When I’m traveling on my own I’ll do everything possible to avoid checking luggage. That will remain my strategy, at least until Ted Stevens succeeds in limiting carryons (from one carryon to… one carryon).

But when I’m on a three week trip involving multiple climates it isn’t possible. And when I’m traveling with my wife for a long weekend, and she packs enough that we have to check her bags, I tend to check mine as well. Even without a connecting flight that turns out to be a mistake.

Back in June I flew in from Melbourne on Qantas and transferred my bags to Alaska. This was in the midst of their baggage handler unpleasantness, and one of our four bags was sent to Reno instead of Seattle. The baggage service office was extremely apologetic, embarassed even. The woman who took my claim gave me her name and her direct number, so that I could call and speak to someone in Seattle directly whenever I wanted an update. They found my bag that night and dispatched it immediately out to my hotel. I had a phone call from the baggage folks even before I tried to call them!

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. American Airlines baggage services at Washington-National was staffed with a man and two women. Both women were missing most of their teeth. The woman who took my claim never looked at me. She entered my home address, but wouldn’t take my business address (in case the bag came in and was ready to be delivered during the day, of course no one would be home).

The helpful women processing the claim of the person next to me (off the same flight) explained that when flights are full sometimes weight issues prevent all bags from being loaded. The flight we came in on was less than half full, although strictly speaking I don’t know what kind of cargo load it might have had.

When the claim process was done, she didn’t speak to me. She handed me a piece of paper. I asked if we were through, she didn’t answer. Well, at least the printout apologized!

American’s 800 number for baggage is an automated system, without the option of speaking with a person. My bag apparently came in on the 6:22pm arrival yesterday, but nobody updated the system until after 9:30pm. According to the automated system, that may have been later than they do residential deliveries so I don’t yet have my bag. And the automated system doesn’t give out contact information for the delivery service.

In theory my bag should be delivered today, but I don’t know when or by whom. Thanks, American!

American is offering its annual elite buyback offer for Gold and Platinum members who did not requalify during 2005.

Depending on the number of miles you flew and the status you already have, you can pay $299 – $599 to retain that status through February, 2007.

American AAdvantage Gold elite status can be obtained for 25,000 miles or 30 segments. Platinum is 50,000 miles or 60 segments. (Both can also be obtained via a fasttrack challenge.)

However, Executive Platinum has been obtainable only by flying 100,000 miles — so segment qualification existed for the “EXP” level.

Supposedly American will announce shortly that next year they’ll introduce segment qualification for their top elite level. Just like United, 100 segments flown in a year will earn top-tier elite status.

American has also announced a price increase for 500-mile segment upgrades. They’ll go from $25 to $30 when purchased online or at a kiosk. Over the phone or otherwise ‘assisted’ the price will be $35.

As a companion to the best ever American Airlines Mastercard offer, Citibank is also offering 20,000 bonus miles and fee waived the first year on its Business Mastercard.

Via Fre Frequent Flyer Miles, American and Citibank are offering their co-branded Mastercard with 20,000 bonus miles for first purchase and fee waived the first year.

In response to United’s similar offer, American now has a bonus of up to 36,000 miles for flying up to 8 roundtrips to California, Oregon, or Washington through February 15, 2006. Registration is required with promo code AAWCB.

The Wikipedia entry on the Wright Amendment (the law which restricts destinations of flights taking off from Dallas’ Love Field, which serves — and was intended — to protect American Airlines from Southwest) was edited by someone using an American Airlines domain.

Someone using an Internet service provider registered to American edited online encyclopedia Wikipedia last week to describe Southwest Airlines as “a notoriously litigious company constantly seeking to change laws to gain an advantage.”



For a time, the site also said Dallas-based Southwest is “known for its PR machine and litigious nature.”

American dismisses the event as actions by rogue employees that it cannot identify.

Now that American Airlines announced a profit for the second quarter, there are lots of stories trying to figure out how they did it. One piece contends that they managed to cut costs by listening to ideas from their employees. (Naturally the piece cites no evidence whatsoever that American did this any more than any other airline.)

Still, there are some interesting stories about cost savings. For example,

Two American Airlines mechanics didn’t like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts – a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project – and built “Thumping Ralph.” It’s essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.

Of course, American and all other airlines remain heavily unionized, with compensation more a function rigidly of showing up to work rather than an employee’s contribution to the enterprise’s profitability. Notably absent from the piece is any suggestion that the mechanics were rewarded for their ingenuity. It’s the labor work rules that are ultimately going to have to go if major airlines are going to become entrepreneurial companies.

After all, it’s the labor costs, stupid!

Through the end of the year, American is offer AAdvantage members the opportunity to reactivate miles that expired after December 30, 2002.

There’s a fee — $50 for every 5000 miles plus $30 for ‘processing’. So really you’re just being allowed to purchase miles at a discount, one cent per mile, but that’s actually a pretty good value.

(Hat tip to the MilesLink newsletter.)

I don’t usually fly American. With the exception of an American Eagle flight booked as a Northwest codeshare in late 2004, I haven’t been on American metal in nearly two and a half years. And my review is this — American Airlines’ domestic first class can be summed up with a your choice of two words: either “ghetto” or simply “coach.”

One three of four flight segments, no pre-departure beverages were served. No coats were taken. The MD80 seats are incredibly worn and dirty. Pen markings are on display everywhere, and on one flight duct tape was holding the meal tray cover onto my seat.

The ‘meals’ they’re serving look like the food that used to be offered in coach. And by used to I’m not harkening back to the long-gone days at the beginning of the Jet Age, or offering fond remembrances of the regulated era. I’m talking about the food that was served in coach in 2002.

