US Airways pioneered the ‘reverse herringbone’ business class seat, which is one of the best in the sky. As a result their business class hard product on Airbus A330s is really up there compared to some of the best airlines in the world. Cathay Pacific, EVA Air, and American among others have followed suit with their own versions of the seat.
And US Airways has unprecedented international upgrade availability right now. I don’t expect it to last.
Resort fees are offensive. They are not optional charges, so they are part of the room rate. Not including them in the room rate is disingenuous.
Consumers and the government get up in arms and regulate over airfare displays when already those are pretty clear and clean, it’s hotels where the worst behavior happens.
But the Federal Government has just said they’re perfectly legal.
Last month I wrote about the man who had his life savings confiscated at the airport because his carry on bag smelled like pot.
There were over 90 seizures alone at the Cincinnati airport in 2013 where this happened. So the seizure of $44,000 from a nail salon owner at New York JFK shouldn’t be surprising.
The salon owner, who says he “has never used, bought, or sold illegal drugs” saved the money over two decades and was bringing it to California to load to his two brothers there.
A collection of the most interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click.
I recently asked readers for questions and I’ve been working through several with standalone posts.
There were also questions with fairly straightforward answers, and so I thought I would combine a few of them into a single post.
In 1998 a United DC-10 made an emergency landing at Washington’s National airport. It was a Chicago – Baltimore flight that was first diverted to Dulles (after being held over Cleveland) and then to National due to weather. It was low on fuel, had 300 passengers on board, and had little choice but to make the landing. Emergency equipment deployed to the airport’s longest ~ 7000 foot runway.
I remember at the time being surprised that National was the diversion airport given the airport’s postage stamp size and short runways. Widebodies don’t normally operate there. Indeed, I wondered as well how they were going to manage getting the plane out of National, though presumably that was done with minimum fuel (and passengers offloaded, and bused to Baltimore).
That’s why I was surprised to see what I understand is a Vietnam Airlines 787-9 intentionally fly from Washington Dulles to National airport this morning.
American AAdvantage is stacking a purchased miles bonus with a discount through July 13 that lets you buy miles for ~ 2.14 cents a mile.
I assume the two are combined in order to make it sound more exciting and a little more opaque in terms of doing the math.
Here’s the table showing the discount and bonus that applies at each tier of mileage purchase.
A collection of the most interesting links you’ll want to see, many you’ll want to click.
Business class, to me, is all about the seat. There aren’t many airlines where the food and wine are remarkable, though better business class offerings will be fairly good. Mostly you want personal space to work effectively and to sleep so that you wind up at your destination reasonably rested rather than beaten up.
The best business class experiences make the overall journey seamless, from checkin and security to a lounge to wait for your flight to priority immigration on the other end and even an arrivals lounge for a shower when you land (so you can go straight away to meetings, and because your hotel room may not yet be available with early morning arrivals).
I value my American miles for partner awards, but most members look to redeem American miles on American flights and that’s gotten very hard. It used to be exceptionally easy. Sometime in mid-2012 premium cabin awards to Europe really tightened up. About 18 months ago premium cabin awards to Asia tightened up, and awards to South America did as well.
About a week ago I wrote about American removing saver awards entirely from some domestic markets. Starting a month from now, there were only three days through the end of April where you could find a saver award flying Austin – Dallas. That’s a short, cheap one hour flight where American offers at least 14 flights a day.
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 »
