Monthly Archives for July 2022.
Airline Facebook pages are among the deepest depths of human despair and basic confusion. They’re worse than YouTube comments. And, sadly, I wound up in an odyssey of Delta pages after seeing the tweet of a woman whose “wedding attire” was “CONFISCATED” by Delta.
It turns out that the same woman had two over-the-top experiences, shouted from the rooftops in an over-the-top manner, in a matter of weeks.
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.
Since MBS owns the planes, at least he doesn’t have to pay extra for checked bags.
I woke up this morning to ConciergeKey status on American Airlines, and several readers did as well. Based on all of these data points it appears to be the result of earning substantial AAdvantage miles from activity other than flying which is new.
If it’s true that JetBlue really faces the choice of grow or die, and this is the only way to grow, then they should be thinking about other ways to deploy their capital. There is nothing written in stone requiring JetBlue to grow in the airline business, or even to maintain their current airline operation. As a company JetBlue should find the most profitable ways to deploy its assets.
JetBlue should consider pivoting away from the airline business if they can’t earn a good rate of return in the airline business. Surely they’d even do better for shareholders by giving the cash used in the Spirit deal to Jack Bogle.
Elon Musk plans to build his own airport in the Austin area.
The Boring Company’s headquarters is a mere three miles from Austin Executive Airport – although last year top executives at the Boring Company acquired 73 acres for a warehouse and manufacturing facility in… Northwest Bastrop where the new airport is believed to be planned.
Air Canada’s new Aeroplan program eliminated fuel surcharges on award travel and introduced a region and distanced-based award chart.
Two years after the new program’s award pricing was announced they’re making several changes, in general reducing the price of partner short-distance awards between different regions of the world while increasing the price of the longest trips in premium cabins. These go into effect September 1.
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.
Etihad Airways has finally become profitable, disclosing $690 million in adjusted earnings and $296 million in operating profit during the first half of 2022 on operating revenue of $2.29 billion. The state-owned carrier did not disclose net profit.
Despite only limited information, it’s still clearly a huge swing for an airline that lost $2 billion in 2016, and $1.5 billion in 2017 pursuing a strategy of buying stakes in nearly every dumpster fire airline they could get their hands on (but still refusing to take a stake in South African Airways, which even for Etihad at the time was a step too far).
Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) are expected to introduce a bill to limit credit card interchange fees. If enacted it would be a huge win for merchants, who love taking credit cards – since it means higher sales volumes at a lower cost than accepting cash – but would prefer not to pay for the privileges.
This is usually couched, by lobbyists for big retailers, as benefiting consumers. However prices haven’t fallen anywhere that interchange has been limited, such as in Europe and Australia. But it would effectively end credit card rewards as we know 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 »
