As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, Asiana Airlines flight 214 from Seoul to San Francisco had a major accident upon landing today. First, please know that my healing thoughts go out to all of those affected. I happened to be on my laptop scrolling through my Twitter client shortly after it occurred, and believe that…
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Rumor: Did American Airlines Leak Its New Elite Status Requirements?
The “big” news this week so far has been United’s addition of a revenue requirement to achieve or maintain elite status beginning in 2014. I wrote a quick summary of the new policy in this post, and I followed it up with my thoughts on why I think it’s only the beginning of revenue-based changes.…
United’s Revenue Model for Elite Status Is Only the Beginning
Earlier today, I quickly posted the news that United Airlines will introduce a new Premier Qualifying Dollar (PQD) revenue requirement in 2014 to maintain or achieve elite status, in addition to the normal mileage requisites. It didn’t come as a shock to me and I promised to share more of my thoughts about the change.…
Is It Really That Hard to Redeem Frequent Flier Miles?
A couple of articles caught my attention this week about the difficulty some travelers have redeeming frequent flier miles. The first is from the Daily Mail, and setting my opinion of the publication itself aside, I read through the article. About 1,000 British fliers were surveyed and asked about their participation in an airline’s frequent…
No More Airport Nude-o-Scope Images in the US, Are You Still Opting Out?
The TSA has replaced all X-ray imaging displayed to operators of the controversial backscatter machines at airports with the “Gumby” stick figure version common on the millimeter wave machines, NBC News reported. According to the report: In a letter released Thursday, TSA administrator John Pistole told the House Homeland Security committee that as of May…
Is American’s New Boarding Process Destined for Failure?
I’m catching up with last week’s notable airline news items and American’s new boarding process, tested earlier this year, is a hot topic. Basically, American Airlines is now allowing those passengers without carry-ons requiring overhead bin space to board ahead of Group 2. The test of this new process, rolled out systemwide last Thursday, was…
How to Get Your Airline Friends and Family Fired
You may have seen in the news during the past few days a story about two US Airways first class passengers who were told to change clothes before being allowed to board. They were traveling from Denver to Los Angeles via Phoenix and were allegedly wearing jeans, hoodies and baseball caps. A “no go” according…
Yes! United Stepping Up Its Twitter Participation – Keep It Up!
I’ve previously harped on United Airlines for its less-than active, engaging participation on Twitter. But I’ve seen significant improvement lately, particularly since the beginning of the year. United has stepped up its game in replying, helping and informing those who directly include @united in their tweets. And it’s a welcome sign. Today, for the first…
Are Airline Change Fees and Cancellation Penalties Fair?
I absolutely hate cancelling a non-refundable airline reservation. It feels like a kick in the gut, especially on “cheap” domestic airfares where the fee to reuse the ticket – $150 on most airlines – ends up eating away a significant portion of the overall ticket value. Last week, I was unable to travel and had…
Onboard Photos: Are They Really THAT Big of a Deal?
If you haven’t already read about fellow blogger Matthew getting kicked off a United Airlines flight, I encourage you to do so. The short version of his story is that he took a picture of his BusinessFirst seating area (the IFE monitor), a flight attendant advised he couldn’t take any pictures of the cabin and…