United just announced several improvements to their premium transcon flights this morning. Traditionally New York – San Francisco and New York – Los Angeles were lucrative enough markets that airlines competed to offer a much higher quality product than on other routes.
In the aftermath of the British Airways IT debacle that snarled the carrier’s flights for days, the airline collected hundreds of suitcases in a pile where they’d be “out of sight”.
One suitcase, though, was “blown by an engine draft for nearly 600 feet before it was stopped by panicking ground crew.”
Southwest Airlines flight WN3630 was delayed Monday night when a passenger “locked himself in the restroom and refused to get out.”
The passenger, whom Southwest said appeared to be drunk, was eventually kicked out of the lavatory and off the aircraft but he “ran back onto the plane” which is when a member of the crew “tackled him and pinned him down.”
The only times I’ve ever seen legitimate 10,000 miles per car rental offers were 9999 Delta miles from Avis or Budget on a one day rental in 2008 and 9999 Continental miles on 5 day and longer rentals in late 2007 and early 2008.
However here’s a creative one that really does get to 10,000 miles.
The U.S. has told Europe there won’t be an electronics ban on European flights departing for the U.S. and that means there won’t be a ban on US flights departing for Europe either.
Apparently “the U.S. side took into account European concerns about the safety implications of storing devices with lithium batteries in aircraft cargo holds.”
The New York Times carried a piece by Patrick Smith yesterday with what’s supposed to be the ‘smart take’ on recent airline incidents. He says ‘there was no golden age of air travel’ (indeed, that the golden age of air travel in many ways is now).
While United claimed these new fares were a benefit for customers, they were in a very real sense lying because Basic Economy fares were (as American Airlines candidly put it describing their own Basic Economy offering) merely ‘new attributes’ for the lowest fares, and not new lower fares at all.
In other words, Basic Economy fares give you fewer benefits at the same price you used to pay. The goal is to make these fares unpleasant enough that you’ll spend more to avoid them.
I usually try to avoid travel over major holiday weekends like this one. The bookends of long weekends are ‘amateur days’. Airports are crowded, planes are full (they are most of the time nowadays anyway) and lines are longer.
Very frequent flyers can get frustrated with once a year (or less) travelers but really shouldn’t. The skies — and the airports — do not belong to us. We put in our time, and we get our perks, we know the drill and it comes easier for us anyway with PreCheck for security, club lounges to wait in, and priority boarding so we don’t lose overhead bin space.
Delta quietly devalued their miles again over the holiday weekend adding fuel surcharges to Virgin Atlantic business class awards departing the U.S..
A year ago a business class roundtrip on Virgin cost 125,000 Delta SkyMiles. Yesterday it cost as much as 205,000 miles and a $956 cash co-pay. But this change has been rolled back.
It’s no surprise that when United Airlines employees asked their President whether American’s introduction of inferior seats was an opportunity for United gain an advantage by offering a better product, United’s President said no.
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 »
