British Airways announced new London Heathrow service to Charleston, South Carolina. The flight goes on sale tomorrow and will operate twice weekly between April 4 and October 24.
It’s seasonal service. It’s just twice a week. And it will be operated by a Boeing 787-8 with 35 business class, 25 premium economy, and 154 coach seats. Boeing 787 aft fuselage parts are manufactured at Boeing’s North Charleston site.
It is reasonable to be frustrated by a three hour delay. It is reasonable for a smoker to be itching for a cigarette after going without one for several hours, though that’s something to plan for and there are myriad strategies for managing this. It is not reasonable to ‘lawyer up’ and claim civil rights have been violated when an airline employee wasn’t willing to escort a passenger out of the post-customs inspection section of the terminal.
For years American Express has had an ‘International Airline Program’ for Platinum and Centurion cardholders which amounted to 2-for-1 business class tickets provided you were buying full fare.
This has had limited usefulness for many cardmembers, often full fare business class is about twice as much as discounted advance purchase business, at most you’d save a few hundred dollars buying business class for two passengers. A limited subset of cardmembers, though, found this very useful.
Last June they revamped the program and made it much more useful. And now you do not even need to call to use it.
United is sticking to its guns as the only airline refusing to let passengers bring carry on bags onboard when buying basic economy fares. They’re opening two more Polaris lounges and may re-evaluate the number of business class seats on board some aircraft. And airfares have a lot more room to rise — and passengers will pay up and keep flying.
Hertz has just announced that they’ve become the first ‘non-air affiliate’ of the SkyTeam airline alliance that includes Delta, Air France KLM, Korean Air and others.
While more marketing tie-ins can be better than fewer, a car rental company is a somewhat strange brand to launch with. Renting cars is so nine years ago. Hertz was once the rental company for business travelers. In this extended montage from Up in the Air when George Clooney is grounded in Omaha he wants to buy a Chrysler Sebring from Hertz.
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At the beginning of the month I wrote about minor transatlantic player Primera Air shutting down. Now Wow Air is eliminating 5 routes — including Dallas Fort-Worth and New York JFK, which they had refused to confirm yesterday.
There has been talk about British Airways parent IAG acquiring Norwegian as a way to kill low fare competition.
American Airlines is raising prices of Admirals Club membership by $100 per year effective February 1. They are also eliminating household membership discounts.
And they’re going to start requiring same-day boarding passes on American Airlines, oneworld partner airlines, or Alaska Airlines for entry..
Sharknado and American Pie star Tara Reid and her dog were kicked off of Delta flight 613 from Los Angeles to New York JFK on Monday. Initial reports were that she was apoplectic over her seat assignment and that she didn’t have a pillow.
Now she’s speaking out.
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 »
