AA

American to update AA54 and AA 55 ORD-MAN with 787

DaninMCI Travel , , , , , ,

I have an award trip booked from Kansas City to Vienna via ORD, MAN, LHR on AA for late Summer. I was excited to finally find 3 award seats in business on these flights but wasn’t super excited about the old 767-300 metal. Then this morning I got a tweet from @airlineroute showing that American is revising the operating aircraft from June through October to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I’m excited to finally fly the new Dreamliner. I think this is a good fit on this route.

 

I just hope they can use that 767 to make another route better over the summer. How about Hawaii AA, come on.

http://airlineroute.net/2016/01/31/aa-man-jun16/

 

airlineroute on Twitter American Airlines Adds Boeing 787 Manchester Service June Oct 2016 ✈ https t.co d9j8NWGHPP

Find your BA record locator from AA without calling

DaninMCI Travel , , , , , ,

If you booked the BA flight with AA (which happens on award or TATL flights even when trying to avoid YQ) you will want to try and select your seats on the BA flight segments but most of the time the AA website won’t let you do that part. Some times on codeshares, Operated by British Airways, all you need to do is add your British Airways Executive Club number to the booking. After a few minutes, log into your BAEC account, and look at your upcoming bookings. You’ll find in there your BA booking reference for the BA legs, and will be able to select your seat, see avios to be earned etc.

if you booked the BA flight under the BA flight number, eg British Airways flight BA 345, then for some reason your BAEC details won’t get passed over. What you need to do is, bizarrely, go to the Qantas “Manage My Booking” page, and enter your American Airlines reference. Scroll down to the Seats section of the page, and you’ll see something like:

Seat selection is only available for flights operated by Qantas. To select seats and manage your booking, visit British Airways site with your booking reference #12ABCD

Then take that booking reference shown there, go to the BA website, use that with Manage My Booking, then enter your BAEC details + pick seats + see avios details + etc

The advantage (pardon the pun) is that you don’t have to call AA to get your BA record locator. Normally this isn’t a big deal. I researched this because I’ve tried to set aside time to call AA for the last couple weeks only to find myself ready to call on a bad IROPs days or Christmas eve which didn’t seem like a good idea.

Here are a few screen shots.

Manage your Qantas booking Change flights Check in Select seats

Enter your AA record locator and last name

Booking Details

Then scroll down to seat selection and you should see the above. I wouldn’t worry about the AA flights that show “Not Selected” if you know you did this with AA already. Your just accessing this page to get the “booking reference”# shown above so you can go plug that into the BA website.

 

 

Why can’t AA put better aircraft on Hawaii routes?

DaninMCI miles, Travel , , , , , , ,

So your a run of the mill road warrior business traveler and maybe have a credit card that earns miles on American Airlines (AA). You work hard traveling to sales meetings in places like Moline Illinois, Cleveland Ohio and Fresno California. You stay at crappy low level Hilton or Marriott motels just so you can dream of the free hotel rooms and award flights to Hawaii that you’ll take your loving spouse to. It will make up for all the nights on the road.  Heck you even fly so much you’ve earned elite status on (insert name here but we’ll use AA as the example). You get a few upgrades to “First” class if you want to call the first 3 rows on an old A319 “First” but heck it beats the cattle car in the back.

Finally after years of saving miles and hotel points you book that dream trip to Hawaii just so you won’t have to go to that Northern Wisconsin widget convention in January. Your so excited as you book that trip online from your hotel room in Tulsa. You can’t wait to tell your wife about the plan to bask on the beach in Hawaii in January. Then it dawns on you. What type of aircraft fly that Phoenix to Honolulu route anyway?  Yes the good old 757-200 first made in 1983.  Sure the seats are a little old looking but hey don’t worry about spilling that mia-tia as they are water resistant now from all the human skin oil that has soaked into them. Gross I know.

So you tough out that long day flight in the 1980’s recliner and get to Hawaii. Your on the beach with a million other pale white victims. You enjoy your short vacation only to board that overnight flight back and find that the old “First Class” seats don’t lay flat, there is sad food choices and not much entertainment on board. WiFi you ask, what’s that?

My points with all this is that American as well as many other carriers needs to up the aircraft choices on the Hawaii routes. They seem to figure that since many of the passengers are croc, yoga pants and ed hardy PJ wearing clods and wouldn’t know “First Class” if it hit them over the head so why not put the new aircraft on these “tourist” routes. Besides they are closer to the boneyard in Arizona when they limp home on that last flight. The problem with this plan is that many folks like you frequent flyers know better. It’s a good 6 hour flight about equal to flying to Europe. Let’s pick it up a notch.

This:

Current-AA-767-200-First-Product

Or this?

777-gallery15

35% of American Airlines AA Miles Through May 11th

DaninMCI miles, Travel , , , , ,

Flash sale on AA miles through May 11th. Not worth it to buy on speculation but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick OR if you need a top off so you can book an award flight.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/buy-gift-share.jsp

American Airlines

My quickie airline miles earnings so far today

DaninMCI miles, shopping, Travel , , , , , ,

I typically read Boardingarea blogs everyday for tips on earning airline miles and to learn more about being a smart traveler. Well OK to feed my addiction.

So I’m busy today and had a couple minutes so I clicked over to Boardingarea and saw one of my favorite bloggers Mommypoints who had a post about an American AA shopping portal bonus where you can earn up to 2,250 bonus miles through shopping.

