Tag Archives: American Airlines

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Planes, Trains, and More Planes, 2017 Edition: Asia for the Holidays

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Buenos dias everyone,

Like last year, I just left Mexico City for a long international trip over the holidays – this time to Asia instead of Europe. This time the trip wasn’t built around a mistake fare, but rather a desire to visit the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Chengdu Panda Base, both in western China.

I started planning the trip in mid-September, and found that Asiana Airlines had pretty good business class availability across the Pacific for the dates we were looking at. I tacked on United economy flights between Mexico City and LAX (though this resulted in an overnight layover in each direction, since United only has one flight per day between those two cities), and added a domestic Air China economy flight from Shanghai to Chengdu after a one-week stopover.

A world map centered over the Pacific Ocean showing the following flight routing in red: MEX-LAX-ICN-PVG, SHA-CTU

Map generated by gcmap.com

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View Legroom on Google Flights by Adding Legrooms Extension

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  I was in freezing Chicago over the weekend for the FTU Travel Expo / Signature travel conference.  I arrived late Saturday afternoon because I took a $500 bump from United Airlines, stayed the night at an SFO airport hotel and got on a Saturday morning flight to Chicago.  When I finally arrived, I picked up a few travel tips from the sessions and one on one conversations.  I will try to cover some of the public travel tips I learned this week.  Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.

Question… wouldn’t it be cool if you could see legroom for different flights on different airlines in Google Flights?  Yes, it is possible.  All you need to do is install the Legrooms extension to your Google Chrome browser.  I will walk you through all the steps the 1 step.  Also, while researching this post, I realized this was covered months ago by several travel blogs, but somehow I missed all those blog posts, so maybe this helps a few people like me.  Here is the basic Google Flights view:

a screenshot of a flight information

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My 2017 American Airlines AAdvantage Status Challenge

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Hi everyone.  This is just a short post to share my American Airlines AAdvantage Status Challenge with you.  I’ve gone from Platinum in 2015, to Gold in 2016 to nada this year.  I purposefully fell short of re-qualifying for Gold this year in hopes of doing this status challenge and now I’m $86 Elite Qualifying Dollars (EQDs) short of completing it thanks to just 1 flight purchased with my Citi Thank You Points.

This status challenge was not targeted.  I just called AAdvantage and asked them for a challenge so they offered me 2 different challenges, 1 for Gold and 1 for Platinum, each with the option to pay extra to have the status during the challenge.  Below is the breakdown of the 4 options that I had to choose from followed by my reasoning for the option that I chose.

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American Airlines Business Extra: Don’t Forget to Double Dip on your AA Flights

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Do you know that American Airlines has another mileage earning program besides its Advantage Mileage Program? So, yes, you earn miles in both programs. I joined it years ago, but I’ll admit to not utilizing the program and its bonuses very well or very often. In my effort to not leave miles/points on the table, I’m paying more attention to programs like these, and so should you. The program is called Business Extra. It allows businesses and “businesses” to earn extra miles for their employees and “employees” flights. It’s American Airlines way of rewarding small businesses. These Business Extra miles are earned in a separate mileage program. You earn points based on dollars spent on eligible flights, so your stash won’t grow as fast as your Advantage Program miles will, but it still makes sense to double dip when you can. You can still credit the flights on American Airlines to any partner airline you’d like, but as long as your Business Extra number is on your ticket, you’ll earn Business Extra points too.

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Will you be at Aviation Geek Fest in Seattle this Weekend?

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Buenos dias everyone, I’d love to know if any of our readers are going to be at Aviation Geek Fest this weekend! This unique event is hosted by the Institute of Flight (best known for the Future of Flight Aviation Center and Boeing Tour) with support from Airline Reporter, and is billed as “the most important event for commercial aviation fans from around world.”

The author (wearing a hoodie with yellow, orange, red, and grey stripes) standing in front of an airplane tail. The tail is orange with a grey numeral 8 in the background and the numbers 747 in white in the foreground.

Tonei standing in front of a Boeing 747-8i tail at Aviation Geek Fest 2016

Some highlights of this year’s schedule include:

  • A Friday night social on the Strato Deck at the Future of Flight Aviation Center, overlooking the Paine Field flight line
  • VIP tours of Boeing’s Everett and Renton aircraft facilities, as well as one of several aerospace engineering companies (I’m going to be visiting Esterline)
  • Opportunities to explore the Future of Flight Aviation Center and the Museum of Flight
  • Box lunch aboard a vintage American Airlines 727

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