In February, American Airlines announced that tickets booked through many third parties would no longer earn miles starting May 1 – but they wouldn’t announce the list of sites whose bookings would become ineligible to earn miles until late April.
Lufthansa first class appears to have gone from 121,000 to 154,000 miles each way per person – meaning that a saver award now costs 308,000 miles roundtrip. That’s a 27% increase. And these are tough awards to book, because Lufthansa only makes them available to United’s program members within a few days of departure.
Meanwhile ANA first class from the Midwest and East Coast appears to have jumped to an eye-popping 242,000 miles – an instantaneous doubling in price.
American is encouraging customers to prepay for bags with a discount (of course you may wind up prepaying bags and then not checking as many – overpaying for your bags)
Another way they’re encouraging this is speeding up bag drop for prepaid bags. You can just scan your boarding pass and out will pop the bag tags. Much faster than the current process!
Costco has sold gold bars since the fall. They get more than the spot price of gold, but it’s still a good deal compared to most places you’ll purchase it.
It’s one of the more unusual things that Costco sells, perhaps, and it’s gotten a lot of attention this month because of a Wells Fargo report suggesting Costco sells $200,000,000 per month in gold bars. That’s a run rate of $2.4 billion per year in gold sales.
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.
Los Angeles International Airport is planning to change the numbers of its terminals and also rename its gates. Terminal 3 will be a different terminal than the current terminal 3. They’re going to call the planned future terminal 9… terminal 8. The airport isn’t confusing enough for most passengers!
A lot of European concern over the environment is virtue signaling that winds up counterproductive, or just cheap talk. At least France uses nuclear power!
Any criticisms of the aviation industry in Europe are unserious though because European aviation is more carbon intensive than U.S. aviation as a result of European government policies.
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.
Delta Air Lines just announced a 5% across-the-board pay increase for its non-union workforce. It’s the third year in a row of pay increases, and follows February’s $1.4 billion profit-sharing payout.
The airline is also instituting a new $19 per hour minimum starting wage. Both changes go into effect June 1, and combine for an annualized expected cost of $500 million in increased wages. Minimum starting wage employees will earn $5,000 more per year than they currently do.
You can usually hold a reservation – preserving its price, though technically not guaranteed until ticketing – for 24 hours. But customers could pay a fee to extend this to 3, 5, or 7 days. Those paid extended hold options are no longer being sold.
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 »
