Passengers bring their own life experiences and (emotional) baggage with them to the airport. So do flight attendants. We also have different cultural expectations and behaviors. And then we’re trapped inside a metal tube together for several hours. Sometimes that goes very badly, and we all need a bit more patience and understanding.
With Marriott extending everyone’s elite status for next year, there are plenty of members getting a status gift – recognizing that once-loyal guests haven’t had their business travel start back up, and especially those whose travels normally taken them abroad including to Asia.
On the other hand there are members who have spent countless nights with their head in beds in 2021. They’ve given Marriott their stays and it turns out they didn’t need to do this in order to keep their elite tier for 2022.
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.
We can punish bad actors – and we should – but there seems to be a combination of factors that lead American to have to deal with this issue more than others. Yet aside from lobbying for punishments, American’s approach has largely been to lobby for airports not to allow vendors to sell alcohol to go any longer. It’s always struck me as sort of stupid that places do this, but it doesn’t seem to be a factor driving American to experience problems more often than others.
After another flight diversion following a flight attendant assault, I have to wonder why is it that so many passenger incidents – this one seemingly worse than most – seem to occur on American Airlines? They’re much larger than Spirit, to be sure, carrying far more passengers. But why do they have more inflight crazy than Delta, United and Southwest? I don’t know. There are several hypotheses I’ve entertained that don’t quite fit perfectly.
The $103 million verdict shows just how silly U.S. patent law has become, since the patent is for “send[ing] trays through a checkpoint and us[ing] two carts to move the trays back and forth” including “use [of] a cart to move trays from the end of the checkpoint back to the start.”
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.
He spent October 19, 2020 – January 16, 2021 in the airport because he was afraid of Covid-19. He had flown to O’Hare but didn’t continue onto India as he’d planned. He relied on the kindess of strangers who picked up meals for him, and he talked to passengers about Buddhism and Hinduism.
The man was charged with felony criminal trespass for his time in a restricted area of an airport. And he’s now been acquitted, without having to submit a defense.
At last weeks State of the Airline employee event following American’s third quarter earnings call, Raja explained the strategy and offered that we may even see a whole row given out as an elite benefit on some ultra low cost carrier partners.
The new American Airlines elite status-earning system going into effect next year makes it super easy to keep elite status if you engage with the program across a variety of earning streams, rather than just by flying. Here are 10 takeaways on what’s going on with the new program.
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 »
