Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has introduced a new frequent flyer relationship with El Al.
Earning Alaska Airlines miles for travel on El Al starts July 1. It will presumably be possible to redeem Alaska Airlines miles for travel on El Al at some time in the future. Often it takes longer to get the IT in place for redemptions than for mileage-earning.
Big changes to the Barclays American AAdvantage cards went into effect May 1. I’m looking forward to trying out the $25 per day inflight food and beverage credit from my Aviator Silver card this coming week. I’m up front, but I plan to ask for a flight attendant’s help springing for a row’s food and drinks in back. I’m going to use that benefit every single time I can because even if it doesn’t benefit me directly it will benefit some flyers’.
The Red card now has a companion ticket available to be earned after $20,000 spend as well. And it’s now also available as part of the card’s initial bonus.
Shopping portal rewards and a short-term bonus let you earn a bunch of United miles when buying airline tickets — even if the tickets you’re buying are for flights on Delta and American Airlines.
Elizabeth Warren flew out of the notorious gate 35X at Washington National airport on Thursday evening, taking American’s once-daily flight AA5017 to Charleston, West Virginia. That’s appropriately a single cabin 50 seat regional jet operated by PSA Airlines. And it was delayed an hour and 45 minutes. Before heading down into the Gate 35X she got extra cheese on her &pizza. She then stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for an iced black tea. Spotted: Elizabeth Warren selfies (and FaceTiming?) at be airport pic.twitter.com/45AWQgFbik — MJ Lee (@mj_lee) May 9, 2019 For the uninitiated you take an escalator down to a holding area with a lack of seating and several doors (sub-gates) where you wait to board a bus that “makes a slow, winding journey across the airport to your plane.” Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown was also…
American Airlines announced a number of new routes and increased frequencies under the Game of Thrones rubric “Winter is Coming” — several weeks late of course since the Night King is already dead and everyone is headed to Westeros. Fortunately for fans in search of their place on the Iron Throne, American did already add Dubrovnik to their route map.
Imagine you wanted to develop a policy that would erect the greatest barriers possible between the poor and middle classes and the already wealthy, and prevent income mobility, what would that policy look like? It would probably include limiting access to credit along the lines proposed here.
Delta is telling employees that if they unionize, union dues are going to cost them $700 per year. And they could buy video games with that money.
Why not make the same argument this way instead?
Delta’s pilots and dispatchers are unionized. However Delta clearly benefits from having fewer unions.
The IAM is working to organize Delta’s flight attendants and fleet service workers. Delta has a counter-campaign.
Hyatt launched their earning and redemption partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World at the end of 2018. Initially they only brought about 10% of SLH’s 500+ properties into their portfolio.
They followed two months later with another 56 properties or 10% and then 57 more a month after that. Now they’ve added another tranche of hotels where you can earn and redeem Hyatt points, bringing them to over 200 (or roughly 40% of) SLH properties in the portfolio.
U.S. airlines are lobbing political grenades at Air Italy, which flies from Milan to New York, Miami and now seasonally to Los Angeles and San Francisco (cities with no other non-stop service on the route). Air Italy has a total of 15 aircraft in its fleet, and has already reduced service on the Los Angeles and San Francisco routes, and cancelled Chicago service before it even began.
Air Italy is defiant. They say they plan to launch two new North American routes in 2020, at least one likely just summer seasonal, and they hope to re-instate Los Angeles and San Francisco’s service to year-round 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 »
