American Airlines is launching 7 new year-round routes out of Austin and 3 seasonal routes. American is the second largest carrier at the Austin airport, behind Southwest, and historically it has produced some of their highest non-hub yields. With these additions, together with their partners they’ll service 26 destinations from Austin.
With people thinking more about getting out more in the not too distant future, on board card promotion is back in a big way in fact for March and April they’re incentivizing this with additional cash and donations.
What’s perhaps most interesting though is the statistic they’re promoting, that only 14% of passengers on a given flight have an AAdvantage credit card.
American Airlines just boosted the amount they are borrowing against the AAdvantage program to a record-breaking $10 billion.
The blended average rate on this debt is 5.575%, paid by three subsidiaries that now make up AAdvantage based in the Cayman Islands. When the pandemic is over I’m encouraging American to throw a Members Only Party on board several flights to Grand Cayman where we can all visit our miles.
Make no mistake: nursing your nuts is no longer an excuse to go maskless on board an aircraft. Put your mask back on between bits or sips if it’s going to be more than a couple of seconds.
Congress passed the American Rescue Plan which includes $14 billion for commercial airlines, and requires them not to furlough workers through September 30.
Previous bailouts included $50 billion in the CARES Act ($25 billion in payroll support and $25 billion in subsidized loans) plus suspension of the domestic air travel excise tax for 2020 and then an additional $15 billion in December 2020. This brings total commercial airline subsidies to $79 billion, separate from funds for airports, airline contractors, and cargo carriers.
Taking surveys for miles was super lucrative twenty years ago. Now I very often don’t bother. The rewards tend to be much lower, and I’ve wasted too much time on screening questions to even qualify for a survey that don’t pay out at all, only to learn after that effort that I’m not eligible.
Here’s an exception to the rule. There’s a new offer to earn 10,000 Hilton points as a bonus for your first Guest Opinion Rewards survey, increased from just 1250 bonus points.
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American Airlines is refinancing the mortgage it took on its frequent flyer program with the U.S. Treasury by raising $7.5 billion against AAdvantage in private financial markets.
As part of these efforts they had to make a ton of information public about AAdvantage in an SEC 8-K filing. Here are 14 interesting things that they had to share with investors and the SEC.
The 39-year-old woman would remove a piece of clothing and then put it back on, though gradually more and more of her clothes were off. While she wasn’t endangering other passengers by her stripping, she was described as ‘disoriented’ and flight attendants and passengers teamed up to restrain her using a seatbelt, a rope, and tape.
In video taken onboard the flight, the woman is seen tied up in her seat to prevent her from taking off her clothes.
Greece’s tourism minister says the country will welcome travelers from most of the world who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, present a negative test, or antibodies from prior infection.
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 »
