Tag Archives for american.
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.
American’s stock hit new lows yesterday in advance of today’s earnings call. That left the airline in a tough position, needing to explain how they’d cut costs which are rising at a faster rate than revenues.
I listen to the earnings call with a different perspective than most people covering them. I’m interested in news about the loyalty program, about the product, and about how changes to the business are likely to impact the way customers interact with the airline — as well as what we can expect from the overall direction in the industry.
As a result some of the six things that stuck out for me are likely to be different than key takeaways elsewhere, and are things you may otherwise miss.
This week we learned that American Airlines is gutting the ability to earn elite qualifying dollars from credit card spend for next year.
Barclays representatives are saying that they are unable to upgrade customers from Red to Silver at this time and that this is a requirement of American Airlines because of a loophole created by this change.
Basic economy is an attempt by the major airlines to raise revenue by offering a worse product.
The notion here is that the cheapest fares get called basic economy, and you have to spend more to avoid those restrictions. It’s a price increase that applies to customers that are willing to pay more to avoid the least comfortable travel an airline offers.
American AAdvantage has an uncompetitive million miler program, recognizing lifetime loyalty, and they’ve made it worse over the past few years. There are two higher elite levels than there used to be, and lifetime elites are now at the bottom of the upgrade list. That’s easy to fix.
Two years ago American and Barclays introduced card spend as a way to earn credit towards American’s new ticket spend requirement for elite status. That will change substantially for most customers in 2019, and for some in 2020.
American Airlines is dropping both their Chicago – Beijing and Chicago – Shanghai flights and shifting Chicago – Tokyo flying to joint venture partner Japan Airlines. Hawaiian Airlines is giving up on Honolulu – Beijing as well.
American would like to keep their route authority from Chicago to China even while not using it. They’ve made some rather incredible claims to the Department of Transportation in support of that request.
When Scott Kirby departed American Airlines as its President he walked away with $13 million and lifetime travel privileges. He immediately became United’s President.
Kirby probably thought the role would be even bigger. And it may still happen in 2020.
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.
For more than six years I’ve been saying that inflight internet will eventually be free. Since I started making that prediction JetBlue introduced free inflight internet, Aer Lingus has announced usage-capped free wifi, and Delta’s CEO has started saying it’s going to happen.
American Airlines isn’t going to lead the industry to deliver this. Their model “will be charging for wifi.” However they could get dragged into offering free wifi if major competitors do it.
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 »
