American Releases Schedules for New Tokyo Haneda Flights: Look Out for Awards and Order the Japanese Meals

by Gary Leff

Sep 26 2019

A week ago American’s Vice President of Planning, Vasu Raja, told employees it would be “in the next several weeks” that the airline would announce their new Tokyo Haneda flights. The holdup was coordinating with joint venture partner Japan Airlines so that the two carriers could together so that in Los Angeles they could offer “a really separated pattern where every 2 or 3 hours there’s an American flight or a JAL flight much like what we have at JFK – Heathrow today.”

The airline did not wait for this and is instead out with details of their two new flights to Tokyo Haneda

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Singapore Airlines To Stop Serving Its Iconic Lobster Thermidor

by Gary Leff

fancy food on plate
Sep 26 2019

Singapore Airlines offers perhaps the best main meals of any airline in premium cabins, although I’ve always found their snack service to be lacking.

The best feature is “Book the Cook” which isn’t just pre-order something that’s going to be on the plane anyway, but an extensive menu of specialty items to choose from in advance that the airline will have on board for you.

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Marriott Reveals It’s Stuck With the Name Bonvoy: “It Is What It Is.”

by Gary Leff

bonvoy
Sep 25 2019

Rebranding a loyalty program just doesn’t make sense when you start with both a recognizable name and a good reputation. You wind up spending nine figures on advertising, merchandising, printing, and education — all to get back to where you started, at best, which is that the median consumer doesn’t even identify which brands are part of the program.

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Barclays Eliminating Travel Protections and Other Benefits From Several Cards

by Gary Leff

steward on plane
Sep 25 2019

When Citi eliminated ancillary benefits like trip delay from their cards, including their American AAdvantage cards, several readers picked up the Barclays-issued American AAdvantage card to still earn American Airlines miles while also being able to take advantage of trip delay coverage. That turns out not to have been a good strategy.

Right after American Express announced the introduction of trip delay and cancellation benefits for some of its premium cards, I’ve learned that Barclays is eliminating trip delay and other benefits from its Aviator AAdvantage card – and similar benefits from other cards too.

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Class Action Filed Against Marriott Over Resort Fees

by Gary Leff

Sep 24 2019

The lead plaintiff has stayed at over 45 Marriott properties and contends resort fees are ‘drip pricing’. He claims not to have realized resort fees applied for some of his stays when he made his booking, because those fees are obscured (under “taxes and fees”).

What we can hope to gain from this and the state investigations of resort fees is a change in industry practice where mandatory charges are included in the room rate so that consumers can compare pricing.

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American Airlines Will “Absolutely” Fly to India, and Announce New South Pacific Flights Next Month

by Gary Leff

arch like building
Sep 24 2019

Based on comments by American Airlines top executives at an employee meeting last week, the airline is working on a Tokyo Haneda shuttle schedule at LAX. They’re preparing to send Boeing 787s into the Pacific. And they’re looking forward to new Boeing 787 aircraft deliveries that they intend to fly 7000 miles – to places like India and Africa.

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As Delta Makes Austin a Focus City, American Airlines Talks About Its Future There

by Gary Leff

Sep 24 2019

Austin has been one of the fastest growing airports in the country in recent years. This year they increased the number of available gates at the airport by 37%. While the amount of long haul international flying is limited, there’s London service from British Airways and Norwegian and Lufthansa started flying to Frankfurt back in May.

Delta has named Austin a focus city. While the largest airlines at Austin, in order, are Southwest, American, United and then Delta the addition of new gates will allow Delta to grow – and the gap between the three large U.S. legacy airlines isn’t that large to begin with.

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