On June 30th American Airlines will revise its boarding groups to make two changes. The two top elite levels in the AAdvantage program will be able to board earlier.
Back in December American Airlines announced that their Platinum Pro members would become oneworld emeralds. That will go into effect June 30. There are a couple of wrinkles to know about.
United Airlines was the first to really get the seriousness of the pandemic and scale down its operations accordingly. They furloughed almost as many workers as American Airlines did, and cut deeply into management ranks. They’re also though symbolically coming out of pandemic serving alcohol on more flights than competitors and first class meals too.
Some of the tactics they employed to get through the pandemic were downright despicable, such as illegally withholding refunds from customers and devaluing MileagePlus awards when no one was looking. We’ll see what they announce tomorrow about how they plan to make up for these betrayals.
A month ago Hilton announced that for the second half of 2021, a food and beverage credit would replace breakfast as an elite benefit at U.S. properties. They’ve now shared all of the details about how this will work.
Two Florida Congressmen – Bill Posey (R-FL) and Charlie Crist (D-FL) – have proposed legislation that would prevent the federal government from negotiating lower rates on lodging than what they paid based on 2019 rates. They want to make sure the government pays more than it has to for travel.
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.
Keeping the U.S. – Canada border closed makes no sense. Infection rates and vaccination rates are roughly similar on both sides of the border. There are variants spreading already on both sides of the border, besides the restrictions weren’t tight enough to stop those anyway. The border has remained closed out of a desire to signal that the government is doing something (fear of foreigners plays in here) and bureaucratic inertia (status quo bias prevails when no one wants to be responsible for a mistake, outbreak or case cluster).
There’s finally some hope on the horizon.
My award booking partner Steve Belkin has a new book out, Mileage Maniac, which any frequent flyer or mileage junkie will get real enjoyment from.
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.
Masks have been highly controversial and some of their biggest flash points have taken place on planes, from passengers getting ejected over not wearing them to the continued U.S. federal mask mandate for transportation when mask requirements are lifted in most other situations.
Perhaps the best mask study to date shows that just telling people they had to wear masks was a mistake. The policy focus should have been on supplying better masks and teaching people how to wear them effectively.
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 »
