At American’s Media and Investory Day airline President Robert Isom reported that AAdvantage members redeem 1.5 billion miles per day. On one business class flight to Australia. (Kidding.)
The President of the AAdvantage program assures saver award availability is about to change for the better.
Air France flight AF66 from Paris to Los Angeles today lost the number four engine southwest of Greenland “when the fan and inlet separated from the engine.” There was “a loud thud followed by vibrations.”
The cockpit crew took the plane down to 31,000 feet and then diverted to Goose Bay, Canada landing safely after two more hours of flying. On arrival an inspection found hydraulic fluid leaking. There was debris on the runway from the aircraft after it touched down as well.
When you look at all the changes customers need to spend about 3 times as much as before under American’s revenue-based programs just to break even on rewards from flying. The idea that big spenders are coming out ahead is silly.
American Airlines rolled out their new ‘dynamic re-accommodation’ tool last week. This allows passengers to re-book themselves during irregular operations using the website, mobile app, or kiosks. Although to access the tool customers need to have opted into flight status notifications.
Four years ago Singapore Airlines ran an ad campaign “The Lengths We Go To” where you can see a Singapore Airlines flight attendant traveling in search of the perfect tea to serve you inflight, attending a Bollywood film festival to select movies for inflight entertainment, and more to find ways to make you feel at home.
And the thing is even though flight attendants aren’t exactly doing it, you could imagine it, it’s almost a credible claim.
Since March 30th American Express has only allowed Platinum cardmembers to bring in 2 guests. Centurion cardmembers can bring in 2 guests or immediate family. But that didn’t solve overcrowding.
Three years ago American was talking about “Going for Great.” That’s still in the safety video but otherwise it isn’t something we’ve heard about from American Airlines in quite some time.
There was no new slogan articulating a broad vision for the company offered this year in its place – just lots of small piece of information learned.
Ever since United went revenue-based, awarding miles based on the cost of ticket rather than distance-flown, you could still earn 1 mile per mile flown by crediting most United fares to a Singapore KrisFlyer account.
That just changed.
South America’s LATAM, the combination of LAN and TAM, is moving their LATAM Pass frequent flyer program from kilometers to miles effective January 3.
Somehow this is supposed to “make your experience with us even better” by converting everything from kilometers to miles at a ratio of 1.6 to 1.
Last month I wrote about getting unlimited inflight wireless internet on planes equipped with either Gogo or Panasonic from $6 per month which is a whole lot cheaper than my $50 Gogo unlimited plan that works on American Airlines only.
That deal is deal but here’s one that in several ways is even better.
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 »
