Being a flight attendant can often be a thankless job. We do our best to rearrange bags so that your precious gifts won't have to be sent to baggage claim at Christmas.  We ask people to switch seats during the already hectic boarding process so that your 5 year old doesn't have to sit with a stranger.  We are smiling (sometimes) after a 14 hour day, complete with delays & cancelations, and no time to get off the airplane all day to use a real bathroom, and greet you with a warm ...

TSA began the PreCheck pilot program this week at four select airports.  The pilot is available to a small group of frequent travelers from American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and CBP's Trusted Traveler programs.  Eligible participants must be flying domestically from one of the pilot airports: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County, Dallas/Fort Worth International and Miami International.  The goal of ...

I received an email from Delta today announcing the TSA test program for expedited
screening for frequent fliers launching this fall.  I hope this email means I’m on the list of Delta frequent fliers considered for this program, not just a mass email to all Medallion members.  The scoop for the test program is small, only frequent fliers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Travel program, American Airlines, and Delta Airlines.  The test ...

In this frequent flyer episode we are joined by Reb, who along with Gary are two of the organizers of this year's Frequent Traveler Awards. Voting is currently open (vote here) and winners will be announced at the award dinner in Houston in early November. We discussed:

• How the award program came about
• The differences from other previous loyalty program award events
• How to attend and more about planned costs
• and we expressed our disappointment at the lack of a "favorite podcast" category at the awards.

I really like flying Virgin America. I think it’s a great in-flight experience. Frequent fliers can do much better with traditional legacy carriers, but if you don’t fly that often, I think Virgin America is a GREAT way to travel. They had one thing that really annoyed me, though. Elevate (their frequent flier) points would expire 18 months after they were given to you. That means even if you flew Virgin America like a madman for 18 months, ...

In this first podcast of a series on airline award bookings we discuss the basics of how we use our miles and an overview of different award types. In future podcasts, over the next few weeks, we will discuss specific reward programs and alliances in greater detail.

In addition we discussed JAL's decision between SkyTeam and OneWorld, although that dicussion seems a bit dated now.  Please send in your recent award redemptions stories and questions for our next few airline award booking shows.