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.
It’s become all too common to believe that the only things customers care about are schedule and price. This idea has been at the core of the ‘race to the bottom’ where legacy airlines strive to become more like ultra low cost carriers and then fail to understand why customers are unhappy.
Now that British Airways parent company IAG is telling investors that a quarter of the buying decision is based on brand, can we put to rest the notion that what customers think of their travel experience doesn’t matter for a full service high cost airline?
In the least surprising move in the history of earth United announced that the are going to require a same day boarding pass for travel on United, another Star Alliance airline, or “a contracted partner” in order to access their clubs.
United no longer needed to treat its customers better, since competitors won’t. As with Delta and American, United’s lounge access is really sold on a subscription basis rather than being a ‘club membership’.
British Airways doesn’t have a competitive business class product. On their Boeing 777s seating is eight across, middle seats are especially intimate and passengers in the window climb over the feet of their seat opponents.
We now know a little more about what’s to come for business class, first class, and even the direction of how many seats they’re going to offer.
You know — or can at least check — your Uber rating. But did you know you have an American Airlines customer rating too? It’s re-evaluated daily and used to determine when to grant exceptions, compensate you for problems, or go above and beyond to resolve situations.
The President of United Airlines thinks airfares should be twice as expensive as they are today. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz takes things a step further: paying United Airlines more is good for you.
His argument is that more money for the airline means more money to invest in the product. You as the customer benefit even if you “don’t always understand.” He has things exactly backwards.
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.
I appreciate that American still has an award chart that they are willing to publish. I appreciate that they mostly stick to it. However they stick to it only as long as there isn’t an exception, that they do not tell customers about.
Back in April British Airways parent company IAG acquired just under 5% of Norwegian and started talks to acquire the discount carrier. I assumed that acquire meant smother it so that the airline wouldn’t keep depressing transatlantic fares, especially out of cities like London.
Chairman Willie Walsh addressed a Norwegian deal at their investor day.
UberEats now delivers from virtual restaurants — from restaurants that don’t actually exist.
It turns out that the food people want delivered isn’t always the same food they want in restaurants, and Uber can leverage excess capacity to produce food at a restaurant by having them make something else they don’t normally offer and branding that food as coming from a different restaurant that isn’t actually a place you can go.
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 »
