American Airlines has a new rating system for gate agents, ranking each one on a five star scale. Based on details from multiple agents, this rating system includes everything related to the flight – including things they have no control over whatsoever. If they touch a flight that delays, that’s on them, even when it’s a maintenance delay.
The Association of Flight Attendants has told its members to prepare for a strike vote. This riles up the members, and makes it sound like the union is militant, when in fact they’re continuing to negotiate with the company and if all continues to proceed apace they won’t end up in a strike.
This is the union playing politics with its own members, not against the company.
Between homeless and refugees an increasing number of low-end properties are being used to house people by the city – and even relatively better hotels are being converted for this purpose. The 50% number may not be right, but the magnitude of the challenge – financial, and opportunity cost – is real.
Delta lays out how United’s response is self-serving. And of course it is! Just like Delta’s request is self-serving. The question isn’t the motives of each airline, it’s how should DOT handle it when an airline no longer wants to serve the route that was awarded to them?
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.
What becomes an even worse practice is charging a 5% add-on service fee for workers and not actually giving the money to those workers which is what the Los Angeles City Attorney suggests seems to be happening at Hyatt’s Thompson and tommie Hollywood hotels.
United MileagePlus has increased the cost of transatlantic awards on its own flights by one-third, and on partners by 39% – 46%. We’ll see what the effects are on other regions.
Senator Sinema is an American Airlines Executive Platinum member whose staff put out a 37 page memo on meeting her travel expectations. She likes room temperature bottled water available at all times (honestly, so do I). She likes a weekly hour-long massage. She wants to avoid flying Southwest though they’re a huge carrier in her home state. She “does not like to fly” and asks staffers to pick her preferred seats when she does.
A Cardless co-founder was a TPG intern 7 years ago, so the relationship isn’t surprising. Still, this strikes me for two reasons.
Conservative media personality Candace Owens bought business class tickets to London for her family on British Airways. Her seats had no working power, so they wouldn’t recline. Seat power didn’t work to charge her devices. And the seatback entertainment screen didn’t work either.
The London-based carrier didn’t tell her about the problem in advance. She discovered it on board when, apparently, it was too late to switch seats or even downgrade to economy where should could use seat video to entertain her kids. And while she says she was promised a full refund for the problem – she did not get what she paid for – the airline’s customer service only offered her $200 in travel credit against $18,000 in airfare.
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 »
