American Airlines has updated its rules have been tightened to require customers to be at the gate earlier, and to board flights earlier.
Requiring passengers to spend more time congregating in cramped gate areas is the opposite direction from where the airline should be moving in the current era which calls for greater social distancing. And closing the doors earlier means more passengers missing more flights.
Starting in early September, and running through end of schedule, it’s possible to get business class award seats on the longest flight in the world – the Singapore Airlines Newark – Singapore flight – and you do not even need to use Singapore’s own miles to do it.
It’s incredibly rare when Singapore Airlines makes long haul business class award space to partner airlines. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen things this open since a glitch back in July 2012.
Carolyn Hopkins is a comforting voice that nearly every traveler knows. She did voice over for Disney World 31 years ago. She’s the voice of the New York City subways, but she’s only ridden them once – in 1957. Her first airport announcement was for Chicago O’Hare – but now she’s done announcements for more than 200 airports.
Hopkins is the voice of New York’s LaGuardia and JFK, Denver, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Toronto Pearson, Calgary, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Seoul Incheon and many more.
Discretionary spending is down by a third, driven by a drop in travel spend which is down 95% – 99%. Amazingly travel and entertainment was nearly one-third of American Express charge volume.
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American used to keep the details of its revenue-based Concierge Key status under tight wraps. They would refuse to answer questions about it. It was even referred to in hushed tones as George Clooney’s character was revealed to have this status in Up in the Air.
Now though there’s actually a new website detailing the benefits that Concierge Key offers. (HT: @xJonNYC)
The major approaches to ensuring arriving passengers are safe and are not infected all have limitations – so severe that they may not provide much protection at all.
Airlines are blocking middle seats. Delta has stopped processing upgrades in advance, handling all upgrades at the gate, to manage seat assignments in domestic first class so that passengers aren’t seated beside each other. They’re also blocking seats near flight attendant jump seats, to keep passengers away from flight attendants.
These are all social distancing steps to limit contact between people during travel, both to help stop the spread of the coronavirus and also to give customers confidence to fly. But they won’t do this if it means losing even a single ticket sale.
I’ve been saying we’ll start to see travel incentive programs investing in generous promotions, though frankly didn’t expect to see any this soon. American Airlines Business ExtrAA will give you points for a free roundtrip if you sign up for the program and take a single flight by June 30.
A month ago I wrote that credit cards might soon become tougher to get as banks tightened lending standards. In a down economy there’s more risk that banks won’t get paid back, so it’s logical they’d become careful about extending credit. Already we’ve seen what appears to be a tougher approach to new small business cards at Chase.
When banks expect an increase in defaults, they take steps to limit their exposure. During the Great Recession we saw banks unilaterally cut credit limits, especially where cards were going unused or underutilized.
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 »
