American’s regional carrier PSA, which it owns, cancelled 3000 flights in a week when their computer systems in Dayton, Ohio melted down.
American Airlines is patting employees on the back for how they handled the crisis.
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 single most important factor in whether or not you have a good flight is having an empty seat next to you. The food or snacks seem better. Flight attendants seem friendlier. It’s less stressful overall.
So regardless of your size, if you feel more comfortable buying extra space, it’s something to consider especially when the price is right. Airlines don’t just sell extra legroom seats — who knew they sell extra width too?
First Hawaiian bank, owned by a French banking group, is pulling out of its relationship with domestic banking there due to regulatory risk even though there’s no indication of money laundering. This makes cashing paychecks from the US military base problematic.
Western Union has one branch in the capital, which may leave residents taking a trip hundreds of miles by boat or air to receive funds from the rest of the world.
Southwest, Delta and United telephone customer service has been compared to ringing up the IRS.
During irregular operations, bad weather events, calling an airline is much worse than usual – because everyone else is calling too. I’m used to hearing that “we’re experiencing unusually high call volumes” all the time as an excuse for not investing in customer service. It’s actually true during storms or other outages.
If there was ever any doubt about whether Hilton Honors had become a full revenue-based program, this should help disabuse that.
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’m a big fan of creative and even guerrilla marketing efforts, especially when it’s travel companies getting attention by giving away value to their customers.
Last year Barclays and Mastercard promoted the American Airlines card with in-airport cooking and golf demonstrations with giveaways for cardmembers. United is doing something bigger.
Sometimes people can be wonderful even in the midst of air travel. And small kindnesses can make all the difference to the people we touch.
You can earn 90,000 Avios for under $300. Iberia is giving out 9,000 Avios per trip for up to 10 trips. That’s amazing considering there’s no minimum fare involved. Iberia is honoring this deal and in practice you won’t even need to take the flights.
More importantly this deal scales. Have a family of 7 or lots of friends? You could earn 630,000 points for ~ $2000.
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 »
