What’s grosser than gross? Reaching into the seat back pocket in front of you and finding a used tissue. During the pandemic. Which then also makes you realize that all of the ‘clean commitments’ that your airline made aren’t really being carried out.
Fortunately there’s a product to both ensure a sanitary tray table and seat back pocket, and make that seat pocket more useful so you can have all of your items well-organized in front of you.
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.
During the American Airlines first quarter earnings call, the airline’s Chief Revenue Officer Vasu Raja dropped a hint about finding the best airfares. The landscape booking airline tickets is changing rapidly and they’re afraid of selling future flights too cheap. They’re keeping prices high for late 2021 holiday travel on purpose so that people don’t buy their travel yet.
In response to a question by CNBC journalist Leslie Josephs, Raju explained that ticket sales are up in the near term but looking further out where bookings are falling, it’s because of a conscious decision by the airline “so that we don’t sell out Thanksgiving too soon” – they are keeping prices high so they don’t fill up planes too cheaply.
If you care about your elite benefits part of selecting a hotel now must include finding out what benefits are actually being honored at a property. And if you have to work so hard to get your benefits, the benefits probably aren’t worth it to begin with, and you shouldn’t be choosing a hotel based on loyalty to a chain.
In a meeting last week with pilots, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker was asked what the airline is doing better than competitors, in particular Delta and United. And Parker’s immediate response was, “at the moment..?”
Then he offered a discussion which, I think, really points to what Parker sees as the most important thing for an airline: it’s schedule.
Job listings can offer insight into a company’s strategy. For instance decade ago a leaked job listing for someone to drive Delta’s revenue-based changes to SkyMiles gave us a couple of years’ advance notice to the dumpster fire that earn and burn would become in that program. An HR job listing at American Airlines tipped the world to the carrier’s CEO succession planning.
Marriott posted a new job on Monday that could offer insight into the company’s growth strategy.
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.
The CDC says “avoid all travel to Antarctica.” This week the State Department upgraded the region to level 4 – its highest travel warning, usually reserved for places like Yemen. And they didn’t even get their first Covid case until December.
American Airlines is known for being particularly stingy with international business class award space on its own flights. I redeem AAdvantage miles more than any other airline currency, but almost always for flights on their partners.
Right now, though, there are some good opportunities to spend miles for summer business class to Europe – just as several European destinations plan to re-open at least to vaccinated Americans.
With the Department of Justice ramping up its investigation of American’s partnership with JetBlue at the behest of competitors, this ‘Northeastern alliance’ is out today with exciting new routes demonstrating the additional flying that becomes possible through the partnership – and just how much more formidable the competition with Delta and United becomes in the Northeast as a result.
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 »
