Southwest Airlines quietly counted award travel towards the flight segments needed for award status for travel January 1 – September 19 of this year. They’ve finally emailed members to say they’ve done it, and they’re doing two more things to make status qualification easier.
With American Airlines dropping Flagship First Class in favor of a new business class suites product with doors, I wrote to expect a ‘better than first class seat’ within the cabin in row 1 at least on widebody aircraft.
This isn’t just speculation or inside leaks, though. It actually appears to be an Easter egg in the cabin rendering that American Airlines shared with their announcement.
Transatlantic airfares have been exceptionally high in all classes of service. I haven’t seen much like premium economy (think: domestic first class plus a foot rest) at reasonable pricing until now.
Delta and its partners are offering roundtrips starting at $860 for premium economy between October and May, a wide period of time that includes peak travel periods. And it’s available from numerous U.S. cities to several cities in Europe and back.
American Airlines will no longer offer Flagship First Class. However that doesn’t necessary meal they’ll no longer offer a seat that’s better than business class – indeed, that’s better than their new business class suite with doors.
You should expect a better seat in row one of widebody business class:
The lounge will be 5200 square feet on the A concourse. The A concourse is also home to the Air France and Virgin Atlantic lounges, though all concourses are connected airside and the A concourse connected to the B side with the Lufthansa, Turkish, and British Airways lounges.
It will include a 1,000 square foot bar/lounge, over 900 square foot dining room, 1,400 square-foot work area, family room, prayer room and kitchen. It will be two levels, seating 74 on the main level of the terminal and 44 upstairs.
I find travel on Spirit to be a value but I am not likely to fly them in the next 3 months, and certainly not enough to requalify after the 3 month status match, so won’t pursue this myself – but several of you will find this helpful.
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.
Delta Air Lines is conducting a test boarding planes using two jet bridges at the same time. This way they can get twice as many passengers onto the aircraft at once, making the boarding process go faster.
If adopted, in the future this could mean a single jet bridge that splits off and then boards passengers through two different doors on the aircraft. For now they are using two gates next to each other to accomplish the feat. Since Cincinnati is a much smaller station for Delta than the hub it used to be, they have extra gate space to allow this kind of test.
American Airlines announced this morning that they’ll be moving to new business class suites with doors, putting more premium seats into planes, and eliminating their Flagship First Class product starting in 2024.
There’s speculation that migrants could be headed to President Biden’s home next, based on filed flight plans for one of the planes that was chartered for the Martha’s Vineyard trip.
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 »
