United will stop offering change flexibility to passengers booked on the Boeing 737 MAX on April 7 less than two months after the carrier returned the plane to service.
Proposals are popular – almost de rigueur – on airplanes. And weddings are popular in Las Vegas, Elvis lookalike as the officiant or not. But how often do you see a wedding on the flight, taking place while leaving Las Vegas?
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.
In December Alaska Airlines introduced The Safety Dance, taking the Men Without Hats’ classic and applying it to air travel during the Covid-19 pandemic.
To celebrate joining the global oneworld alliance today, Alaska Airlines has released a new version of their Safety Dance featuring cameos by employees and executives from oneworld partner airlines. It may just be the best thing that happened in March.
Alaska Airlines joined the oneworld alliance today. You still can’t use Alaska Airlines frequent flyer miles for travel on oneworld carriers that weren’t already the airline’s partners before this move. But the big news of the day, I think, is the announcement of reciprocal elite upgrade benefits between Alaska Airlines and American Airlines.
Delta is offering at least a 50% elite qualifying bonus on all travel for the rest of 2021, and a 75% bonus for premium cabin travel, under the banner of Medallion Accelerator. For the first time at Delta award travel will count towards earning elite status from April 1 through December 31, 2021 as well.
Delta Air Lines told employees they helped write Georgia’s new voting law. They dug in deeper defending their position that they ‘made the bill better’ and refused to criticize it.
Facing online and media controversy, and a supposed-consumer boycott, they’ve now reversed course. After first congratulating themselves on it, and then refusing to criticize it, CEO Ed Bastian now says it’s abhorrent.
Thailand’s cabinet formally approved re-opening and you can now plan to visit parts of the country if you’ve been vaccinated in just a matter of months.
Two new American Airlines projects at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, put on hold during the pandemic, are getting the green light: $100 million apiece for a new flight kitchen and parts warehouse. The current kitchen is too small, and blamed for 2300 flight delays in 2019.
Most striking about the story is that the airport says American is borrowing on its balance sheet because of the airline’s high cost to add additional debt on its own.
Air Canada Aeroplan has just announced all elite status is being extended through the end of 2022, while still doing a good job of rewarding and incentivizing travel this year. They’re also pausing mileage expiration through January 2022.
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 »
