American Airlines posted a travel agent advisory about how it has updated fare class for US Airways. For tickets issued starting today for travel beginning on September 17, US Airways has worked to align its fare classes with American. US Airways is shrinking its economy fare buckets from 15 down to 12. T, U and R will no longer be US Airways economy fares. T, U, and R are ‘special classes’ on American. T is a coach award, U is a business class award, and — while I haven’t had occasion to search this recently — R has been a booking class for upgrades to business class on domestic 3-class flights and on two-cabin transborder flights. It strikes me as a little strange to see the US Airways ‘R’ bucket transition to ‘E’ because that…
Hopefully Southwest Didn’t Actually PAY for Their New Paint Job’s Design
Here’s the new Southwest livery. I’m not sure what was wrong with the old one. I don’t know anyone that buys airline tickets based on the paint job of the planes. I get that you need to paint planes when airlines merge, to put the right company name on them. And the composite materials of the Boeing 787 didn’t work with American’s old unpainted metal finish so they needed at least those planes which they hadn’t gotten yet to get a new paint job. Still, I’m a bit of a skeptic. That said, Mark F emails this photo, which looks to me like a British commuter rail train. Southwest is supposed to be more like a(n admittedly ‘fun’) bus in the sky, rather than a train. So I think they got the new Southwest livery…
A Simple Trick to Leverage Points With Icelandair
Icelandair is a bit of an enigma, several US flights to Iceland and beyond, not a terrible way to get to Europe and often inexpensive — and also offering the most service to an interesting destination. For a short while they had a partnership with Alaska Airlines which provided incredible value and drama, and dirt cheap first class awards to Hawaii. Mix a reasonable award chart for Alaska Airlines travel with selling miles for low, low prices and a feeding frenzy ensued. Alaska redemptions were pulled, and then brought back in early 2013. Unfortunately this partnership ended June 2013. Most US customers have had few realistic options for earning and redeeming miles when flying Icelandair. There is one way to make real use of otherwise-stranded Icelandair points, as SanDiego1K emails me. We flew to Iceland…
The Final Death of the Mileage Run
Josh Barro writes one of the best mainstream pieces on the current state of mileage runs for the New York Times. It’s a practice known as a mileage run: Buy a low-price airline ticket, in this instance $537, and fly not because you want to go anywhere, but to earn redeemable miles and progress toward elite status on your preferred airline. The core logic behind mileage runs is that airline points have a relatively fixed value, but the cost to accrue them can vary widely, so a low fare for a long trip can reap outsize rewards. Only when you’re taking a mileage run is connecting through Istanbul to get to Amsterdam better than flying there nonstop When the New York Times comes around to the party that mileage runs are dead… There are used…
If We Don’t Like American’s New Catering, They’ll Think Customers Are Telling Them They Don’t WANT Food
When the American and US Airways merger got the final go-ahead, I said there were ten things to expect. So far things are playing out pretty much… as expected. One of those things was the US Airways-ization of American. New leadership said that American’s service standards would survive But what that turns out to meean is a meeting in the middle for meal times — American was at about 2 hours, and US Airways at 3 hours 30 minutes so the new standard is 2 hours 45 minutes. But it’s US Airways’-style food. Yesterday was my first time flying on a meal route on a flight qualifying for food since new American meal standards went into effect September 1. Since I was on a meal flight it’s still catered with mixed nuts, but with a…
Al Jazeera Investigates: Their Hatchet Job on the Boeing 787
Al Jazeera aired a take down of the Boeing 787 — arguing that standards were altered to speed up production, and that this compromised safety. The piece strikes me as sensationalist tabloid journalism. I don’t see the benefit to Boeing to push out an aircraft that compromises safety. And clearly the airlines flying the aircraft every day are confident in its safety. It’s an impressive aircraft. While I think the Al Jazeera show is unfair to say the least, and includes a ton of non-sequiturs like somehow working with partner companies to share the cost of production and develop different elements of the aircraft (this is also called ‘division of labor’) as though this inherently leads to less quality — as opposed to relying only on one’s own more limited expertise — it’s a show…
Ch-ch-changes at the Dallas American Express Centurion Lounge!
The American Express Centurion Lounge at Dallas-Fort-Worth Airport has had a couple of recent changes. It’s been six months since the last menu refresh there. And they’ve added new items to the menu. In fact, the lounge’s website menu isn’t up to date. I love the DFW Centurion lounge. It’s my all-around favorite, even featuring a spa and showers.LaGuardia is the newest and I think I like their food best. (Here’s their menu.) With new items, though, the DFW lounge is sort of ‘new again’ to me. I think my body was about 5% brisket, so time for a refresh. They still have the old menu, and will at least until the full changeover. But for now they’ve added several items. There’s a new pasta dish and a chicken dish, the staff seem to prefer…
Your Award Ticket May Be Messed Up, Plink is Definitely Messed Up, and So Is Spirit Airlines
News and notes from around the interweb: Plink Rewards, which was a great double dipping tool, for instance earning an extra rebate at office supply stores, has shut down. I speculated something could be amiss six months ago but was wrong at the time. Sadly there is no more earning or redeeming, even of accumulated points. Travel With Grant eulogizes. Aeroplan has a glitch booking tickets with Air China and isn’t booking any at the moment. Some tickets issued over the past month remain in pending status, so if you have an Air China award booked with Aeroplan points be sure to check whether you are travel-ready. Understanding Spirit Airlines fees. The $16.99 usage fee for buying a ticket on their website is absurd (you can spend the time going to the airport and queuing…
Being Bad By Doing Good: How An Airline Can Be TOO On-Time
I’ve heard American Airlines CEO Doug Parker say that the most important thing, and almost the only thing, that matters for an airline is to run a safe on-time operation. US Airways has a tendency to start boarding early, and over the past six weeks or so I’ve noticed that American has started to do the same thing. I’ll show up at the gate 30 minutes out and they will already have started the boarding process. My flight this morning boarded a few minutes early. Boarding was complete more than 10 minutes prior to scheduled departure. And we pushed back early. That’s awesome, right? Not really, at least to me. I want an airline to run on its schedule, to do what it says it is going to do, to be predictable — not to…
What Do You Do When You Have a Reservation But It’s Not Honored?
I was tweeted this morning with a question about rental cars. [A] friend trying to drive to her wedding this weekend is getting a shrug & “what can you do?” from @Hertz, but no car. Advice? You’re less likely to have this happen to you if you’re a member of the rental car company’s frequency program, but it’s not a guarantee of protection. There are no new problems in travel of course, and it’s even happened to famous comedians on TV. There’s a Seinfeld meme for almost everything, for those old enough to remember. At the very end of the series, Elaine Benes declared her love for… United Airlines (and the next day United issued a press release “we love you, too.”). There was even one for an Orbitz discount. But no Seinfeld meme in…
