Barclays is moving away from issuing its own cards and acquiring its own consumer financial services customers, and focusing more heavily on co-brand relationships like their deal with American Airlines. As they work to grow on the back of co-brands, they need both more partnerships and to market those partnerships more aggressively. And they need to introduce new products to sell to their co-brand customers.
American Airlines updated their communication to employees about the upcoming loss of South American carrier LATAM as a partner at the end of the business day on Friday. Their message is two-fold: the LATAM partnership was no big deal, and they’re still strong in Latin America.
After the shocking announcement that Delta will buy 20% of Latin America’s largest airline LATAM while that carrier will leave the oneworld alliance and their joint venture with American is off, strange things started happening.
Forget about bad opinions, for over 15 years Christopher Elliott has been writing columns that get their facts wrong. His pieces haven’t gotten any better as the years have gone on.
He keeps making weak arguments that attempt to use air travel as a vehicle for his claims about social inequality (even when the details don’t work, especially since loyalty programs give customers access to perks that would normally only be available to the wealthy) and telling readers to quit frequent flyer programs for years without correcting his errors or updating his facts.
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.
The American Airlines Flagship Lounge Philadelphia project is about to get underway. After much delay, the airline’s Philadelphia Flagship lounge project kicks off Monday. The A-West Admirals Club closes September 30 to start construction on the Flagship lounge, and it’s expected to open in 2020.
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.
LATAM’s Chairman gave an interview in Spanish where he dished on when LATAM started talking to Delta, the timeline for shifting their partnerships, and which one’s they’re going to retain — as well as when they broke up with American Airlines.
At an employee event last week, a flight attendant asked American Airlines CEO Doug Parker about the poor new domestic product – and what she’s supposed to tell customers when they ask her about the small lavatories and about the crammed-in seats.
After the close of markets on Thursday Delta announced they’re acquiring 20% of LATAM. That’s huge for Delta giving them a big presence in Latin America, on top of owning 49% of Aeromexico.
This positions Delta well to grow in American’s back yard of Miami and it undercuts American’s South America flights by denying them connecting feed, and blocks American’s joint venture with LATAM (which would have had to exclude Chile flights). And it really sticks it to the CEO of Qatar Airways given their 10% stake in LATAM.
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 »
