Tagging Miles

Priority Pass cards, United Devaluation, Wrong Journalists, 5/24 Rule

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The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • Doctor of Credit has a quick tip for differentiating Priority Pass cards that come with different benefits.
  • On July 4th this happened… At the time when I read in real time on twitter I was going through a variety of emotions, now I just shake my head.
  • Too Little Too Late from American for elite members… Gary received an offer, though I didn’t. I suspect that might be because I’ve had a total of 4 revenue segments on American this year as an Executive Platinum.
  • United announced another devaluation. It’s not horrible but it’s certainly not good news. I still need to dig deeper myself, but Gary has a good overview.

Miles and Points:

Tagging Miles:

 

Observation Deck: 2017 Skytrax Airline Awards

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Episode 59 of the Saverocity Observation Deck brings what was at times a heated conversation about the 2017 Skytrax Airline Awards announced at Paris Air Show 2017. 

Joe Cheung celebrated his anniversary, which left Joe Cortez and I to truly dig in from an #avgeek perspective. 

But before we dug into the 2017 Skytrax awards, we learned about Joe’s adventure to Amsterdam, hosted by KLM, but oddly didn’t really cover his practices when he’s hosted, perhaps that’s for another day.  

The Skytrax awards cover a bunch, all 4 of the best cabins, the best low cost carrier, cleanliness, regional, and most. I think you’ll be surprised with some of our reactions. In fact, when Joe Cheung gave an advance listen, he was awfully inquisitive about a couple of mine, which makes me think I need to get flying! 

One award that I couldn’t just leave at my comments on the podcast, was the Skytrax Best Business Class award winner of Qatar Airways, I truly believe some of these awards were perception over reality.

This was a long episode at over 1 hour, 12 minutes, but we leave you with some humor at the end, the shawarma variety.

As always, if you enjoy this or any of our Saverocity Observation Deck podcasts, please subscribe via iTunes, and feel free to leave a review, they really do make our day!

What were your thoughts on the 2017 Skytrax Airline Awards?

Are Skytrax Awards Perception over Reality?

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The latest Skytrax Airline awards were announced at the Paris Air Show, and I have to say, I’m left wondering whether Skytrax Awards are perception over reality. Don’t get me wrong, I agreed with most of Skytrax perceptions with regard to airports. 

Skytrax Awards Background

Skytrax Awards are largely revered within the industry. Traveling around Asia this past weekend, I heard it mentioned a couple of times on Bangkok Airways, which received an award for the best Regional Airline, and Thai had advertisements for the best Worlds Best Economy Class.

Skytrax Awards

It is admittedly kind of a big deal when 19.87M votes are cast, but I am still left wondering whether this is a perception thing over reality. 

Qatar Airways Wins Skytrax Award for Best Business Class

For me, this is where the rubber meets the road. I have flown Qatar on the 787 and the 777-300ER. Flying from Washington’s Dulles International Airport, we are serviced by the 777-300ER, so that’s the experience I most commonly associate with Qatar.

Lucky believes Qatar Airways to be deserving of the Skytrax awards and to have the best business class. I’ve shared my opinion of the best business class product in the past.

I totally get that Lucky is basing Qatar’s best Business Class based on the 787, A350 and A380 hard products, however, according to Wikipedia 57 aircraft across those three aircraft types (in fact, most of them, 30 are 787s!). The fact remains though that the seats flown on their 26 A330s, 4 A340’s, 9 777-200LR, and 34 777-300ER’s are a far inferior, 2-2-2 business class configuration. So more than half of Qatar’s fleet has an industry trailing hard product. 

Final Thoughts on Skytrax Awards

Specific to Qatar, I truly question whether this is really a perception over reality. Realize that the ballots were all cast well before the first 777 flew with the new QSuites. I totally get that Qatar provides a very good soft product, but how can an airline that has less than half of their fleet with a solid hard product, be the number one business class product? 

 

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