Category Archives for Airlines.
Loyalty fraud is a costly issue for programs. A lot of it originates in China.
The challenge though is limiting the cost of fraud without undercutting the value proposition of the program to legitimate members. That’s what I highlighted earlier in the week with Alaska’s new policy of prohibiting booking awards within 72 hours of travel on Cathay Pacific, JAL, or Hainan Airlines.
Star Alliance member Avianca LifeMiles is selling miles with up to a 125% bonus.
They bonus miles purchases very frequently. Sometimes selling miles for even less than the 1.47 cents apiece under this deal, for instance at the end of November they were selling at 1.35 miles apiece.
United flight UA1175 from San Francisco to Honolulu today declared an emergency around 30 minutes prior to arrival. The aircraft appeared to lose an engine cowling.
Boeing has talked about a possible new “middle of the market” jet, something between the largest 737 and the new smaller 787 widebodies, since at least 2003. This plane would be a replacement for the Boeing 757.
It’s unofficially dubbed the ‘797’ and is expected to seat 220 – 270 passengers and fly up to 5,200 nautical miles.
Alaska Airlines has a fantastic award chart compared to many other airlines for premium class travel to Asia. And they have great partners, though they don’t always seem to have as much access to Cathay Pacific award space as other airlines do.
Now Cathay Pacific — and JAL — booking is about to get worse because Alaska will no longer allow reservations within 3 days of travel.
Business class awards on Cathay Pacific between New York JFK and Hong Kong are wide open starting in August and running through end of schedule. Space beyond Hong Kong is generally very nicely available.
Now’s the time to lock in those business class awards to Asia for later in the year.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 headed for San Jose evacuated passengers out of the forward slide while the aircraft was just pushing back from the gate in Orange County, California last night.
The plane’s auxiliary power unit caught fire and was extinguished by the aircraft’s fire suppression system.
United CEO Jeff Smisek was ousted in September 2015 with a $37 million golden parachute after he reportedly agreed to pay off a politician in exchange for favorable action from the Port Authority of New York New Jersey which oversees their Newark airport hub.
It turns out he may have done as much as anyone to preserve the Cathay Pacific brand.
US Airways-turned American President is now United’s President and the airline is on a quest to ‘densify’ aircraft making them less comfortable for passengers.
United Boeing 757-300s currently have 213 seats (189 coach and 24 first class). In December a leaked memo showed that they’re taking Boeing 757-300s up to 234 seats (210 coach and 24 first class). That’s 21 more coach seats.
Southwest Airlines was founded in Texas but its single biggest airport operation is at Chicago Midway. However they forgot that Chicago gets cold, and they ran out of de-icing fluid yesterday having to cancel the rest of the day’s flights — 220 in total.
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 »
