American Airlines has a private check-in for top customers at facility at Chicago O’Hare, LAX, London Heathrow, Miami and New York JFK called Flagship First Check-in. But because this is an airline, the rules around who can use it are complicated.
This summer British Airways doubled its award availability commitment. Each airline opens award space on flights on its own schedule, if they open awards at all. British Airways is unique in promising to make awards available on every flight when the schedule loads.
But they don’t promise first class awards. They used to be good about offering them. Now first class space is almost non-existent.
As President Robert Isom explained it to flight attendants in an internal meeting this week, American Airlines would like to modify Airbus A319s and add more first class seats. Just 8 seats up front isn’t enough to sell on many of the routes where the aircraft gets deployed. He’d also like to add bigger overhead bins. A decision point may come next year.
Brady Byrnes, who is American’s Vice President of Inflight, explained at an internal meeting this week (a recording of which was reviewed by View From The Wing) that the carrier is prioritizing which flights get basic amenities.
Their co-brand credit card revenue accounted for the entirey of profit in many quarters before the pandemic. When the airline said they were losing money in New York, that was the wrong way to look at the business.
ConciergeKey is American’s revenue-based top level, given to very high revenue customers and those who influence significant business for the airline.
They got priority for upgrades and other waitlists and have myriad other benefits including use of the airline’s business class Flagship lounges when flying domestically and are again being given tokens to visit American’s exclusive Flagship First Dining, too.
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.
At the start of Wednesday’s United Airlines earnings call, CEO Scott Kirby outlined four reasons he believes United is positioned to win relative to competitor airlines.
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.
New U.S. travel rules go into effect November 8th, and if the President of France were bound by them he’d be ineligible to enter the country – even though he’s fully vaccinated following European guidelines. That’s because U.S. pandemic policy is – still – not guided by science.
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 »
