On November 19th I made several predictions about the American-USAirways merger.
Several have already come true:
-The American OneWorld round-the-world award chart was killed
-USAirways started collecting fuel surcharges on British Airways and has already killed some off-peak awards.
-American and El Al are ending their codeshare and frequent flyer partnership agreement.
-And now JetBlue and El Al will begin a codesharing agreement, as predicted last November as well,
“Beware that El Al may decide to sever its relationship with American if they become a competitor and you may no longer be able to use American miles on El Al. Though if El Al would do that they would lose codeshare access to other US cities that they get from American though they can always set one up with an airline like JetBlue.”
“I still think a JetBlue partnership may occur, but that will likely be a codeshare-only relationship and not a frequent flyer relationship.”
And that has come true as well. There is now a codesharing agreement in place, so El Al can place their flight number on JetBlue flights and vice versa. That means your itinerary purchased from El Al may have you flying on El Al flight 1500 from JFK to Fort Lauderdale, but it will be on a JetBlue airplane.
Unfortunately and as expected, there was no frequent flyer announcement.
Given that JetBlue and El Al have convoluted and proprietary mileage programs it will probably be very challenging to set up reciprocity even if there is a desire for there to be one.
I think my prediction from last November of American flights from Miami and JFK to Tel Aviv will come to fruition before an El Al-JetBlue frequent flyer partnership occurs. And that’s even with the long wait for that to happen due to the TWA fiasco that left their employees in Israel without a pension.
If we’re really lucky maybe we’ll even see a United nonstop flight from Chicago (or San Francisco?) to Tel Aviv. More competition is always a good thing. I talked about those flight possibilities in 2012 with Brian Znotins, VP of United’s network strategy. He indicated that such flights could make sense after the launch of the 787-900, the first of which of just coming online now. United has 26 of those on order which will come online within the next few years. Then again he (and other United execs at the DO) also told me that the Cleveland hub was profitable, something contradicted by his boss (and still being audited by the state of Ohio), so who knows…
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26 Comments On "JetBlue And El Al Announce Codeshare Relationship, Will It Lead To A Mileage Partnership?"
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Mamash a navi! JetJue bkaflayim!
@Aposhiteryid:
Nope, I just things as I see ’em.
if a ff agreement will be anounced it will be major news for us
cus right now the only way to get elal business class is with aa points (besides the crasy matmit program) and now you will be able to transfer amex into jet blue and book even online with no problem………….
Do you think United will start a nonstop from LAX to TLV?
@yanky:
And the AA option ends in a month.
But like I said in the post, don’t hold your breath.
@Daniel Shamooelian:
No.
LAX is one of United’s smallest hubs and it will likely continue to shrink.
Additionally El Al already flies LAX-TLV nonstop.
Yechi Dan Hamelech the Nasi doranu
@Yechi Dan:
The longer I blog the odder the comments seem to get.
……speechless on DDMS
We want to cancel our aadvantage credit cards. which is the best credit card to get so that we can accrue miles to travel to Israel?
@yanky are you serious? Doesn’t seem too major to me. JetBlue has a revenue based award chart for their own metal and it’s not either the best value for cpm. I can’t imagine it’ll be too much better on a partner.
@RW:
Dan — I’d also like to hear any thoughts you might have on what might now be the best card on which to accrue miles for Israel travel (bonus and/or regular spend).
is it definite that american miles cannot be used for el al flights anymore? i have been accummulating all these miles for nothing?????
@Eric:
I’ll make some posts on that.
@fRAN WITT:
Yes, effective in a month:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/52456
Thanks for the helpful info,
Anyway to find out if the points from JetBlue Amex
Would be able to be used with flights to Israel?
Thank you
If I book flights for the summer 2015 with American Airline points on an El Al flight (before October 31, 2014), can I change the dates within the year without a fee? When I call American, they say they are not ending their relationship with El Al, (so no info from them). But what do you think? Will I be able to change dates within the time frame (if necessary) while they will still be connected with El Al without a fee, like American usually allows?
@Leon:
No. Awful credit card.
@Rochel:
You will not be able to change dates after October.
I will not be able to change the dates even for a fee? Do you think I’ll be able to put the miles back into my American Airlines account for $150 per ticket?
@Anonymous:
There is no fee to change dates on an AA award. However they will not have any access to LY award space after 10/31, hence no date changes.
I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to cancel for $150. Note that additional tickets cancelled at the same time are just $25.
Does it pay to just hold onto the American Airline miles and hope they will connect with some other airline that will get me to Israel, directly. Do they have such an option without connecting or will they have it anytime soon?
@Rochel:
They fly from PHL-TLV and as I’ve said many times I predict JFK-TLV and MIA-TLV in the future for AA.
Dan
Side question
What is a good card with no annual fee to get points for Israel?
I have chase freedom. Is that the best one?
I got hass but they don’t give points for EL Al any longer.
Look forward to your wise remarks.
Thank you
When I called American Airlines they said that if I book an El Al flight before Nov. 1 for July 2015, if I need to change the ticket, I will not have to pay a fee if I switch to an American flight from NY-Philadelphia to Tel Aviv. As long as it’s starting at the same place and ending at the same place. Even if it’s a different airline there is no fee for changes. Does that make sense to you? Because then I won’t be taking a risk by booking for the summer if I have to change the date.
@Leon:
I’ll make a post on it.
@Rochel:
You will not be able to change to another El Al flight after 10/31/14.
End of story.
But you don’t know anything about if I will be able to transfer to another American flight same departure and destination without fee? Sorry I don’t mean to be a pest.
Does it make sense that I will be able to change dates and switch to another airline starting and ending at same destination, without a fee? (or are American Airlines agents giving me wrong information). I don’t mean to be a pest.
@Rochel
The other problem is that even if you switch to another airline with the same starting and ending point, your choice for connections are either thru Philadelphia, which is hard to get, or through Iberia or British, which has high taxes on the European side.