There’s a viral essay circulating, “Dear American Airlines, I Hate You With My Whole Heart”. It’s not really about American Airlines, but what it’s like to deal with how complex airlines have made buying air travel for the once a year flyer. Read that way it’s one of the most important things airline executives can read this year, because profiting primarily by not delivering travel for customer money isn’t going to be a great strategy in the long run.
It’s a minor point in the ongoing saga between American Airlines and its mechanics, but just how one-sided does the judge in the case between American and its mechanics think the argument is over a work slowdown? How convinced is he by the evidence American Airlines put on? The judge signed the exact draft order that American Airlines wrote for him telling mechanics to get back to work.
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My view is that you should only buy things in your purchase plan on major shopping days. Get a discount for what you’d buy anyway, don’t make impulse purchases of things you don’t need. I’ve mostly ignored Amazon Prime Day.
For many travelers though ‘stuff in your purchase plan’ may include noise cancelling headphones.
An Amazon Prime Air cargo jet landed in Baltimore last night filled with Prime Day packages and began smoking.
The Atlas Air Boeing 767-300, flight 5Y3521, had come in from Riverside, California.
In the end I’m not sure I learned anything about life that will change me forever but I enjoyed Matt’s stories, I related to some and lived vicariously through his very different travel style than mine at other times. The book is thoroughly enjoyable and more real than most of what you read about travel and for that Matt’s book deserves to be read, if only to encourage that honesty and humility.
American AAdvantage used to have one of the most generous lifetime elite status programs, but three changes to the program have made it less valuable. Meanwhile Delta and United have improved their offerings over the years. Both airlines are now more generous with lifetime loyalty than American, and when a program is less generous than Delta that’s saying something.
One well-regarded source, however, suggests that the airline recognizes this and is considering solutions to improve lifetime status.
British Airways is doing you no favors, letting you spend Avios at a low value to pay the taxes and fees they impose on award tickets. This isn’t a case of lowering fees, it’s just offering the option to spend points as cash (poorly) to cover the fees. And they’re focused on markets where those fees are barely an issue to begin with.
Many customers think that American is wrong, watching entertainment on their phones isn’t the same as a seat back screen if they even know they have to download the American Airlines app prior to takeoff in order to do so. Planes with seat back video look newer and fresher, while even brand new aircraft without screens look old and cheap — there’s a reverse halo effect that can drag down premium revenue too.
However I’ve finally been convinced that American was right. Passengers don’t deserve seat back entertainment. And all it took was one short video going viral on twitter to show me that was the case.
The recognition benefits here aren’t strong, what’s useful is 4 p.m. late checkout with Marriott and and additional points earning when spending money with the other partner.
What’s significant is to see the continued expansion (in this case return of) the model of rewarding and recognizing elites of another brand in order to get access to their customers, much as American and Hyatt are now doing with their partnership.
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 »
