Delta Playing Hardball With Online Booking Sites, About to Get Boost from the Government

May 21 2015

Delta has been pulling its fares off of some websites.

I don’t worry so much from a consumer standpoint, the average consumer searches about 10 sites when booking a trip. This is about tug-o-war over data, how ancillary services will be sold in the future, and distribution costs. In other words, a business-to-business scuffle.

But the Department of Transportation is considering rules that would require a website to highlight airlines that are not shown in their searches. ..which will tip the scales to Delta in moves like this.

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American’s President Can’t Wait to Make Changes to the AAdvantage Program and to Copy Some Competitors

May 20 2015

At the Wolfe Research Global Transportation Conference, American Airlines President Scott Kirby shared the things he’s looking forward to once integration is complete. There are lots of projects that have been put off given the single-minded focus on combining American Airlines and US Airways.

Among those, “we would have loved to make some modifications to the frequent flyer program” and he talked about more ancillary revenue and ‘shamelessly copying’ come of their competitors…

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My Deeply Troubling Miles and Points Dreams

May 20 2015

Last night I dreamt I was in the American Airlines Admirals Club in Los Angeles (although the woman sitting at the desk was one of the gems from the Washington National club.

I watched as a passenger had the agent there run her credit card to fund a bank account. I was a little bit excited for a moment, thinking you could charge bank deposits at American Airlines lounges when I woke up.

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If You Fly United, Soon There May Be No Way Out

May 20 2015

Under United’s new mileage-earning program, miles are earned based on the price of the ticket not the distance you fly. And they seem to be stamping out, one by one, the places you can go to still earn full mileage — United airline partners, one by one, are reducing the miles earned on United discount fares. This is no accident. When will there be no options left?

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Review: Emirates Colombo Airport Lounge and First Class, Colombo – Dubai

May 19 2015

Now it was really time to head home from my Maldives trip, having had my fill of Sri Lankan food for the day. We checked out of the Hilton and made what was nearly an hour’s drive in traffic to the Colombo airport.

Once there, though, things moved quickly. I had boarding passes from the day before, picked up in Male for both Colombo – Dubai and Dubai – Dallas. And there was pretty much no wait at all for immigration formalities or security to head to the Emirates lounge while waiting to fly Emirates first class to Dubai…

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