Other airlines will be picking up the slack bringing package holiday goers to Spanish resorts. Customers out money in the short-term likely won’t be rebooking until next season, however. Spain’s response is a complex web of arcane regulation and subsidy.
Moving maps, thousands of movies and TV shows, and systems that let you create playlists and favorites and even keep your favorites from flight to flight using your frequent flyer number, inflight entertainment has come a long way.
As KLM celebrates 100 years they’ve made a ton of material available from their archives. The very first inflight video screens is something I had never seen before.
Status does a great job motivating customers who buy coach, or at least fly coach a substantial portion of the time – for instance the road warrior whose company will spring for business class internationally once or twice a year but has a rule of 6 hours or more for premium cabin so domestic trips are mostly out up front.
Status does almost nothing to motivate someone who buys all premium cabin tickets. When elite status spending requirements are so high they’re met primarily by people who buy first class, elite status is meaningless.
The best deal in travel has to be the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass.
There’s no question that a rewards card with big initial bonus offer is the easiest and fastest way to earn a Companion Pass (in addition to being really big on its own towards reward travel). However there are other fast ways to earn a Companion Pass even without a Southwest Airlines co-brand credit card. And it’s even more enticing with a new 2000 point bonus offer.
The drive to ban reward travel confuses the average and marginal effect of flying on the environment. Saver award travel has, by definition, the lowest environmental impact of any flying. Airlines make saver inventory available when they’re flying anyway and they believe a seat won’t sell.
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.
We’re a long way from back when United Airlines used to offer men-only flights. This year U.S. airlines started offering new gender options to passengers when booking their tickets.
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.
Often connecting itineraries beyond Paris/Amsterdam can be even cheaper than what’s advertised, and specific cities are put on sale because the flights are lightly booked so availability tends to be good. West Coast – Europe for just 36,000 miles each way in business class is fantastic. Come Tuesday we’ll see if some cities price even lower.
Indeed I usually look for business class deals, but this is even pretty cheap economy and premium economy too even when factoring in surcharges. American Express, Capital One, Chase, and Citibank all offer points transfers to Air France KLM Flying Blue, and transfers are generally immediate.
Do you remember when people felt so attached to an airline brand that they paid more money to spend extra time flying, just to demonstrate enough loyalty for when they’d fly in the coming year? It’s hard to say there hasn’t been something lost.
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 »
