These 8 Airline Errors and Mishaps Can Score You FREE Points and Miles
These 8 Airline Errors and Mishaps Can Score You FREE Points and Miles
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phaisarn2517/iStock
https://www.fodors.com/news/photos/how-to-get-free-points-and-miles-from-airline-errors
It’s time to write a letter.
Savvy travelers are smart enough to deduce that if your plane takes off late or you’re stranded overnight in a destination other than your final one, you’re entitled to airline miles or flight credits—and sometimes, even cold, hard cash that can be redeemed however you like.
But what about when the flight itself is terrible or does not deliver what’s promised? Here are eight common situations where, when a flight is less than perfect, and if you ask nicely you may receive a reward for what happened during the flight. Just be sure to sign up for the airline’s frequent-flier programs before take-off. That’s because you need a membership number to apply those miles or a flight credit. There are three ways to get these benefits. You can talk to a purser on board the flight, an employee at the gate, or write to the airline’s customer service department.
PHOTO: m-gucci/iStock
1 OF 8
Report Broken Seatback Screen
On a nine-hour flight from Milan, Italy, to Chicago’s O’Hare on United Airlines, my seat-back screen never fired up despite attempts by the flight attendants to reboot. The two rows in front of me and behind me were also affected. We were each offered—while still in flight—either a $250 airline voucher or 5,000 United Airlines miles. While a broken seatback screen also means you have no reading light—unless your seatmate’s girlfriend on the other side of the cabin lends you her headlamp, true story—at least you have a future trip to look forward to.
PHOTO: maroke/iStock
2 OF 8
Switch Seats With Another Passenger
So that cute couple on their honeymoon wants to sit together, but their assigned seats are, well, not even remotely close. I have observed a flight attendant wander the plane asking solo travelers to switch seats—and the first one to accept the offer got either airline miles or a flight credit. If you’re flying alone and don’t have a seat preference, this is a small act of kindness. In many cases, you’ll still get that window or aisle seat, just in a different row.
PHOTO: Jaromír Chalabala/Dreamstime
3 OF 8
Your Seat Won’t Recline
This happened to a friend of mine who was flying from Washington D.C. to London on business and hoped to catch some zzzs. Until, oops. The seat did not recline and he realized he’d be sleeping sitting upright. The airline gave him a future airline credit for this obvious discomfort on an overnight flight.
PHOTO: Jaromír Chalabala/iStock
4 OF 8
A Pre-ordered Meal Choice Is Now Unavailable
While my pescatarian diet is more flexible than, say, gluten-free or vegan, there’s a reason I pre-order meals on transatlantic flights. On an American Airlines flight home to the States from Rome, my vegetarian meal request hadn’t been logged. Because many on my flight were sick of pasta after traveling in Italy, this allowed me to snag a pasta (instead of chicken) meal off the cart. But American Airlines did give me 12,500 miles for this mishap (which included unexpectedly spending the night in Charlotte, North Carolina).
PHOTO: DragonImages/iStock
5 OF 8
You Missed Your Connection
If a plane is sitting at the gate or the runway or on a recent flight I took from Nashville to Chicago O’Hare, it has to log extra miles to bypass a storm, which means you’ll likely miss your connecting flight. Especially if said layover is less than an hour to begin with. This creates a major travel mess that originated while you were on the plane, and you could not avoid. Ask for reimbursement in the form of miles or a voucher.
PHOTO: Report Broken Seatback Screen
6 OF 8
The Wi-Fi Doesn’t Work
A travel-writer colleague was really looking forward to writing an assigned story on an American Airlines flight from Rome to Philadelphia after traveling for 10 days in Europe. Until the discovery that the Wi-Fi was not working. Wait, what? Since the length of that flight is equivalent to a normal work day, that’s considered an unexpected day off. She wrote to American Airlines, and they deposited miles in her account.
PHOTO: dima_sidelnikov/iStock
7 OF 8
The Flight Crew Is Late
In the airline industry, there’s such a thing as a flight crew being “timed out.” Pilots and flight attendants are only authorized to work so many consecutive hours to ensure they get enough rest. With flight schedules so air-tight, if a flight is delayed, it can cause the crew’s working “day” to screech to a halt, and a new flight crew must be located. This can take time. For an American Airlines flight from Charlotte to Milwaukee, we were seated on the plane and ready to take off—sans pilot. A replacement pilot could not be found in time, and the flight was rebooked for the next morning with a new crew. I wrote to the airline and received 12,500 miles.
PHOTO: Bet_Noire/iStock
8 OF 8
Issues in Loading Baggage or Fuel
Delays can occur in refueling or loading passengers’ bags, and the flight can’t leave without doing these two tasks. If the pilots don’t make up the time in the air, you will now be missing your connecting flight in a layover city. On a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Paris, I looked out the window to see we were taxing back to the gate from the runway—and not in the air as planned. A bag in the cargo belonged to someone not on the plane. They probably changed their travel plans or missed their connection, but to be safe, the bag had to be removed. Now the arrival time in Paris was pushed back, causing some to miss their connections. If I’d been more savvy, I would have written to the airline, and they likely would have deposited miles in my SkyMiles account, as I was a loyal customer and not too happy to see this delay due to negligence while boarding bags.
