As someone who flies American Airlines regularly, I place a high value on lounge access. It’s the people who keep me going especially during irregular operations, going above and beyond to get me to my destination.
American’s premium services agents, who (among other things) staff the Admirals Clubs, used to work from a command line in the Sabre reservations system but are being transitioned to a graphical overlay that restricts what they’re able to do.
A couple of weeks ago I outlined what sites and tools you can use to find frequent flyer award seats.
You almost always want to do the research to find award space yourself and then set up the award (online, if your mileage program offers all partners on its website, or over the phone).
One key tool I mentioned was Expert Flyer which I said had the most limited coverage of airlines but is indispensable for American flyers (because it has upgrade space) and because you can set it up to keep searching for space and email you when it opens up.
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Last week there was a rumor that Chase would be removing 5 points per dollar earning on its Ink small business cards, but grandfathering in existing cardholders.
We know a little bit more now: Later this year Chase will be introducing a new Chase Ink Business Preferred card.
There’s a fare war going on right now for winter travel between New York and Paris. Of course coach travel to Paris has to be cheap otherwise you’ll just buy cheap business class.
The Department of Transportation has had a lot of potential rules for how air travel should work on its docket. And it made a big announcement which doesn’t amount to very much. Fortunately.
So what did the Department of Transportation actually do? Effective January 2018 they will:
Booking Europe awards with American miles can be tough. American releases very little space on its own flights, and their primary transatlantic partner is British Airways — and British Airways fuel surcharges can be truly choke-worthy.
Right now though there’s something of a unicorn: amazing award space for the whole family on American’s oneworld partner Finnair. That means great saver pricing and no fuel surcharges.
United held its quarterly call on financial results this morning. And the consistent message throughout the call was that they’re going to do a lot of things differently, they just won’t tell us what yet.
They’re want to talk about things like basic economy fares and about new IT investments. They’re going to talk about how they’re forecasting revenue. But over and over they punted to say they’d talk about those things at next month’s investor day… Here’s what Oscar Munoz’s office looked like after the call:
Alaska Airlines won the frenzied bidding war to acquire Virgin America. They likely overpaid, but saw Virgin America — barely profitable even with low fuel prices — as the only opportunity to pick up gates at congested airports.
The combination makes for the biggest West Coast airline, and buys them a San Francisco hub to diversify away from the intense competition they face from Delta in Seattle.
Japan Airlines has announced a partnership with Priority Pass to let members redeem 40,000 miles for a Priority Pass Prestige membership.
Starwood points transfer 1:1 into Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, with the usual 5000 mile bonus for transfers into 20,000 miles. So 35,000 Starwood points transfer to 40,000 Japan Airlines miles. (And of course 105,000 Marriott points transfer to 35,000 Starwood points.)
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 »
