Category Archives for Airlines.
Delta wants you to believe that they are making the cheapest awards more restrictive to help you. Apparently Delta customers have been telling the airline that they want the flexibility not to be allowed to get seat assignments in advance. And they’ve been saying that more rules and restrictions are both simpler and more intuitive. As a result this is an enhancement you should like.
Basic economy tickets aren’t a ‘new way to offer cheaper fares’. They are new restrictions on the cheapest fares, a way of making the product worse so that some passengers will pay more.
Now that United, Delta, and American all offer Basic Economy fares (no advance seat assignment, no cancel/changes, no upgrades or extra legroom seats, and in United’s case no full-sized carry on bag) it’s only been a matter of time before one of the carriers tried booking award tickets into Basic Economy.
I admit to being surprised that it’s happened so quickly, since it’s not in the best interests of the airline – it’s a bad business decision – but I’m not surprised that it appears to be Delta going first.
About 5 years ago the ban on using personal electronics below 10,000 feet on U.S. flights was lifted. Now passengers can use their phones or tablets with the door closed, during taxi, and takeoff. But devices are supposed to be in airplane mode.
This is the first time I’ve heard of a real consequence for not doing that — though as a result of something that would only occur with certain airlines in Europe, the Mideast, and Asia.
Dubai-based Emirates tweeted out a photo of one of their Boeing 777s encrusted in Diamonds. For Emirates this is actually believable. And they serious Need. To. Do. This.
A disrupted relationship with Jet Airways — from the carrier’s own troubles, and the possibility that Etihad takes back control — could stymie Delta’s indeterminate and underspecified promise to serve the market.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce welcomed Royal Air Maroc CEO Abdelhamid Addou into the oneworld alliance this afternoon at the Royalton Hotel in New York.
This is a big win for AAdvantage frequent flyers. Award travel on the carrier is abundantly available and with the addition of Miami service in April they’ll offer non-stop Boeing 787 travel from 4 North American cities to Casablanca with connections beyond.
LAX airport offers The Private Suite facility which — for a significant fee — allows private security and immigration along with BMW tarmac transfer to your plane. It’s a way to travel commercial yet still be discrete.
Access is available now to passengers on all United flights at LAX — and they have an amazing introductory offer.
American’s offer to let you buy back your elite status or buy a higher status launched a month ago. People used to mileage run. Airlines figured out they could charge more taking the money for the ticket plus even more money to save members’ time. Although I already have enough travel booked to requalify as an Executive Platinum they’ll let me lock in next year’s status for a fee right now. Delta’s offer is now live, too. SkyMiles buy ups seemed like they were more expensive at least at the top end — and more expensive than American. Three years ago a common offer for an existing Platinum member was, Buy 2,500 MQMs for $2,195 Buy 5,000 MQMs for $2,495 Buy 7,500 MQMs for $2,795 Buy 10,000 MQMs for $2,995 While someone with lower status…
Hyperinflating currencies force vendors to change their pricing all the time. Alitalia only guarantees these redemption rates for January. So we could see them go up again in February!
Whenever Ryanair is out of the news their CEO Michael O’Leary talks about making passengers stand (to cram more people onto planes) and making them pay to use the lavatory. In the U.S. pay toilets are illegal in many states but those prohibitions wouldn’t apply to airlines since they’d be pre-empted by the federal Airline Deregulation Act.
UK pay toilets are often cleaner than free ones. Would airlines charging for lavatories give us better lavatories? Would they give us bigger lavatories since they’d become a profit center?
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 »
