Checked bag fees have gone up, at United to $30, but passengers aren’t getting more for their money. Instead the typical baggage experience is like this — just watching your bags get ignored. For $30 they should receive a private escort!
Now an everyday hero named Ephraim Sibeko is going viral for one man’s fight to keep suitcases straight and undamaged as they’re delivered to passengers.
The old saying is that there are only two kinds of luggage, “carry on and lost.” It should probably be “lost or stolen.”
Your belongings are outside of your possession, and can you really trust anyone but yourself?
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 flew American Airlines for the first time on one of their Boeing 737-800s that’s been converted to a “Project Oasis” interior — meaning it’s been retrofit to have the same lack of legroom and smaller lavatories (but larger overhead bins) as their new Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
I wrote only days ago that these are planes to avoid but right now it’s really difficult to do so. You book a flight on a 737, and there aren’t enough ‘new’ 172 seat 737s to know consistently where these torture tubes are going to turn up. If you get one of the torture tubes, your seat assignments may wind up messed up, too.
Hotels want you to re-use towels, not have your sheets changed, and even decline housekeeping entirely. They tell you it’s for the environment, but their primary interest is saving costs.
Housekeeping staff complain about the programs. More guests opting out means fewer rooms to clean and less work. But they have to do more cleaning after a guest has gone without for several days. And they say work scheduling becomes more erratic.
It turns out that aircraft financing isn’t very risky, and Boeing created their own private sector replacement for the Export-Import Bank and made money doing so.
This new lawsuit alleges that Boeing violated contracts with another company that Boeing built out the structure to do this with years earlier – a private sector bet that involved Ex-Im staff.
While I don’t know any plans to improve the efforts of American’s Integrated Operations Center to prioritize better departure time expectations, there is a new effort to improve communications between different parts of the airline to better deal with delays, and hopefully reduce them as well. It’s called ConnectMe, and here’s how it’s being described to employees.
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.
When frequent flyer programs launched award tickets were supposed to be a reward for loyalty, and award customers were expected to be treated better than paying customers. There are often steep change fees on award tickets now, but mileage awards are for the most part still cancellable with points redeposited into an account. In other words even after myriad rule changes over the years, inventory issues aside, they’re still more flexible than paid tickets.
Miles aren’t just an alternative currency used to purchase travel or services from an airline, they are a thank you for your business, and redeeming miles should feel like a reward and not a punishment. Delta got this one right.
New Jersey is considering raising aviation fuel taxes — but only on United Airlines. Currently New Jersey taxes fuel burned during taxi and takeoff. A bill under consideration would extend that to all fuel that United burns (since it applies only to airlines carrying over 8 million passengers per year out of the state).
United’s position “the tax is enacted, she said United might have to consider transferring the bulk of its operations to one of the other hubs.” The extra cost to United is expected to be $20 million. United will not abandon its Newark hub over $20 million.
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 »
