News and notes from around the interweb:
- A really good cause. I donated.
- “Out of all the awards for loyalty and passenger or guest experience that we’ve seen in the travel industry, the Freddies are the one that seem to have the balance consistently right.”. Trevor shares his thoughts on the event as well.
- American’s filing with the Department of Transportation in favor of obtaining Haneda slots is really quite clever. (HT: Demetrius M.)
- Delta is now requiring roundtrip purchase to get the lowest fares on many non-stop flights.
If you fly Delta and you like to buy one way fares on nonstop flights, get ready to pay more. Delta has been moving toward making its lowest fares require a roundtrip purchase on nonstop routes, even in major, highly competitive markets. It also appears to be playing with advance purchase requirements…The end result is a massive increase in the one way fare while roundtrip pricing has actually even gone down a bit from where it was a month ago. This is good news for those who buy roundtrip tickets, but it’s not for those who buy one way.
- Does Air Tahiti Nui offer more award space than shows up on Expertflyer? It’s worth calling.
- United Express (ExpressJet) flight near Cleveland experienced ‘spectacular’ computer failure
- Man impersonating an off duty pilot was caught when he ordered a cocktail the airline doesn’t serve.
I know NomadicMatt means well, but something about sending American students (disadvantaged as they may be) on vacation to a third-world country where people are even worse off rubs me the wrong way. Giving the money to a Cuban charity would do much more good in the grand scheme of things, although obviously getting people to donate to that would be much more challenging.
Ultimately, it’s the same reason I refuse to support the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Sending a kid in America to Disneyland seems somehow decadent when the money could be spent preventing a kid in Africa from starving or going blind.
It may just be my curmudgeonly nature, but I think our western notion of what constitutes a “worthy cause” is a bit distorted.
The roundtrip pricing is an industry-wide trend, not isolated to Delta.