At the start of boarding of an American Airlines flight from Seattle to Dallas – Fort Worth, a passenger at SeaTac airport’s gate D10 took advantage of the opportunity of a full flight of passengers to declare his allegiance to Adolf Hitler and plead for the start of a race war.
Star Alliance member TAP Air Portugal is selling business class roundtrips from New York JFK and Newark to Vienna, Zurich, Nice or Frankfurt via Lisbon starting at $1790.
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.
Marriott Bonvoy offers breakfast to Platinum members, but the benefit is confusing. At Courtyard hotels in North America and Europe it’s actually a choice between 500 points (total for the stay) or a $10 food and beverage credit (x2 for two guests registered to the room) that can be used any time of day – not just in the morning.
But as I’ve documented extensively, hotels seem to do what they want with impunity, published benefits of the Bonvoy program notwithstanding. One customer found this out when the hotel called the cops after they asked for their $10 credit – and when it was refused they invoked Marriott’s guarantee of $50 cash for having the benefit denied.
Most Americans are used to turning off the cell phones in flight, and calling over cell networks usually doesn’t work in the air anyway. But several airlines around the world do allow it, and provide it as a service. And for years planes had Airfones that allowed air-to-ground calling for a fee. There’s very little conflict between passengers when this is allowed.
Now Europe is preparing for 5G service on planes that would make it possible for airlines to permit use of phones in the air the way they’re used anywhere else.
São Paulo-based plus-size model Juliana Nehme took to social media to share the ordeal of being denied travel in economy class on Qatar Airways at the end of her holiday in Beirut.
She says she flew Air France on the way over, but at check-in for her Qatar flight to Doha she was told that she “wasn’t welcome to board because [she’s] fat and…they weren’t going to welcome me on the flight” unless she paid for a premium cabin seat.
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.
Airline call center hold times often got long before the pandemic, one of the more popular features I’ve covered is ways around long hold times – like calling American Airlines foreign call centers, or ringing up Delta’s close-in travel hotline.
But you can always wait – whether it’s an hour, five hours or 40 hours – to reach an agent to help sort out a problem with your ticket, when your flight is cancelled or maybe your reservation just didn’t get ticketed properly. Always, at least, except at Frontier Airlines which has just eliminated telephone customer service.
A passenger’s pet is supposed to remain under their control and not come out of the carrier inflight. Some crews enforce that more aggressively than others. And on a recent Southwest flight, one French bulldog came out – and wandered around the aircraft.
This went on long enough, and the bulldog made it far enough around the aircraft, that flight attendants made an announcement asking whose dog it was? And nobody answered. Eventually, it turned out, that the dog wandered away while its owner was asleep inflight.
In 2015 Delta Air Lines made a $450 million investment in Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines. That left fellow SkyTeam member Guangzhou-based China Southern Airlines out in the cold. Two years later, American Airlines followed with a $200 million investment (for a 2.76% stake) in Chinese state-controlled China Southern.
China Southern left SkyTeam. They introduced AAdvantage mileage-earning and redmeption and entered into a joint venture with British Airways. BA’s largest shareholder, Qatar Airways, took a 5% stake in China Southern as well.
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 »
