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There’s One Day Where American Airlines Premium Cabin Award Space is Completely Wide Open

inside airliner
Feb 12 2017

American Airlines makes virtually no premium cabin award space on their own flights available, except for the occasional brief ‘dumps’ of space that last for hours or a day before reverting to their normal lack of inventory.

It seems especially notable that right now American is offering a highly unusual amount of premium cabin award space at the very end of the schedule.

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Marriott and Starwood Just Announced Hotel Reward Category Changes, Do You Need to Book Your Awards Quickly?

Feb 09 2017

Each year hotels with award redemption categories adjust which hotels are in which categories, and thus how many points they cost to redeem. In most cases the cost in points is related to average room rates, although Marriott’s have been tied to frequency of redemption.

This year Marriott and Starwood both have announced their planned changes at the same time, and coordinated that those changes will go into effect March 7.

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United and American Blindly Copy Delta For All of the Wrong Things

Jan 23 2017

If you ask the top leadership at American what airline they admire most, it’s Delta. Now that former American Airlines President Scott Kirby has taken the President job at United, the same can probably be said for United.

But they misunderstand the lessons of Delta, and blindly copy Delta moves assuming that if Delta does something — since they run the more profitable, better operation — it must be both right and best for their airline.

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Inside the Singapore Airlines Airbus A350 That Just Launched from Houston

Jan 18 2017

Singapore Airlines flew its first Airbus A350 out of Houston last night. Indeed, it was the first A350 in Houston period.

This is the new plane which will become the workhorse of the Singapore Airlines long haul fleet. They’re replacing a large Boeing 777 on the Houston run, and have also changed the city it connects in enroute to Singapore. Houston – Moscow no longer makes sense with low oil prices, so they’re flying Houston – Manchester – Singapore. And with a smaller aircraft they may be able to make the 5 times a week service work.

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Are Two Of My Strongly-Held Travel Beliefs Totally Wrong?

Jan 12 2017

I avoid Cancun. My mental model is spring break and disappointing resorts. You can use it as a jumping off point to explore the Yucatan but I’d rather fly into Merida for that. It’s super close since I live in Texas and Southwest offers daily non-stops for the 2.5 hour flight (United has seasonal weekend non-stops as well) so if only I could find a wonderful escape there…

I avoid all-inclusives. I don’t drink a lot and when I do drink I have strong preferences for what I’m drinking. Do I really want to be locked into staying on property since eating there comes at no marginal cost? Even though each generally has at least one ‘nice’ restaurant the food seems to most often disappoint.

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