Unhappy Tuesday! Because when an airline makes changes to its policies, it's never a good thing. Except for the rare bird. These are things that are happening today. And yes, today as in today, and not today as in tomorrow.
Forget that Hawaii trip on American
American AAdvantage members will no longer be able to book American flights for flights to Hawaii. I'm not sure why but that doesn't stop the policy going into effect.
There are suggestions that it may be possible to book American airline partners on this route instead of American itself. Made clear on the website:
Effective September 1, 2015, AAdvantage members will no longer be able to book awards between Hawaii and the continental U.S. on Hawaiian Airlines.
Lufthansa adds a booking fee
To be clear, it's the Lufthansa Group that's adding this fee, so expect it to be applied to Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Swiss. There will be a new €16 (~$18 USD) booking fee applied to every flight that's not booked directly with the airlines.
At the same time, the Group promises to expand the number of direct channels offered to customers. And the old methods still work pretty well. Per the website:
Customers of the Lufthansa Group can obtain their tickets without having to pay the new [fee] by making their bookings via the member airlines' websites, via an airline service center or at an airport ticket desk.
Bucket expands internationally
Our friends over at Bucket-perhaps one of the most interesting trip planning tools I've seen in a while-are extending their browser plugin to accommodate international destinations. Recommended for a try, for sure, if you haven't heard of these guys yet.
