago American and Barclays introduced card spend as a way to earn credit towards American’s new ticket spend requirement for elite status. That will change substantially for most customers in 2019, and for some in 2020.
American Airlines is dropping both their Chicago – Beijing and Chicago – Shanghai flights and shifting Chicago – Tokyo flying to joint venture partner Japan Airlines. Hawaiian Airlines is giving up on Honolulu – Beijing as well.
American would like to keep their route authority from Chicago to China even while not using it. They’ve made some rather incredible claims to the Department of Transportation in support of that request.
On Sunday night a man frustrated by the delay of JetBlue flight 801 from Orlando to Salt Lake City ‘went crazy’ and was pepper sprayed by police. He appeared to “take a swing” at the JetBlue agent and passengers in the gate area sought to restrain him.
Then police arrived.
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 »