Raines Co. prioritizes storytelling, hotel business fundamentals
Developer 'looking for that edge' amid tough build environment
https://www.costar.com/article/132966318/raines-hospitality-prioritizes-storytelling-hotel-business-fundamentals?
ATLANTA — Considering the headwinds hotel developers are facing, including high construction costs, Grey Raines, CEO and managing partner at Raines Co., said he's looking for properties that have a unique story.
"I think that traditional development is the toughest it's been in my career. So, we're looking for those opportunities. We're looking for that edge that allows us to build new hotels, to renovate old properties, convert," he said during a video interview at the 2026 Hunter Conference. "We're just having to dig a little deeper than we ever have."
The key to crafting the perfect story for a hotel is in the team, Raines said. How much time his company puts into its projects is what sets it apart.
"We start so far in advance to build that narrative and to build a story that the guest will embrace, and that's for everything from interior design to branding to our expertise," he said.
It is this mindfulness that brands sometimes miss, and it leaves money on the table, Raines said.
"Being able to curate the story and truly focus on what the guest wants and needs, it allows us to drive a hotel that really doesn't have a rate ceiling," Raines said.
One example of Raines Co.'s vision for bringing to life storytelling hotels is its recently opened Lantern Hotel Columbia, which operates in a historic fire station that Raines Co. renovated and restored. The hotel also rolled out a unique employment strategy for its on-property team, which consists of about 50% students and 35% individuals with a disability.
"It comes back to the mission," Raines said. "So partnering with the University of South Carolina Life Program, creating opportunities for students with intellectual disabilities, giving them an opportunity within the amazing world of hospitality — not just a job but a career path. And it's not just the impact for the students, it's the impact for their families that makes it so powerful."
The city of Columbia is growing a lot, Raines said, and some other markets that he sees a lot of opportunities in include parts of North Carolina and Charleston.
Even with growth on the horizon, it's a challenging environment to develop hotels, Raines said. He's keeping a close eye on what's happening in the world while making sure operations is focused on the basics.
"We pay attention every day to how our world's changing, but at the same time, its core fundamentals for us. We watch our leverage points, we make sure we have the right partners, the right investors, and again, we're not looking for short-term impact," he said. "Everything we're doing is paying attention to how this affects us long term."
How a smart labor strategy differentiates top-performing hotels from the rest
https://hotelsmag.com/news/why-a-smart-labor-strategy-will-differentiate-top-performing-hotels-from-the-rest/
John Lockyer is the CEO of Unifocus, a hospitality technology provider company.
The hospitality industry is entering a new phase. After years of post-pandemic revenue recovery fueled by surging demand and rising rates, the tailwinds have eased. 2025 marked a stabilization point where, with regional demand softening, rate flexibility narrowing, and RevPAR growth slowing relative to prior years. Analysts expect more of the same in 2026, changing the playbook for hoteliers. The path to profitability no longer runs through revenue recovery—it runs through margin management.
The Schedule is a Budget Decision
There’s a story that illustrates how labor costs have traditionally been treated in hotels. A general manager once described needing executive approval to purchase a $100 chair, yet an unplanned $9,000 labor overspend required nothing more than publishing a schedule. That contrast tells you everything about where operational controls have historically focused, and where the gaps remain.
Every physical purchase in a hotel travels through procurement and budget approval before a penny is committed. Labor, the single largest operating expense in hospitality, has been operated by different rules. Schedules get published, hours get worked and finance reports on the variance afterward. By then, the cost has already landed.
Modern workforce management technology closes that gap. With the right tools, managers can see, before the schedule is published, whether planned hours align with forecast demand and budget targets. The schedule stops being a surprise and becomes a planned, approved investment. That shift in timing is the shift in control.
Precision is Now the Differentiator
Despite easing headline inflation, hotel operating costs remain stubbornly high. Insurance, utilities, food, and construction expenses continue to increase, and structural workforce pressures persist. Labor shortages and wage floors have risen across the US, Canada, and Europe, and intensifying competition for talent has compressed margins further. As operating costs outpace RevPAR growth, labor has become the single most controllable profit variable available to hoteliers.
But controlling labor isn’t simply about cutting hours—it’s about precision. Forecasting staffing requirements against real demand signals, rather than defaulting to legacy schedules, allows hotels to eliminate labor leakage without compromising service. This matters across every department, including revenue-generating areas like food and beverage, where inaccurate staffing decisions carry a direct bottom-line cost.
Effective labor orchestration means the right people, with the right skills, are in the right place at the right time. That level of precision consistently separates high-performing properties from those that struggle to maintain margins during softer demand periods.
