Last week Starwood launched a targeted offer with some members getting points for varying levels of stay activity and others getting double elite qualifying nights (and still others getting bupkus). You should see if you’re eligible for something.
At the time we didn’t know, though, what Starwood’s fourth quarter promotion would be. But now that’s out.
United is admitting is that they actually lost money because of Basic Economy. United revealed that the “incremental revenue from buy-up” was “more than offset by share loss” to airlines without a Basic Economy offering.
Last year American AAdvantage reduced the number of systemwide upgrades given to Executive Platinum members from 8 to 4. Don’t worry, fewer upgrade certificates didn’t make upgrades any easier to confirm. In fact they’ve even gotten tough to use domestically.
It’s still possible to earn more systemwide upgrades — even more than 8.
Because somehow Etihad’s problem is that they aren’t gouging members enough with fuel surcharges… as opposed to massively failed investments in foreign carriers like air berlin and Alitalia, and overexpansion on their own…
They’re letting members know about tinkering with the program coming up — changes to lounge access, mileage earning, and redemption prices — but they don’t let members know the actual award chart changes which is how you know they won’t be good.
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The CEO of Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, gave an interview where he claimed that Norwegian “will go in four or five months. They are running out of cash. They are scrabbling around daily.”
He calls out that they “may not survive through the winter.”
American Airlines told us they planned to roll out Basic Economy fares across their domestic route network in September. I didn’t expect them to do it the day after Labor Day. Of course I suppose it shouldn’t surprise that the thing American Airlines IT delivered on-time was the least customer-friendly move in the known pipeline.
Southwest Airlines doesn’t charge for checked bags, doesn’t charge change fees, doesn’t charge for carry on bags either.
It also carries more domestic passengers than any other airline. Its stock has the highest price-earnings multiple of US airlines.
A TSA checkpoint is a bigger germ farm than the monkey in Outbreak. If you don’t have PreCheck you have to take off your shoes, and the checkpoint floors can be as bad as a domestic airline lavatory at the end of a Hong Kong flight.
Your fellow sick passengers touch the bins, they even put their dirty tissue sand handkerchiefs in them before going through the nude-o-scope pockets empty. TSA provides their employees with blue gloves, not you.
From end of April through mid-June they ran a 25% conversion bonus from hotel programs not just Starwood. That meant it applied to Marriott Rewards travel packages. They’re running more conversion bonuses, selling miles cheaper than ever, all as revenue growth for the AAdvantage program was reported to be materially below projections. (Gee I wonder why.)
Now they’re back with a Starwood conversion bonus running September 1 through October 15.
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 »
