Yesterday’s Philippine Airlines Los Angeles – Manila flight declared a mayday and returned to the airport with its right engine releasing bursts of flames. The Boeing 777-300 was carrying 342 passengers and 18 crew. It was in its initial climb out when the right engine began surging. It returned to the same runway it had departed from 12 minutes earlier.
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 couple was having work done on their home so they needed a one night hotel stay and booked the Hampton Inn nearby. When they handed over their ID and credit card at check-in they were told they couldn’t stay a the property.
The Hampton Inn Bourbonnais Kankakee in Illinois had a policy against staycations by Kankakee residents. The property owner decided not to welcome anyone with a Kankakee address, though after publicity from a recent incident they’ve backed off of the rule.
American is testing what happens when they eliminate the biggest remaining restriction on Basic Economy fares, the inability to select seats at time of booking.
If American does this they’ll pick up more seat selection revenue, fewer customers will be chased away, but much of the encouragement to buy a more expensive coach fare will be lost. Presumably this test allows American to see which factors are greatest – to see whether Basic Economy is really costing them money as currently conceived.
One of the most frequent questions I’ve gotten over the past couple of months is from American AAdvantage members with tickets for travel on LATAM, wondering whether they’ll be able to credit the flights to their AAdvantage accounts and earn miles. It looks like the ability to do so will continue through September 2020, based on new information about when LATAM will leave the oneworld alliance.
Having a variety of unique questions with free form answers is one solution. In fact, I applaud JetBlue for taking this approach. One of the questions, though, is stirring controversy on social media.
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.
Travelers hate airline fees, whether it’s checked bag fees or change fees, so it’s a great issue for politicians to grandstand on. The FAIR Fees Act is not a serious proposal.
American Express is running a pop up Centurion lounge in Manhattan next weekend. They want to be where their customers are, and they want to be where their customers are shopping.
Other pop ups have foretold where they wanted to offer a permanent lounge. For instance they had a pop up at LAX before getting a deal done to build a lounge there. They did a London pop up and then announced a London Heathrow Centurion lounge.
The person in the window seat usually has control over whether the window shade is open or closed. However courtesy plays a role too. On overnight flights across time zones window shades should be closed whenever possible – many passengers are trying to sleep, but it may be light out early. The outside light might also interfere with an aisle seat passenger seeing their laptop screen and getting work done.
Reasonable requests should be accommodated, though it’s up to the passenger in the window to make the trade-off decision. One key to peace on board is good communication.
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 »
