American Airlines
Airlines Rewards programs have a terrible reputation. Horrible. And for so many reasons. Fuel surcharges, availability, restrictions of fare class (like on upgrades), lack of complimentary upgrades, etc...
And AA puts all those crappy programs to shame. Really, I mean they have the best top tier status but it's more than that - it's a solid and honest program. I'm not saying that AA miles are always the best currency, but if one had to be loyal to an airline, AA would be a no brainer.
Read moreIn regards to compensation, weather delays are not seen as the airline's fault... because they don't control the weather. So you may not be compensated but you may want to know how to handle rebookings. Right now I'm still in Dallas (instead of Puerto Vallarta) because of the weather, so it seems like a timely sharing.
If a flight is canceled for whatever reason, they will try to get you in on the next available flight. They are really good about this. People are worried that they are on stand-by but it's not just stand-by.
Read moreWell, I guess there are two things I like about AA's stopover rules but in terms of routing I only like one. The non-routing perk is that you can have stopovers on one way awards. This essentially gives you two stopover awards. However, they are strict in that they only allow stopovers in the North American gateway city. No international stopovers. With United you can book stopovers in seemingly any location on the way to any location. It's awesome. But AA has a stopover in the AA gateway city.
Despite their strict routing rules, the only thing that makes AA...
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Yesterday's post, Mileage Running 101 – The art of flying for free travel, raised a question about finding the "fare basis code". If you plan to earn United Airlines miles by flying on a partner airline, you should probably check United's policy on accruing miles by flying partner airlines. The airlines classify each fare with a code (in this case we're talking about just 1 letter) that represent the rules along with that ticket - this is the fare basis code. The codes determines all kinds of rules like cancellation policies. But the only one you need to...