Upgrade Strategy, Maybe Your Profession And Reputation Really Do Help? [Roundup]

by Gary Leff

News and notes from around the interweb:

  • Dressing nice and saying it’s your honeymoon may not help with a flight upgrade, but being a popular pastor might help jump the upgrade queue?

    A pastor was recognized by an American Airlines check-in agent in Indianapolis and, in his own words, immediately upgraded to first class. A delay throws into question whether the agent found a way to twist protocol to upgrade them or broke policy to do it. In any case, you might want to ask Ms. Jackson for an upgrade if you ever find yourself flying AA out of IND.

  • Centipede bite in bed in Hawaii turns dangerous (HT: H.G.)

  • Denver’s security lines have been a mess for a decade, and there is no accountability.

  • Remember early in Covid when they used to clean the planes?

  • They call it Filthadelphia.

  • Southwest means Swift.

  • It’s only ‘ExpressJet’ in terms of the operating certificate. Different owners, different employees, different business model. It’s regulatory arbitrage – the barriers to starting an airline are huge, so airlines rarely die – they sell the paperwork that authorizes them to be an airline in bankruptcy.

About Gary Leff

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 »

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Comments

  2. I’ve been flying to PHL since 1993 and it’s always been a pit. It’s not AA’s fault, the old B/C/D and E concourse and baggage areas are all gross, event he food courts are disgusting. It’s one reason I got an Admiral’s club membership.

  3. Guy goes through all that turmoil and STILL doesn’t know that centipedes DON’T bite.

  5. The pastor story reminds me of when I took Southwest and the gate attendant let Billy Beane (of Moneyball fame) pre-board. When I asked him why he was allowed to board with the disabled passengers when he obviously doesn’t have a handicap, the agent told me, “Handicap? You try and put a baseball team together for $20M – that’s a handicap!”.

    I just laughed.

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