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.
Three years ago Delta introduced minimum spending requirements for elite status. The revenue requirement was essentially set at 10 cents per mile — e.g. $2500 for 25,000 mile status, $5000 for 50,000 mile status and so on. That was a big conceptual move, but one with limited effect in practice.
However revenue-based requirements for elite status have now spread internationally — to North of the Border. Air Canada is clearly trying to cull their elite ranks, something consistent with their past stated attitudes towards elite frequent flyers.
Delta is running an ‘award sale’ for domestic economy ‘starting at 10,000 miles plus taxes and fees each way’ but the discount is only available on roundtrips. So you give up the ability to book one-ways in exchange for a 5000 mile discount on saver awards.
Last August an offer came out promising up to 90,000 miles for the Virgin Atlantic co-brand credit card. It returned at the beginning of October. Links come and go for the offer.
The good news is after the most recent link I had died a couple of months ago the offer is back.
Rick Hasen, a law school contracts professor who runs an election law blog, writes about an Alice in Wonderland experience with Expedia.
He purchased non-changeable tickets that Expedia said had a change fee. The tickets didn’t permit advance seat assignments which Expedia failed to disclose. And Expedia says he should have called them during the purchase process to find out if there were any hidden restrictions — a phone call that likely would have taken hours.
One bit of good news for members in the AAdvantage program changes that I haven’t seen get any play is that mileage upgrade award charts don’t appear to be changing.
Delta made upgrades a lot more expensive this year. United has many more upgrade price levels, including some more expensive than AAdvantage. But American hasn’t changed their upgrade prices.
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.
An American Airlines flight from Cancun to New York taxied to a gate at JFK set up for domestic arrivals this past Friday.
American flight AA1671 arrived about 8:30pm on Friday night, and passengers simply got off and left the airport without going through immigration or customs.
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.
In some ways what American didn’t say about their devaluation is even more interesting than what they did say.
United made major changes to their award chart ten years ago … they made this bitter pill go down a bit easier by promising “saver awards available on every flight to every destination.”
When British Airways announced a huge devaluation at the beginning of the year which went into effect in April they softened it in a similar manner.
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 »
