American Archives - Your Mileage May Vary

Why We Stay Loyal To Airline Brands (And Why We Sometimes Shouldn’t)

Why do we stay loyal to airline brands? I guess that depends on how you define loyalty. For points and miles people, their first reaction may be to think about loyalty programs. Now, I’ve argued that these programs aren’t really about loyalty anymore and more about incentivizing you to change your current habits.

I’m not talking about this type of loyalty. I’m simply asking why do we to stick with a particular company. I’d bet that you have a go-to airline that, all other things being equal, you’ll book first. Now, if that’s because you’re a part of the loyalty program and need to keep your status, maybe it’s time to hop off that hamster wheel.

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Airline Commercials & Jingles: Memories & Nostalgia Of Air Travel From Our Past

As our television viewing habits have changed over the decades, so have the commercials we’ve watched. As jingles have given way to CGI and kids who always have a comeback, we no longer get to hear “Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?” or “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid…” Well, except on YouTube.

How many of these airlines commercials do you remember?

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Craziest Resort Fee Ever, Mandatory Travel Health Insurance?, Delta Has Sense Of Humor, TWA Hotel Trouble, & More!

Happy Sunday to all of our travel friends, both near and far! Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, as well, so we’re passing them along.

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Maybe American Airlines Isn’t As Bad As I Thought (Hmm…On Second Thought, Yeah, It Still Is)

Over the course of several years, I’d convinced myself that American wasn’t that great of an airline to fly on. This isn’t taking the ~~destruction~~ devaluation of the Advantage frequent flyer program into account; it was just the experience we had when flying with them. Their gate agents tended to range from indifferent to downright surly. Take the flight where the gate agent insisted that Sharon’s bag was too big for the overhead and the other flight where the exact same thing happened again.

All of these experiences led to American placing 5th on our list of best U.S. Airlines only beating out the ultra low cost carriers (and United, which we flat out refuse to fly). Honestly, our experiences on Frontier were better than our flights on American. At least their cabin crews acted like they actually wanted to be there.

I was admittedly trying to avoid flying on American wherever I could, but in some situations, I just couldn’t avoid them due to cost or schedule. Then something happened.

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Why I Think American’s New (To Me) Policy Is Very Smart

Two days before we were due to fly on American Airlines from Orlando to New York, Sharon’s phone rang. We’re generally not ones to answer our phones (Note from Sharon: As a meme I recently saw said, “The best time to call me is in a text message”) and when a random call comes in from an 800 number, it’s a definite direct-to-voicemail call for both of us. For some reason, I had Sharon’s phone in front of me and after the first call went to voicemail, the phone rang again from the same number. I was at my computer so I Googled the number (800-433-7300).

At first glance, my heart dropped. Why would American Airlines be calling us two days before our flight? I imagined the worst, like our flight was canceled because of the 737 MAX schedule changes. I picked up the phone.

“Hello, Sharon’s phone. This is Joe. How can I help you?”

That’s not how I answered but it has to be extraordinary circumstances for me to pick up a call on her phone.

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