Category Archives for Airlines.
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.
A recent study found that airline check-in kiosks are the least hygienic part of the airport.
So I decided to find out about each airline’s cleaning regimen for kiosks. Or lack of cleaning regimen.
Avianca’s LifeMiles program is introducing ‘subscriptions’ to buy miles.
Plans start at $11 per month. That’s buying 8000 miles for $131.88 or 1.65 cents apiece. However the price per mile quickly falls. The $32.99 plan is buying miles at 1.41 cents per mile.
Southwest Airlines got as many reviews for its app in one month as in the previous 8 years, and they were nearly all 5 stars, “the numbers, frankly, look too good to be true.” This all began with the latest update to the app on January 17.
Kerry Philipovitch, American’s Senior Vice President of Customer Experience defends the idea of Basic Economy fares in the latest “Tell Me Why” podcast aimed at the airline’s employees.
She says that without Basic Economy “we’re going to see our most price sensitive travelers leave us” — as though stripped down fares are necessary to offer low fares, and even though immediately after she explains that American had been offering fares that match ultra low cost carriers before Basic Economy.
American Airlines has myriad aircraft in different configurations from legacy American Airlines decisions before the merger and from US Airways, and a series of individual decisions along the way. Customers can luck out with better aircraft for passenger experience and worse aircraft.
They’re making efforts to standardize the fleet where they can, and that means the 13 Boeing 777-200s with 45 business class seats will each be losing 8 seats up front.
Earlier in the week I wrote about the pretty outrageous domestic first class fares the EPA Administrator travels on. He’s loyal to Delta even when the federal government has awarded a city pair contract to another airline. And he pays full fare first even for the Delta Shuttle between New York and DC.
There’s been much hand wringing though over his flying Emirates business class Milan – New York in June. That’s wrong. Here’s why.
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.
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 »
