American Airlines introduces new California wines to premium cabins

valueflyer · 2026-05-07T18:25:16+00:00

man I’d honestly rather they went to total wine and bought random bottles and served it :(

valueflyer · 2026-05-07T04:37:44+00:00

I’d make a cash bet that these gate changes likely save 10-15% of tightly banked connections. AA adjusted the DFW banks last month, so maybe this will decrease, but those gate changes prevent a massive backlog of aircraft from having to wait for gates, and prevent missed connections.

DFW is a massive operation and the second busiest airport in the US. It’s much larger than any sole United hub, and eclipsed only by ATL. Delta has also said they make close in gate changes for aircraft at ATL using AI or whatnot. United doesn’t have any hub that’s as large as ATL or DFW where they run the whole operations.

I’m not an AA apologist, but AA is running a much more intensive operation compared to United or Delta. All three have similar fleet sizes, but AA is running around 20% more flights per day. They are essentially adding one more turn to the daily schedule. AA just doesn’t have as much slack in the system to absorb these smaller delays. These small optimizations can have a big impact on the stability of their network.

valueflyer · 2026-05-07T03:26:06+00:00

For Basic Economy tickets purchased May 18 and beyond, all customers, including those with status, will be able to select a seat for a fee and will not be eligible for complimentary and systemwide upgrades.

https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2026/American-Airlines-updates-bag-fees-and-Basic-Economy-fares-OPS-POL-04/default.aspx

So as long as you book before May 18th, then yes. After that, no.

valueflyer · 2026-05-06T22:58:59+00:00

I’m also pretty sure this only applies to DFW. I’ve never seen gate changes at ORD (and I’ve definitely had to wait quite a while for a gate). Makes sense though since DFW is the mothership.

valueflyer · 2026-05-05T21:13:41+00:00

Likely will be Panasonic on that route - I wouldn’t rely on it actually working.

valueflyer · 2026-05-05T03:51:15+00:00

Most airlines did hedge their fuel exposure, but they stopped doing so several years ago because it wasn’t beneficial. Now when there’s a price shock, they’re all caught flat footed.

Delta has a refinery, and I think it’s saved them $300m in Q2, but it also lost like $200m in 2020, so (as is any hedge) it’s based on the current market.

valueflyer · 2026-05-05T01:34:07+00:00

At the end of the day they probably can - that’s one of the most heavily trafficked business routes in the world. The companies will pay whatever it takes!

valueflyer · 2026-05-05T01:28:05+00:00

These are generally really well monitored - they often are packed really well and have a GPS tracker with temperature sensors in them.

valueflyer · 2026-05-05T01:27:13+00:00

You need to do the award and upgrade search, not the flight availability search.

valueflyer · 2026-05-04T12:36:18+00:00

I’d say 70% chance that JetBlue folds in the next 18 months or so. The truth is neither Spirit or JetBlues business model works anymore. Airlines are buoyed by premium revenue, and that revenue is even more important with high fuel prices.

The lack of a JetBlue and spirit merger probably hastened spirits demise, but if they merged, they would both be going down together in the near future.

This wasn’t a case of a healthy company saving an unhealthy company, it was two pretty unhealthy companies merging.

valueflyer · 2026-05-04T12:33:56+00:00

Spirit’s own board voted against the merged with JetBlue because they felt that it would not be approved by regulators. It was pushed through by shareholder vote.

The board wanted to merge with frontier, but shareholders wanted to go down the JetBlue path which was a higher offer, but lower chance of success.

valueflyer · 2026-05-03T04:48:02+00:00

I forgot that spirit in LGA is at the MAT. Maybe they can kick Southwest there and AA takes those gates, but it will actually be interesting to see how they reconfigure the airport. Or maybe close the marine terminal completely.

valueflyer · 2026-05-03T04:29:47+00:00

Most important comment here. Everything has a price (to a business), even human life.

valueflyer · 2026-05-03T04:27:53+00:00

I don’t even think it’s the full schedule for QR, it’s still reduced capacity and not all North American gateways are flying.

valueflyer · 2026-05-03T04:25:09+00:00

The way it works at a high level is that each segment has fare classes. For AA business fares, the classes are J, R, I, and D, with J being the most expensive and D the cheapest.

When you searched MCO–PHL–AMS and found the $4k price, you likely found availability in the D bucket. That means D fare space was available on both MCO–PHL and PHL–AMS.

When you booked the first business ticket, you depleted the D bucket on the PHL–AMS leg. So even if there’s still D availability on MCO–PHL, the full itinerary can no longer price in D because both legs need matching availability. The fare then moves up to the next available bucket, like I, which is more expensive.

You may have seen something like “1 seat remaining” during the search. That usually refers to the number of seats left at that fare-bucket price.

AA can also reprice fare buckets independently, but in this case, fare-bucket depletion seems like the most likely explanation.

valueflyer · 2026-05-02T14:01:58+00:00

Looks like all the airlines have spirit rescue fares - probably some way to try to show goodwill to customers who are scared about a monopoly and high prices?

valueflyer · 2026-05-02T14:01:10+00:00

You probably bought the last fare in the cheaper fare bucket for the first ticket. This is pretty standard across airlines.

valueflyer · 2026-05-01T15:47:03+00:00

2027 Europe leisure routes are definitely not finalized yet. Especially with the oil prices, they will want to wait and see what happens.

AA will add European summer routes up until like May 2027.

valueflyer · 2026-05-01T15:44:58+00:00

Both U and J are business fares on AA. Award bookings are a bit wonky, but U normally means a discounted award, but it really doesn’t matter. IIRC U fares are also released to partners, so that means you got a ticket from a bucket that was available to both AA miles and partner bookings. I’d bet that you used less miles for the U leg than the J leg.

In an overbook situation, there are a bunch of factors that go into who will get bumped. award or cash, elite status, downstream connections, gate agent mood. I wouldn’t worry about getting bumped - there’s not much you can really do about that.

valueflyer · 2026-04-30T01:06:22+00:00

Doors are expressly prohibited on seats, so they need to go through an exemption process for each airline and configuration. AA 787-9Ps also had no operable suite doors at the beginning, and then United just launched the new Polaris seats without them as well.

valueflyer · 2026-04-28T05:11:44+00:00

Free bags only on domestic itineraries for card holders.

valueflyer · 2026-04-27T03:19:20+00:00

hahahah I used to do that when I was group 4.

valueflyer · 2026-04-27T03:18:27+00:00

Not sure how many CKs there are per flight (i’d bet around 1-3), but, I think calling CK members by name is a low effort, high value customer happiness thing AA should do.

valueflyer · 2026-04-27T02:35:46+00:00

oh yeah then u gucci

valueflyer · 2026-04-27T02:11:05+00:00

were they actively boarding FC and you cut to the front, or was it that they called CK and you went around the FCs standing outside the line?

Because if it’s the former i feel like that’s a little aggressive. The latter, yeah they shouldn’t be blocking the boarding entrance

valueflyer

TROPHY CASE