The Hidden Cost of Manual Operations
Many hotels still manage housekeeping and maintenance through large, manually maintained spreadsheets. The familiarity of these tools masks their true cost. Poorly sequenced room turns, delayed maintenance flags, and scheduling errors compound quickly across teams and shifts, eroding productivity, creating service inconsistencies, and ultimately affecting revenue.
The operational drag from these inefficiencies isn’t always visible in a single line item, but it accumulates. And in a margin-compressed environment, it’s a drag that hotels can no longer afford.
Guest Experience and Labor Are Not in Conflict
One of the most persistent misconceptions in labor management is that cost control comes at the expense of guest experience. In practice, the opposite is true. Hotels that implement well-designed workforce models, ones that match staffing to real demand patterns, consistently outperform competitors on guest satisfaction scores, even during low-demand periods.
In an era where traveler decisions are heavily shaped by online reviews, a single understaffed shift can have a lasting commercial impact. Technology-enabled labor planning doesn’t just protect margins. It protects the guest experience that sustains them.
Building for What Comes Next
As investor scrutiny intensifies and topline growth remains modest, operational discipline is becoming a primary performance marker. The hotels best positioned for 2026 and beyond are those treating workforce management not as a back-office scheduling function, but as a strategic capability integrated with demand forecasting, operational planning, and financial controls.
When operations and workforce management are connected in a single execution model rather than siloed functions reconciled after the fact, hotels gain structural advantages that persist regardless of occupancy trends. The goal is no longer simply to fill rooms; it’s to operate each room and each shift as profitably as possible.
Historic immigration decline could damage the hotel industry
For the hospitality industry, which has historically depended heavily on immigrant labor, a downward trend could have significant implications.
https://www.hotelinvestmenttoday.com/Regions/North-America/Historic-immigration-decline-could-damage-the-hotel-industry
By Christine Jelski
NATIONAL REPORT — The U.S. Census Bureau reports that net migration fell across every metropolitan area in the country in 2025, with the U.S. recording net negative migration nationally for the first time in at least 50 years, according to the White House.
A White House press release described the figures as “a historic turnaround on immigration.”
But for the hospitality industry, which has historically depended heavily on immigrant labor, the trend could have significant long-term implications. According to both the U.S. Travel Association and the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA), travel supported the jobs of 15 million U.S. workers in 2024 and directly created 8 million jobs, and approximately one-third of those workers were immigrants.
Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired immigration law professor at Cornell, warned that the impact on the hospitality sector’s workforce may still be in its early stages.
Although some of the administration’s attempts to end Temporary Protected Status for various nations (TPS grants work authorization to hundreds of thousands of immigrants) have been challenged in the courts, Yale-Loehr predicts the fallout could be “like a tsunami wave that is coming but has not hit yet nationally.”
“If those terminations are upheld, then I think we will see a long-term decline in the hospitality industry workforce,” he said.
Labor union Unite Here said it believes this workforce contraction is already well underway. Unite Here represents roughly 300,000 hotel, casino, restaurant, and airport workers across the U.S. and Canada.
The hospitality industry ended 2025 with 98,000 fewer workers than the year before, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited in “Inhospitable,” a February report from Unite Here examining the impact of U.S. immigration policy on the hospitality sector.
Unite Here attributes the decline in part to a loss of immigrant workers, estimating that the Trump administration has put the work authorization of more than 2 million immigrant workers “in deep uncertainty.”
“What’s happening when they get deauthorized, effectively, is that other workers are left to fill the gaps,” said Unite Here international president Gwen Mills.
This shrinking workforce comes as U.S. hotels continue to grapple with staffing shortages and rising labor costs, according to a late February survey of 246 hoteliers by the AHLA. Workforce shortages and labor costs were cited among their top concerns for this year, with 65% of respondents flagging labor costs as a pressure point and 42% citing workforce shortages as a top worry. Half of the survey’s respondents said their properties are “somewhat understaffed.”
The loss of immigrant workers does not translate into jobs for U.S.-born workers, said Economic Policy Institute president Heidi Shierholz, adding that the Trump administration appears to be operating under an “absolutely false notion” that it does.
“If you deport a workforce of immigrant roofers and framers, fewer houses will be built, so U.S.-born electricians and plumbers also lose their jobs,” she said. “The impacts really ripple out.”
She also cited Economic Policy Institute research forecasting that if the administration succeeds in its goal of deporting 1 million immigrants a year, nearly 6 million jobs will be lost by the end of Trump’s term, including 2.6 million held by U.S.-born workers.
Julia Gelatt, an associate director with the Migration Policy Institute, said it remains unclear whether a shrinking immigrant workforce will significantly slow the hospitality industry’s growth or simply accelerate its shift toward automation. Still, she sees one outcome as likely.
“What history would suggest is that everything is going to get more expensive,” she said. “With fewer workers available, wages will rise, and it will be more expensive for all of us to enjoy various parts of the hospitality industry.”
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