It’s clear that we’re going to see some long haul flying move to Seattle. That means some Hawaiian Airlines widebodies leave Honolulu. There will be fewer widebodies operating between Honolulu and the West Coast, perhaps, and fewer Honolulu – Pacific destinations. But it’s not just those markets that will see planes shift around.
I suspect that it will make sense for some Hyatt and American elite members to focus just on earning Hyatt status, transfer some Chase points to Hyatt and redeem for AAdvantage status for each trip you wind up making on American – and just travel on whichever airline makes sense on a given trip.
If you’d just be an occasional American traveler this may make more sense than striving for AAdvantage status – especially if you’re doing it now with spending on an AAdvantage credit card. Earn more and more valuable points (like Chase points) spending on a different card instead, and redeeming ad hoc whenever you need the status.
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.
A Hertz customer rented a car for a month and drove it 25,000 miles or about 800 miles per day which is genuinely impressive and might be some sort of world record. He had an unlimited miles rate, but Hertz was not happy – they were going to charge $10,000 miles for the excess driving.
There’s a hotel using the St. Regis name in Detroit with no affiliation to the Marriott brand
Airlines around the world are under a lot of pressure over their climate impact. This is most intense in Europe, where governments are seeking to curtail flights – limiting airport operations, and even banning flying short distances.
There’s a concerted effort among airlines globally to set climate goals in order to forestall greater regulation. And, in so doing, there’s a push for subsidies instead of regulation.
If I’m checking a bag, I rarely bother checking in online in advance. It just doesn’t save any time. Airline processes are just too cumbersome. There are some airlines in the world that have a ‘just drop the bag and go’ process, but most do not. It really shouldn’t be that hard.
American Airlines has finally made a simple improvement to their bag check process that’s actually a nice time-saver. When you check in online, and opt during that check-in process to check bags, customers can walk up to a kiosk and go right to ‘print bag tags’ rather than walking through a repeat of all of the steps.
The end of the partnership has been bad for customers, and bad for American and JetBlue which are in a tough spot trying to compete against Delta and United in New York. Neither one can grow there, and both are too small on their own to really matter.
There’s a chance that they could try to re-start the partnership that was dismantled last year. Both carriers say that they want this.
Southwest Airlines quietly raised checked bag fees on Tuesday. This has gotten little notice.
Alaska Airlines is selling miles with a 100% bonus through November 15th.
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 »
