Toys on the floor, shoes off, blankets spread out, suitcases open — one family turned a Delta Sky Club seating area into something closer to a kids play zone than a shared premium lounge. Children belong in lounges, but when a family’s mess spills beyond its own footprint, the cost gets pushed onto everyone else trying to use the space as a refuge from the terminal.
A Muslim family says Delta kicked them off a flight home from Atlanta to Baltimore because of who they were — but an appeals court ruled they cannot pursue the case at all because no one suffered bodily injury.
A passenger seated next to Bernie Sanders in first class was reportedly moved back to a coach seat on a Delta flight to Minneapolis — and someone from the senator’s team was later seen in the original seat.
A key Senate aviation Democrat wants TSA to make Americans take their shoes off again at security checkpoints, reviving one of the most visible rituals of post-9/11 airport screening even though there is no clear evidence the policy ever stopped another plot. It’s a distraction when the agency still misses dangerous items and regulates itself.
United has finally done what it spent the past year signaling: the cheapest Polaris and premium economy fares now come with coach-style restrictions, including paid seat selection, no changes, and — in basic business — no Polaris lounge access. This is being sold as new “fare families,” but the real story is simpler: United is making its cheapest premium tickets worse, not meaningfully cheaper.
Mount Everest guides are accused of poisoning climbers to trigger costly helicopter evacuations in a $20 million insurance scam. Also: Hyatt offers 20% points back in Las Vegas, Delta’s Minneapolis Delta One Lounge moves closer, Amex drops Etihad, and United is apparently pouring a legit $150 bottle in business class.
Air Peace says it will restart once-monthly Boeing 777 flights from Lagos to Antigua and Barbados starting May 24 — a schedule that doesn’t work for vacations, business trips, or even roundtrips. And when a veteran airline executive pointed that out, the carrier responded with legal threats.
United is raising checked bag fees to $50 for new tickets, another $10 increase that follows JetBlue’s latest move and will likely be copied across the industry. What makes this worse than a normal fare hike is that bag fees are largely exempt from the 7.5% federal excise tax on domestic tickets, so airlines have every incentive to move more of the price into fees instead of fares.
British Airways is forcing the employee football club that has carried its name for more than four decades to rebrand, ending a link that stretches back to BOAC staff teams in 1947 and cutting off ties to its own workforce history.
United’s big MileagePlus changes are now live, and the program is plainly moving more of its value behind a co-brand card: faster mileage-earning, cheaper United award prices, and better access to saver inventory for cardholders, while non-cardmembers earn less. United and Chase are raising the upfront incentives just as the airline makes a credit card matter more than ever to getting the best value out of MileagePlus.
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 »
