Etihad business class award space has opened wide up. Etihad has business class award space broadly available from New York JFK, Chicago O’Hare, and Washington Dulles to their Abu Dhabi hub. You can use that to get to India, the Maldives, the Mideast or really much of where you’d want to go.
More space is bookable via Air Canada than American AAdvantage or Etihad’s own program at the saver level.
I have offered many focused criticisms of American Airlines over the past several years. I’ve long been of the belief that there is no U.S. airline with more potential to be better than it is today. But in the interest of fairness and balance I wanted to offer 5 reasons to be genuinely excited about American Airlines. They are the airline I fly most, and I’ve been at least an Executive Platinum member of their AAdvantage program for more than a decade.
A mom in Milwaukee meets her daughter at the airport every time she comes home from college. In a dinosaur costume.
Someone shot video of the scene as the woman waits for her child to disembark, and then they give each other – momma to T-Rex – a giant hug. The mother then hugs the man traveling with her daughter, too.
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A pilot shortage, drawing pilots away from small operators, has left St. Thomas and St. Croix with virtually no air service between the two islands. These islands within the U.S. territory are virtually unconnected by passenger air, and this is the result of U.S. laws which limit the number of pilots, and which prevent world airlines from providing service. That needs to change.
For the night of Saturday, August 5, 2023 – generally the last night bookable at the end of IHG’s calendar right now – most hotels in most cities that have loaded reward night inventory are pricing at just 16,000 points per night.
I just spent a couple of nights at Hyatt Regency Hill Country. I live in Austin, so you might expect me to head out to the Lost Pines property for a sort-of staycation. But it wasn’t the resort we were after as much as a great jumping off point for SeaWorld San Antonio, which is basically across the street.
They’re considering putting doors on their narrowbody lie flat business class seats. And this seat would balance their desire for a top shelf product without taking up a lot of real estate on the plane – they could literally manage to offer less than 35 inches of pitch (distance from the same point on two seats) because of the angling of the seats even as they do just one seat on each side of the aisle since each seat turns into a bed facing outward at an angle from window to the aisle.
The seat would basically back up against the window. That means passengers would all ‘have’ windows but it wouldn’t be easy to look out the window. Instead their back would largely face the window with their feet facing the aisle. Seats would be positioned at an angle in a herringbone pattern. The Collins Aurora seat resembles the Thompson VantageSolo seat which JetBlue uses for their new Mint product.
Boeing is delivering 787s again and American Airlines has 25 of the 787-9 variant originally slated to start entering the fleet in 2023, but delayed. These 787-9s are exciting because American Airlines will debut a new business class seat with doors on this aircraft, and the plane will have more premium seats, and fewer seats overall.
Several Hyatt hotels have figured out a trick to save themselves money and cheat members out of points. And there’s nothing that Hyatt will do about it, so they can get away with it with impunity.
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 »
