View from the Wing Archives.
With kids, bags and no desire to trek through Austin airport’s parking garage to the Uber lot, I booked a chauffeur to meet us at baggage claim. Stacking GHA Discovery’s Blacklane benefit with Citi’s credit brought my out-of-pocket cost to $0.
American Airlines AAdvantage has become much more than a frequent flyer program. These 35 rules cover qualification-year timing, Loyalty Point Rewards, cobrand card tricks, lounge access, SimplyMiles, hotel plays, upgrades, free award cancellations, partner award routing rules, and the sweet spots still worth chasing.
A Delta flight from St. Thomas to New York saw a pre-takeoff argument that ended with everyone involved kicked off the plane. Also: GHA Discovery offers paid elite status through 2027, Southwest blows up its succession plan, Alaska opens its new Portland lounge while cutting basic economy mileage earning,
Hyatt has now announced which hotels are changing award categories next month, at the same time its new award chart devaluation takes effect, and the combined impact is worse than most members realize. The category list alone looks bad, but the real damage shows up when you run the numbers and see how many supposed price drops barely lower the points cost at all.
Air France canceled a valid last-minute business class ticket after issuing it and charging the card, then told the customer he had 24 hours to call if he wanted to keep the itinerary. He called within hours, did exactly what the airline instructed, and was still told the only way to travel was to buy the same trip again for $1,800 more. Air France doesn’t dispute this, but says they won’t do anything to make it right.
Air Peace says it will restart once-monthly Boeing 777 flights from Lagos to Antigua and Barbados starting May 24 — a schedule that doesn’t work for vacations, business trips, or even roundtrips. And when a veteran airline executive pointed that out, the carrier responded with legal threats.
Delta’s widebody buying spree didn’t end with its recent Boeing 787-10 order. The airline has now signed for 16 Airbus A330-900s and 15 Airbus A350-900s (with options for more), with deliveries beginning in 2029—giving Delta earlier lift than the 787s and adding longer-range capability for future international growth.
Delta’s new order for 30 Boeing 787-10s (with options for 30 more) doesn’t actually solve its near-term widebody replacement gap, since deliveries don’t start until 2031. Now an insider who correctly flagged the 787 deal months in advance says Delta isn’t done shopping—and the strongest bet is a sizable Airbus order next, most likely A330-900neos, with a case for additional A350-900s as well.
A Marriott hotel got so tired of elite guests demanding free bottled water that it put up a blunt sign: you are not entitled to it. And while the message is rude, it is also basically correct—pointing to what’s wrong with how Bonvoy works.
I’ve already reported that Delta plans to announce service to Singapore and Manila. They’re also planning to launch New York JFK and Los Angeles to Seoul, which leverages their joint venture with Korean Air and Korean’s Seoul-Incheon hub for onward connections in Asia.
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 »
