Passengers aren’t supposed to be able to board the wrong plane. Boarding passes are scanned at the gate. There’s a manifest — airlines know how many people are supposed to be onboard. When passengers are in the wrong seat, there’s usually another passenger assigned that will say something. But it happens. Occasionally one person, or a couple traveling together, wind up in the same city.
Spirit Airlines has probably the worst reputation of any airline in America. The problem is that reputations lag reality. First of all Via Air is far worse. And second Spirit has made tremendous strides.
It’s easy to anchor on Spirit as the airline who believed their business model required customers thinking they offer a bad product, who refused a pregnant woman water during a two hour tarmac delay and that wouldn’t refund a Vietnam veteran cancer patient’s tickets when he became too sick to fly to see his daughter in the hospital. And that’s why this spoof video of a Spirit Airlines customer service center is so funny.
Airlines have an incentive to blame factors beyond their control for delays. If the cause is weather, air traffic control, or a similar issue they’re going to owe customers a lot less (if anything at all) compared to when a delay is ‘controllable’ or their fault — such as when a flight goes mechanical or when crew simply don’t show up. (EU rules are somewhat stricter.)
Customers can be sitting at their home airport and will get frustrated when they’re delayed by weather only to look out the window at blue skies, knowing weather is clear at their destination.
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.
Prior to deregulation the Civil Aeronautics Board ‘experimented’ with the idea of price competition and allowed airlines to undercut Southwest Airlines prices. Southwest, flying only inside Texas at the time, wasn’t subject to CAB price regulation.
Texas International Airlines (which would later acquire Continental, Eastern, People Express, and Frontier) along with Braniff started offering $13 fares between Houston and Dellas. Not to be undercut, Southwest introduced a two-tiered fare structure, rebating each customer paying full fare with a bottle of liquor. Southwest became the largest liquor distributor in the state of Texas.
The new Delta Sky Club has a gorgeous bar, and the best feature is an outdoor ‘Sky Deck’ overlooking the East runway. But what if you combined the two features? One of the very best uses of Delta SkyMiles is redeeming small numbers of miles for premium drinks.
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 VIP lounge in the B terminal of the Punta Cana airport in the Dominican Republic has a swimming pool overlooking the runway, and they take Priority Pass. If you’re flying American or Delta — or British Airways or Air France — this is your go-to.
A new study looked at germs on different forms of payment mechanisms and how they compare to some of the more disgusting things we can think of. And while little compared to a door handle of a McDonald’s in New York, or to a city parking meter, the credit cards, bills, and coins we use may be more germ-laden even than the bathrooms at New York Penn Station or a New York subway pole.
Testing “40 debit and credit cards, 27 different bill denominations, and 10 coins for germs” each surface “was swabbed with a handheld germ testing device and assigned a ‘germ score’ to rank the item on the disgusting scale.”
Historically awards between the US and New Zealand have been one of the toughest things to book. Years ago Air New Zealand used to open up business class awards 60 days prior to flight. Then they stopped. With a couple of brief exceptions there really hasn’t been meaningful Air New Zealand business class award space in years.
Up until today, this was a unicorn. Or snuffaluffagus. There were rumors of Air New Zealand business class award space, but no one knew if it actually existed.
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 »
