Cathay Pacific’s Unusual On Board Amenity: Free Diapers

by Gary Leff

baby amenities kit
Apr 09 2019

Whether we’re flying to New York or Phoenix — or Paris or Sydney — my wife and I have plenty of diapers when traveling with our now-six month old daughter. We have plenty of wipes, replacement outfits, and all the supplies you can imagine. I never used to check a bag on a five night trip, now I’m checking bags for two nights.

I admit it makes me appreciate my business travel more when I can navigate through the airport with just a carry on or even just a laptop bag. Fortunately though my wife has the baby packing down to a science. And just going through diapers we’re less encumbered for the trip home than the way out. Maybe we don’t need to bring as many in the first place?

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Virgin Atlantic’s New Business Class Seats Disappoint

by Gary Leff

first class seats
Apr 08 2019

Virgin Atlantic unveiled their new business class seat today. It’s an improvement against the current seat. Every seat is angled towards the window, has power, and the center seats in the 1-2-1 configuration have privacy screens. All seats are fully flat with direct aisle access.

It’s an attractive cabin scheme but there’s nothing revolutionary about the seat, in fact my first thought was the goal must be to avoid being better than the new Delta 767 seat that will fly to London.

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Amtrak Imposes New Points Expiration Rules Without Notice (or Even Telling Members)

by Gary Leff

Apr 08 2019

For years Amtrak has made changes with no notice to its loyalty program. Even multiple times in a matter of days. A practice they’ve engaged in many times, and been called out in the Wall Street Journal for. (Amtrak even eliminated their satisfaction guarantee because too many customers were dissatisfied.)

Now that former Delta CEO Richard Anderson is in charge at Amtrak I haven’t expected anything different. So I’m not really disappointed and certainly not surprised to learn that Amtrak has imposed new expiration rules on the program without notice and without even telling members.

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Using United’s New Lower-Priced Domestic Awards to Your Advantage With Free Stopovers

by Gary Leff

11k miles
Apr 08 2019

When you want to book a one way award using United miles from the US to anywhere in the world (including just domestic), grab a second one way award in another region for some time in the future and just add a United domestic flight at the end for around 5000 miles.

I still think the elimination of award charts is awful, but there are still ways to get outsized value using United miles both because partner awards are still pricing based on (effectively hidden) charts and because United will allow you to book those at a discount based on their new lower-priced domestic awards.

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Why Eliminating Award Charts Puts Frequent Flyer Programs on a Collision Course With Themselves

by Gary Leff

insideairplane
Apr 07 2019

Airlines have historically been able to offer outsized value to consumers through their frequent flyer programs. Instead of merely offering a rebate on spending, where points are a modest currency that can be used to buy tickets at retail.

A problem arises, however, when there just aren’t many unsold seats. With airline consolidation and capacity discipline, load factors are at historic highs.

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