Passengers and crew were forced to take down a disruptive passenger on an American Airlines flight 1219 from Albuquerque to Chicago on Tuesday. The man was trying to open an emergency exit door on the aircraft, and got so far that passengers reported feeling wind enter the aircraft. While pressurization prevents these doors from opening midflight, they can still be opened at low altitude.
United Airlines flight 354 from San Francisco to Boston was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Denver on Monday due to damage observed on the aircraft’s wing.
While the aircraft was cruising at 31,000 feet, passengers reported seeing damage to the slats on the right wing.
American Airlines announced today that they will stop awarding miles on tickets booked through most third party travel agencies starting in May. Basic economy fares will only earn miles if booked directly through American. However AAdvantage Business members and corporate contract travelers will be exempt from this policy.
What stood out is that American isn’t even telling us which agencies will be able to issue tickets that earn miles (at least as long as the tickets aren’t for basic economy fares).
American Airlines flight 2707 from Dallas to Austin was delayed over an hour on Monday night. The carrier’s maintenance technicians tried to tape an overhead bin in place – but it wouldn’t hold.
Faced with the choice of making a 9 p.m. flight even later – and potentially pushing crew past their minimum duty hours, where the entire flight would have to be cancelled – they decided not to spend any more time trying to fix it.
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You can use your miles to book an award ticket for someone else, but if you want to combine miles with another customer that is going to cost you with the major U.S. frequent flyer programs.
American Airlines, though, has just cut the cost of transferring miles from one account to another by two-thirds. That means instead of charging 1.5 cents per mile, they’re now charging only half a cent.
As I’ve been telling you to expect, American Airlines is changing how miles are awarded based on how you buy your ticket.
Durbin-Marshall seeks to require cards to be used either on the American Express or Discover networks as a challenge to Visa and Mastercard. This deal massively bolsters Discover, creating more competition in payments processing.
Ultimately by promoting competition without legislative action (and legislative destruction), this is great for consumers and rewards.
American Airlines has increased first and second checked bag fees to a most-expensive in the industry $40 per first checked bag on domestic U.S. itineraries and $45 for the second checked bag. They’ve also increased checked bag fees for travel to Central America and the Caribbean.
Being woken up in the middle of the night during your hotel stay is a huge fail, since fundamentally the basic thing you’re paying for is a night’s sleep!
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 »