Flight one offered pizza or a roast beef sandwich as a ‘snack’. The pizza was small and despite the description as “Uno’s Deep Dish” it was actually more like an English Muffin Toaster Pizza or something that would be microwaved out of the freezer from the Schwann truck. “Dessert” was a shrink-wrapped package of cookies.

Flight two I had the chicken breast. It was the length of my index finger. Dessert was an ice cream sundae with freezer burn.

Flight three brought chicken strips or pizza again. This time I tried the chicken strips, served with overdone pasta beneath congealed sauce. There was a hair in my salad.

Flight four was pizza or roast beef (surprise!).

On each flight someone reclined their seatback all the way into me. I couldn’t take out my laptop, hence nothing was written to post over the weekend (sorry!).

Changing planes in Dallas I watched luggage truck after luggage truck drop bags on the tarmac, and no one came to collect them. At one point there were half a dozen errant suitcases strewn about, having fallen off the tops of trucks.

True, domestic first class isn’t generally anything to write home about. I’m really looking forward to my first class flight on Qantas next month, at least by comparison. Northwest offers an even tighter pitch on some of its aircraft. America West food is probably worse. USAirways isn’t any better. Frankly, though, I haven’t ever seen anything this bad up front on either United or Continental.

One interesting sidenote. US domestic airlines insist on calling their premium cabin ‘first class’ whereas in most of the world a slightly bigger seat and a meal of some sort would be called ‘business class’. Believe it or not, that terminology can have consequences. If you wanted to redeem British Airways miles for a domestic flight in business class, it would be 50,000 points. But since American and Alaska call their cabins ‘first’ British Airways requires 75,000 points for the flight. One of the stranger things out there, thus I can’t imagine domestic US premium class travel is a frequent redemption choice for BA miles.

The standard American Airlines offer for Earthlink internet is 6,000 miles after three invoices.

Reader John points out that if you go to Earthlink directly, add internet service to your shopping cart, and enter promo code 1018865 the cart will display 10,000 American Airlines miles which will be awarded after six invoices.

The American Airlines Mastercard is again offering no fee for the first year and 15,000 bonus miles with first purchase.

Citibank has been known to award the bonus miles even to people that have had the card in the past, despite terms that specify that the bonus can only be earned once.

Best practice is to print out the application page which mentions the 15,000 bonus miles and also to print out the terms and conditions which mentions no annual fee for twelve months.

Arguments over the Wright and Shelby Amendments restricting flights out of Dallas-Love Field are reaching absurd proportions.

For years Southwest, which is based at Love Field, has maintained official neutrality to the federal rules which limit flying out of the airport to contiguous states. It took years of litigation for Southwest to even be able to use the airport, which had otherwise been abandoned for the Dallas-Fort Worth facility.

I’ve assumed that Southwest’s newfound desire to overturn these restrictions is mostly a matter of posturing. I don’t think Southwest really wants substantial new flying out of Dallas.

There’s not much room for expansion out of Love Field. They’re pretty close to maxed out in their existing terminal space. New flights to further away destinations could certainly displace existing flights, and those might well be more profitable than certain existing services. But I have a hard time imagining that greater focus on Dallas is the next best expansion opportunity for Southwest.

In order to expand Love Field they’ll have a whole separate battle with the city over space, possibly years in the making, and they’ll have to bear 100% of the cost.

If they actually wanted more Dallas flying, it seems to me that they would have placed a higher priority on picking up the Delta gates at DFW with free rent and $22 million in incentives. The fact that they didn’t suggests to me that they don’t view Dallas expansion as a high priority and are simply posturing about expansion at Love Field hoping to scare away expansion by potential low cost competitors who might be interested in those DFW gates.

That said, Southwest expansion beyond the limits of the Wright and Shelby amendments scares the bejeesus out of American which is based at DFW.

American predicts doom and the end of the world in the event these laws are repealed, and suggests that they would have to build a hub at Love Field in order to fight back “because that’s where the customers are going to want to go.” But that seems to me to be an argument for repealing the laws — customers would benefit from added convenience — rather than an argument against repeal!

And American is bluffing in any case. They have three gates at Love that are going unused. They’ve been completely chased out of the airport due to low fares and an inability to fill their planes.

In a move that matches United, American is offering double miles on all flights booked by February 18 for travel through May 25. Registration required.

American is offering 42,000 bonus miles for premium class flights to London.

The move is very similar to British Airways’ offer of 40,250 bonus miles.

Registration is required.

H&R Block is offering up to 1000 American Airlines miles for filing your taxes with them.

American Airlines publishes a chart, perhaps updated weekly, with a rough guide to award availability between select city pairs.

This isn’t nearly as useful as Continental’s real-time availability calendar, but it’s a start.

The city pairs are all domestic, and availability appears to be listed strictly for coach awards, but some disclosure is better than no disclosure at all — although the color coding (white, yellow, green) eerily resembles something from the Department of Homeland Security.

American Airlines has entered into an agreement with Hotels.com to transfer customers from one call center to another.

In other words, when you end your call with American the AAgent will ask whether you would like to be transferred to Hotels.com for hotel accomodations.

American will even give you 150 miles for completing a Hotels.com stay.

It’s strange that American is charging booking fees for making a reservation through a call center at the same time they’re using their call center as a cross-marketing profit center.

My strategy will be whenever I want to make a Hotels.com booking I’ll call American, ask a silly question (But not book a ticket! Don’t want that booking fee!), and take the Hotels.com transfer for the bonus miles.

The only other place offering points for Hotels.com bookings is GlobalPass. Personally I’ll take a few American miles over a bunch of GlobalPass miles.