It’s only been two weeks since American Airlines introduced ‘fresh bites’ boxes to flights at least 900 miles long and already they’re planning to bring back hot meals to first class this fall.
Alaska separately introduced their partnership with oneworld member Qatar Airways, and at the start of June said that award redemption on Qatar would become available in August. They’re actually a few days early, and Qatar Airways awards are currently bookable on the Alaska Airlines website. However the prices are.. sketchy to say the least.
Escape lounges in the U.S. are being rebranded as “Escape Lounges – The Centurion® Studio Partner”. Escape has a new partnership, though, outside of the American Express relationship. They’ll be delivering phone booths in airports you can pay to access for privacy and to charge devices in conjunction with Jabbrrbox which has had these in airports since 2018.
American Airlines will partner with and invest in South American ultra low cost carrier Jetsmart, which is owned by the same parent company as Frontier Airlines and Europe’s Wizz Air. Jetsmart operates coach-only densely configured Airbus A320 narrowbody planes from Chile and Argentina, serving 33 destinations.
Back in the fall of 2003 United had a guy named Ted going around Denver picking up lunch tabs for entire restaurants. You see, Ted was their new low cost carrier ‘within the airline’ that United was launching. Ted was your friend. He was fun. That’s not how Ted turned out, in fact Ted – which shared the last 3 letters of United – was often described as being “the end of United.” And United retired Ted on January 6, 2009. Around the time that United was paying someone to pick up lunch, US Airways decided it needed to respond and so a guy named “Seth” picked up a few lunch tabs in Crystal City near the carrier’s Arlington, Virginia headquarters. Although by that time US Airways’ low cost carrier within a carrier MetroJet was…
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.
Earlier I covered the American Airlines flight attendants who were stuck sleeping at the airport because they weren’t provided a hotel room for their layover. In it, I mentioned that the grievance filed by the flight attendants union indicated pilots were having similar problems with the airline’s accommodations (and ground transportation) providers.
American’s pilots also filed a grievance. While they don’t note pilots sleeping in airports, they do report a pilot sleeping in a hotel lobby because of lack of a room for the night.
United Airlines now offers pre-order meals, snacks, and drinks in coach starting five days prior to departure. So far this is only available on some flights out of Chicago to 4 markets but will “expand to all flights over 1,500 miles by early fall.”
This morning I wrote about a 20% transfer bonus from Brex points to miles. I have a stash of 215,000 points thanks to a signup bonus and a Paypal deal – some of the easiest 215,000 points I’ve ever accrued.
As if the Brex deal hadn’t been good enough already, I received an email from them today: “Your Amazon Gift Card”
It’s been a dozen years since we first saw a 100,000 mile airline credit card offer. That became the gold standard for Oh My Goodness.
We’ve seen bank cards with bigger offers in their own rewards programs, but I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen an airline co-brand card offering 150,000 miles. I’ve been watching this for over 20 years. Indeed, April 2002 was the first time I’d ever seen a 20,000 mile offer. That was for a United credit card. And so is this.
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 »
