Delta Charges $1000 to Buy Miles, Then Refuses to Sell the Promised Award. Can She Sue?

by Gary Leff

Mar 30 2016

Tiffany describes finding Delta award seats on the airline’s website. She’s making the booking for four passengers, and the miles aren’t all in the account. So she calls the airline, has them set up the award, and then purchases about $1000 in miles in order to buy the award.

And then the price of the award jumped from 110,000 to 375,000 per person one way when the agent went to issue the tickets.

After escalating to web support, a supervisor, and the re-issue desk they couldn’t get the flights to ticket at the price that would be initially quoted each time. They finally tried “seven different itineraries across three days” before getting something to come up at the promised price for the Tokyo – New York itinerary.

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Inside Etihad’s The Residence, the Most Luxurious Airline Seat in the Sky

by Gary Leff

Mar 29 2016

Since I was flying Etihad’s First Apartment three times in January and February, I reached out to Etihad to see if it might be possible to take a look at their ‘seat’ that’s even beyond first class (provided no one had booked it on my flight, of course): The Residence.

I’ve already written about the separate Etihad Residence lounge at New York JFK. And while I’m going to write a trip report about Etihad’s A380 First Class, I’m especially excited to share the inside of Etihad’s super-exclusive Residence.

Ever since the product was announced nearly two years ago, it’s been the subject of awe. It’s the product that Nicole Kidman is flying in her commercial for Etihad.

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Marriott Won’t Raise Its Offer for Starwood, Wants Shareholders to Sell to Them Anyway

by Gary Leff

Mar 28 2016

This morning word came out that Chinese consortium Anbang had raised its bid for Starwood to $82.75 in cash.

Marriott had offered 0.8 Marriott shares and $21 in cash last Monday, worth a little over $79 at the time, to outbid Anbang’s previous $78 offer. Marriott’s shares had fallen since then.

Instead of countering with a higher offer — continuing the potentially irrational bidding war — Marriott has issued a statement saying that Starwood’s shareholders to vote to sell for Marriott’s cash and stock offer anyway.

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American Just Announced New Los Angeles – Beijing Service Starting December 16

by Gary Leff

Mar 28 2016

American has made it pretty clear they want to win Los Angeles, the way that Delta has worked to win New York. Both are major US markets, and hyper-competitive.

American has grown both with its own flights — they recently added a Sydney flight (with an improved inflight service), they’re adding Auckland, New Zealand, and they’re adding Tokyo Haneda service and Hong Kong as well not to mention Shanghai with a 787 — and those are all international routes that face competition.

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