Hyatt Partnership Changes Free American Airlines Elites From Loyalty — Opening The Door To Flexible Travel

by Gary Leff

Nov 03 2024

I suspect that it will make sense for some Hyatt and American elite members to focus just on earning Hyatt status, transfer some Chase points to Hyatt and redeem for AAdvantage status for each trip you wind up making on American – and just travel on whichever airline makes sense on a given trip.

If you’d just be an occasional American traveler this may make more sense than striving for AAdvantage status – especially if you’re doing it now with spending on an AAdvantage credit card. Earn more and more valuable points (like Chase points) spending on a different card instead, and redeeming ad hoc whenever you need the status.

Continue Reading »

Featured Articles

American Airlines Consumes 1% Of Global Fuel—New Tech And Flight Tactics Aim To Change Climate Impact

by Gary Leff

Nov 03 2024

Airlines around the world are under a lot of pressure over their climate impact. This is most intense in Europe, where governments are seeking to curtail flights – limiting airport operations, and even banning flying short distances.

There’s a concerted effort among airlines globally to set climate goals in order to forestall greater regulation. And, in so doing, there’s a push for subsidies instead of regulation.

Continue Reading »

New American Airlines Bag Check Shortcut: Print Tags Faster, Spend Less Time Waiting In Line

by Gary Leff

Nov 02 2024

If I’m checking a bag, I rarely bother checking in online in advance. It just doesn’t save any time. Airline processes are just too cumbersome. There are some airlines in the world that have a ‘just drop the bag and go’ process, but most do not. It really shouldn’t be that hard.

American Airlines has finally made a simple improvement to their bag check process that’s actually a nice time-saver. When you check in online, and opt during that check-in process to check bags, customers can walk up to a kiosk and go right to ‘print bag tags’ rather than walking through a repeat of all of the steps.

Continue Reading »

American And JetBlue Want To Revive Their New York Power Play—But Will Washington Keep Blocking Their Alliance?

by Gary Leff

Nov 02 2024

The end of the partnership has been bad for customers, and bad for American and JetBlue which are in a tough spot trying to compete against Delta and United in New York. Neither one can grow there, and both are too small on their own to really matter.

There’s a chance that they could try to re-start the partnership that was dismantled last year. Both carriers say that they want this.

Continue Reading »