Tag Archives for upgrades.
Since US Airways took over revenue management at American Airlines, the carrier has been incredibly tightfisted with both business class saver award inventory and confirmed upgrade space to business as well. When inventory has popped up it’s been for only a brief period of time.
Right now is one of those times, at least for travel between the U.S. and Europe over winter.
Many Marriott Platinums see their suite night awards expire unused. Nonetheless, when they work they’re great.
Marriott has made two changes to Suite Night Awards, each reflecting problems with Marriott’s own internal systems that they’ve been unable to solve.
American Airlines has added a second daily Dallas Fort-Worth – Rome flight for a limited summer season, July 2nd through August 17. That’s a peak of peak travel period.
While the pre-existing daily flights, AA239 and AA240, appear to rarely if every offer award or upgrade space (as we have come to expect from American Airlines), this new flight appears to have upgrade but no award space open every single day and indeed open with enough seats for the whole family.
United shared this morning that they’re revamping their confirmed regional and global upgrade certificates that Platinum elites and higher are able to take advantage of effective December 4. They’re introducing a new upgrade points system to replace certificates called PlusPoints, and existing banked certificates will convert to PlusPoints at that time.
I received a briefing on the changes from Luc Bondar, United’s Vice President of Loyalty who is in charge of MileagePlus. Here’s how upgrades are changing.
This week a video went viral of a Delta passenger living his dream as the only on on board his Delta flight from Aspen to Salt Lake City. Even on that 292 mile regional jet hop it’s a cool experience.
Seeing it described in a variety of media as being ‘like a private jet experience’ though reminded me that four years ago Delta announced elite upgrade opportunities to private jets. What ever happened to Delta’s private jet upgrade program?
Earlier this year I wrote about how it often looks like gate agents process upgrades incorrectly, but there are perfectly innocent explanations that customers usually don’t see.
At the same time, things sometimes do appear to be done wrong.
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 »
