There are two main benefits to the Citi premium American Airlines co-brand credit card, besides the signup bonus, in my opinion: elite qualifying miles for spending and scalable lounge access.
And they’re changing the way they calculate spend on the card for earning these qualfying miles.
Airlines know that people use forged boarding passes to access airport lounges they wouldn’t otherwise be entitled to use. People also buy refundable tickets for the lounge access and then refund those tickets. One man took this to such extremes that he managed to eat free for a year.
There were rumors that the EVA Air contract with Sanrio had not been renewed and thus that the Hello Kitty concept would disappear from the fleet. However that doesn’t seem to be the case because EVA took delivery of another Hello Kitty plane, its first narrowbody.
A Qantas passenger Barry Johnston who flew Sydney – Los Angeles on July 18, 2015 is suing the airline because his seat kept reclining and “the back cushions fell to the cabin floor” causing him discomfort – and ultimately harm to his 43 year old body
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.
United debuted their new Polaris lounge at Chicago O’Hare in the old club and first class lounge space at gate C18 today. This is a business (and first) class lounge. It is not a Star Alliance Gold lounge and not a United Club.
There’s a trend towards modestly improving membership-based lounges and substantially improving business class only lounges at least at United and American. As with changes to frequent flyer programs the best service and benefits go to those spending the most on a given trip, not over the course of a year or a lifetime.
Airlines have been trying to goose lagging stocks with share buybacks. Fundamentally airline stocks haven’t performed because there’s little chance of significant profit growth and spending cash to retire shares underscores that: it suggests that there’s no more profitable investment in front of the business, which suggests it’s not a strong growth play.
British Airways is looking to automate its service by getting passengers to swallow a pill that will communicate your needs to their crew.
The idea is to adapt technology currently in use in hospitals which, for instance, monitors whether patients take their pills so that cabin crew can stay up to speed with everyone onboard. This seems to go to great lengths to make sure customers don’t press the flight attendant call button.
American is temporarily re-branding their existing Flagship lounges as International First Class lounges as it prepares to introduce brand new business and first class Flagship Lounges in the coming months.
That’s because these new Flagship Lounges are going to be a new concept, rolled out as renovations to existing lounges and new builds are completed starting this spring. We’re going to see New York JFK opening first in a few months, followed by LAX by mid-year.
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.
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 »
