Delta announced that they’re taking a 20% stake in LATAM, the largest airline conglomerate in South America comprised of LATAM Argentina, Brasil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Perú.
American Airlines had worked towards a joint venture with LATAM but it was rejected by Chile’s Supreme Court this spring. LATAM will exit the oneworld alliance, although no plans have been announced for their entrance to SkyTeam.
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 most striking thing about the incident is that someone actually measured the missing item to find that it was about 10 inches long. There’s no information, however, about its width or color.
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
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.
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.
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.
Self-described “social Influencer” Jacqueline Ng says she “filled out an online form. I emailed Cathay Pacific to try and upgrade to business class.”
She says she got an email back offering an upgrade subject to availability. She showed this e-mail at check-in, and it got her banned from the airline.
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.
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.
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 »
