The airline has shared with employees that they “are currently collaborating with various teams to redesign the customer-facing upgrade list.” To be clear this does not sound like any change to upgrades, just to how the upgrade list appears to the customer. This change seems to focus on “which product/cabin each person is waiting for and who has been cleared.”
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Earlier I wrote about American’s nine new routes to Europe, eight of which are seasonal.
American shared that they’ve be eliminating Chicago – Shanghai and reducing Chicago – Tokyo service while adding plenty of flying to Europe.
They’re also cutting plenty of other service too. In fact they are cutting more than they are adding.
For months I’ve been writing that American was considering a major pullback of their Asia routes from Chicago.
They just announced they’re dropping Shanghai and reducing Tokyo to 3 times weekly, while added 9 European routes — 8 seasonal — with nothing for New York.
One month into writing this blog, back in June 2002, I explained how you could fly Concorde for $1258.95 by earning miles for magazine purchases. Your cost would be even lower, of course, if you donated the magazines to a non-profit and took a tax deduction.
That deal is long gone, but you can still buy magazines, earn lots of miles, and even potentially donate them for a tax deduction (provided it still makes sense for you to itemize under last year’s tax reform).
Assuming the transaction closes Aeroplan members will still have an Air Canada relationship in two years, and access to Star Alliance in two years. And this gives Canadian members more of the certainty they’re looking for.
What I don’t like in this document is that it suggests customers will be reassured their existing itineraries will still be honored if they actually ask. I can certainly see the ‘87% of passengers’ American says fly at most once a year not understanding this and not explicitly asking, agreeing to be moved to a less desirable itinerary thinking they have no choice.
When Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood first closed, they immediately allowed you to link accounts. That gave you the ability to status match and it gave you the ability to move points between accounts at a ratio of 1 Starpoint to 3 Marriott points. Linking accounts does not and will not ever automatically combine them.
Marriott tells me they are “now rolling out [the ability to combine accounts] in batches to our members through tomorrow. As a result, when members log in and see the prompt they will have the opportunity to combine their accounts.”
A lot of people are unhappy with how Marriott is handling travel packages. Over the weekend Marriott shared the new chart for how legacy travel package certificates work in the new program.
Marriott listened to the feedback that came in quickly over the weekend and is already making an adjustment.
Starwood Preferred Guest has moved onto the Marriott IT platform. Marriott brought their system down on Saturday to transition everything over. (Loyalty programs always do these things on Saturdays for good reason.)
IT is hard, and things haven’t gone as smoothly as we would have hoped. Awards haven’t been redeemable at all properties, and for some it’s been sporadic. However for the most part systems are now largely functional on Monday afternoon. But not for members whose accounts have the wrong status.
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 »