Special Promotion Shop Online at AAdvantage eShopping mall

Not typically that great but if you have stuff you need to buy anyway it can be good. So what did I buy today in less than 5 minutes:

How about dog food. I have several dogs that eat Blue Buffalo Senior food (which is very good and better than most of the RX types even). So it cost be about $33 to $35 a bag plus a 12+ mile each way drive to get it. I clicked on Petco as they had the best price:

Search Shop Online at AAdvantage eShopping mall

So for 4x per $ I bought about $135 worth or 4 bags. I had to pay sales tax but got free shipping. I figured I saved time and gas money. I’ve ordered dog food online many times so it’s just easy.  So $135 x 4 miles x 1 mile for credit card = 275 AA miles plus 250 mile bonus = 525 miles approx.

I was getting ready to log off when I remembered that I needed to still do my taxes (I’m way behind this year). So I click on H&R block software that I use each year and really like.

All Online Offers Shop Online at AAdvantage eShopping mall

So for 12x per $1 I bought the $45 version I use so figure $45 x 12 x 1 for card = 585 AA miles plus I’m on my way to the next promo level of $300 so that will eventually add another 750 miles to the 250 I got already.

5 minutes = 1,110 miles added to my AA account. Next trip……

Why MCI (KCI) isn’t my favorite airport

DaninMCI Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

I recently moved back to my home town Kansas City. I grew up in the area. My family is from here so that is sweet. We had been living in St. Louis for the past 16 years so I got used to STL and saw that airport move from TWA to AA and then de-hubbed which is sad.

My memories of MCI (or known locally as KCI) are of the many trips that I or family members took. I remember my Dad filling out an old paper Mutual of Omaha travel insurance application at the airport as my Sister flew off to Europe in High School. I remember picking up my Sister and her Husband at Midnight one New Year’s Eve maybe 20 year ago there. I mostly remember how open the airport was. It was designed to be a TWA hub airport where you could drop off at the door and be just steps away from the gates. Great idea (at the time). Unfortunately 9-11 happened and now the small gates aren’t so open anymore. They have added security checkpoints and you can’t just walk in and out of the gate areas down the long hallways. They took out the AA lounge and many other features.

I will still love “KCI” but it’s a pain now. The gates are jammed packed:

2014-08-03 08.54.01

There’s not enough seating, the restrooms are tiny and it’s just no fun. Like this photo above where you can see into the bar through the big windows but you can’t actually go into the bar. Everyone looks so happy.

Arrival isn’t much better. Although the planes unload the luggage near the gates into the TINY luggage carousels it always seems to take forever. To make it worse they always seem to want to load multiple planes onto the same carousel like most other airports do.

It’s not all bad though and you get used to any airport I guess.  Besides now we have Spirit Airlines ! Which ain’t half bad for a short haul domestic airline with a 35 pound bag limit on checked luggage !

I’m sure Kansas City will spend a ton of money to remodel it one day. I can only hope they would rebuild it further South since it’s so far North out of the city.

2014-10-08 11.12.51

Another little known triva fact about KCI is that it’s near where a famous Bonnie & Clyde shootout took place at the Red Crown Tavern and Tourist Cabins back in the day.

http://www.emissourian.com/news/state/article_94853afa-b316-11e0-ac3e-001cc4c002e0.html

Which reminds me of the Brantley Gilbert video

Earn Airline Miles for Booking Hotel Rooms for Others !

DaninMCI Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

rocket miles logo

I’ve know about Rocketmiles for a long time and have been a user since May of 2013. It’s a fairly simple way to earn extra airline miles on hotel stays and you get at least a 1,000 miles for your first stay if you signup though this link.

Rocketmiles can be earned in various programs including:

Rocketmiles Book Hotels Earn Thousands of Frequent Flyer Miles

What I didn’t know until today is that you can earn miles for booking hotel rooms for others. Just log into your account or join, book the room, and enter the actual guest’s name who will be checking in as “primary guest”. If you are booking for a company, you can contact Rocketmiles and ask to be put in touch with a “Corporate Account Manager” who can explain how to fully take advantage of Rocketmiles for your business (or your own personal account if your a person that books hotels for others, are you listing personal assistants of the world?).

Not bad. Oh and if you don’t belong to Rocketmiles already I would appreciate you signing up through one of my links as I do get some referral miles after your first stay booked through them. Thanks.

Now you can link your AA American Advantage account to your US Airways Dividend Miles account.

DaninMCI Travel , , , , , , , ,

Another step toward combining the loyalty frequent flyer situation at the new American Airlines. You can now link your US and AA accounts. The miles won’t combine yet but should in the 2nd quarter 2015. It might not hurt to go ahead and do this.

When you log into your AA or US accounts you will get a pop up like this one (AA):

My Account Flight Information

Or this one (US):

us air combine acct on acct page

Once you enter your other account number you should either get a confirmation popup:

aadvantage combine acct confirm popup

Or if they couldn’t match them you will get:

aadvantage didnt match popup

If you had trouble and they didn’t match log into each account and check that all your names, phone number and date of birth, etc. all match. My wife’s account failed because she had only her middle initial on US Air but had her whole middle name on American. Once I fixed it it went through fine.

If you click past the popup or want to do it later you will find a link in your account page. Here is the AA example:

aadvantage combine option on myaccount page

What does all this mean right now? Not much yet but I still think it’s too your advantage (pardon the pun) to go ahead and link them. I think this may hold more true for elites in either program but that is just guessing on my part. As they go through the IT process of combining the programs it will eventually combine your miles and accounts together at some point in the 2nd quarter. Speculation is that it will happen early 2nd quarter but we will see.