Silicon Valley To Startup Nation: El Al Announces The Return Of Nonstop San Francisco To Tel Aviv Flights

For travelers flying between the two biggest tech hubs on the planet, the last few years have required a lot of patience. Since U.S. carriers suspended direct service to Israel, flying from the Bay Area to Tel Aviv has meant dealing with mandatory layovers, extra travel days, and complicated multi-airline itineraries.

Now, the wait for a seamless cross-continental commute is over.

In a major move for the aviation industry, El Al Israel Airlines has officially announced it will resume nonstop flights between San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport (TLV) starting October 25, 2026.

Whether you are a Silicon Valley tech worker heading out for face-to-face investor meetings, part of the extensive Northern California Israeli community, or just looking to book a vacation, here is what you need to know about this highly anticipated route.

Flight Schedule and a Clever Football Tribute

El Al is officially launching the route right at the start of the aviation winter season. The service will operate three times a week, bridging the Pacific and the Mediterranean every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday.

Because it is a grueling 15-hour long-haul flight, El Al is deploying its flagship fleet of advanced Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. Passengers can choose between three distinct cabin classes: Economy, Premium, and Business.

In a fun marketing twist, the airline revealed that the outbound flight departing Israel will operate under a very specific flight number: LY49—a direct, intentional nod to the San Francisco 49ers.

"San Francisco is one of the world's most important centers for technology, innovation and business, with a large and influential Israeli community. The launch of the new route is intended to meet significant demand... and to enable a more direct, high-quality, and convenient connection between Israel and Silicon Valley."— Shlomi Zafrani, El Al's VP of Commerce and Sales.

The Strategic Battle for SFO

This route isn’t just convenient; it’s a massive tactical victory for El Al. Ever since United Airlines halted its popular SFO-TLV direct flights, the Bay Area has been completely underserved. By stepping back into this vacancy (a market El Al briefly served before the pandemic in 2019), the airline effectively commands a monopoly on direct flights out of northern California.

Furthermore, El Al has recently strengthened its strategic partnership with Delta Air Lines. This means West Coast travelers will find it significantly easier to book seamless North American connections, while frequent flyers can cross-earn miles and rewards points across both ecosystems.

With the addition of San Francisco, El Al’s North American footprint grows to six primary destinations. This winter, the airline will operate a massive 45 weekly flights across the Atlantic to New York (JFK and EWR), Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and now, San Francisco.

Ticket Sales and Pricing

If you want to be on one of the inaugural winter flights, you don't have to wait. Ticket sales officially opened this week through the El Al website and travel agencies.

Starting Fares: Round-trip "Classic" Economy fares (which crucially include seat selection and a checked bag) are starting at $1,199 to $1,299, depending on the booking platform.

Early Booking Advice: Because this is currently the only game in town for a direct West Coast flight outside of Los Angeles, expect these flights—especially the premium cabins preferred by corporate tech travelers—to book up incredibly fast.

New AAdvantage Business Select Tier Unlocks More Value For Small And Midsized Businesses

The AAdvantage Business™ program rewards both eligible companies and their travelers with AAdvantage® miles and additional Loyalty Points for booking business travel on aa.com, through American’s mobile app or with any agency, offering a faster pathway to a more rewarding experience for companies and travelers alike. Plus, the program gives companies access to a convenient suite of tools to handle reporting, traveler management duty of care and more.

To continue to meet the evolving needs of its members, the AAdvantage Business™ program is rolling out a new tier on July 21 that allows the opportunity to unlock even more value for businesses with elevated travel needs.

How it works

The AAdvantage Business™ program makes it simple for companies and travelers to earn rewards, with the flexibility to book eligible American travel anywhere. It’s free and easy to join.

Businesses earn miles on all eligible employee travel. Plus, employees who choose to register can also earn additional Loyalty Points. Businesses with at least five active registered travelers and $5,000 in spend from registered travelers can use their miles for free travel or transfer miles directly to their employees. Spend and redemption requirements are waived for Citi® / AAdvantage® Business™ World Elite Mastercard® cardmembers.

The AAdvantage Business Select™ tier is designed to provide additional benefits to companies with a spend of $250,000 or more within a calendar year. This new tier unlocks added benefits, including:

Exclusive savings up to 4% on eligible fares.

Preferred Group 5 boarding for travelers.

Immediate access to using company earned miles for free travel and employee transfer.

AAdvantage Business™ members: Companies spending under $250,000 annually — program experience and benefits remain unchanged.

AAdvantage Business Select™ tier: Companies spending $250,000 or more annually — unlocks added benefits.

All AAdvantage Business™ members will continue to earn 1 AAdvantage® mile for every $1 spent on eligible travel, and their registered travelers can earn additional Loyalty Points, helping accelerate their path to status.

“The AAdvantage Business™ program was designed to meet small and medium-sized businesses where they are and provide them with a way to make business travel more seamless and valuable,” said Lucas Martin, American’s Senior Vice President of Sales. “Adding the AAdvantage Business Select™ tier allows us to further enhance the benefits that our most valuable members earn.”

American Airlines is always looking for ways to make travel more rewarding, and for companies enrolled in the AAdvantage Business™ program, it’s doing just that. https://www.aa.com/web/i18n/aadvantage-business/how-it-works.html

Southwest Adding A Fourth Fare Level To Boost Revenue

Southwest Airlines is adding a fourth fare category as part of changes designed to attract more business travelers and boost revenue.

The new fare level will be priced higher than Southwest’s cheapest tickets but below the airline’s top two fare categories. Southwest executives think this will fill the large price gap between the cheapest fares, called Wanna Get Away, and more-expensive tickets.

Consumers who buy the new fare level, called Wanna Get Away Plus, will get 33% more frequent-flyer points than the basic ticket, and they will be able to transfer the value of a ticket to another Southwest customer.

It’s the first major change in Southwest’s fare structure in 15 years. Airline officials said the changes announced Thursday will take effect in May or June.

Airlines frequently tinker with fares and fees to squeeze more revenue from passengers. In recent years, Delta, American and United have reacted to competition from discount airlines by rolling out new, bare-bones “basic economy” fares. The big-three airlines then nudge customers to pay more for regular economy seats that include the amenities that they have come to expect.

Southwest hinted at the changes back in December without giving details. The new fare level is among several moves, including a new credit-card deal with Chase Bank, that the Dallas-based airline hopes will collectively boost annual revenue by between $1 billion and $1.5 billion next year.

Executives declined to say how much more Wanna Get Away Plus seats will cost compared with cheaper seats, but it will vary by flight. Besides more frequent-flyer points and the ability to transfer credit, Plus buyers will be allowed to fly standby at no extra cost, even if there is a higher fare for the new flight.

Southwest will also add early-boarding privileges to the next priciest fare, called Anytime, to avoid cannibalizing sales of full-price tickets. Early boarding is a perk because Southwest does not assign seats, meaning that the last passengers to board a crowded flight wind up in middle seats.

Andrew Watterson, the airline’s chief commercial officer, said all the changes should be particularly appealing to business travelers. Southwest is trying to take more business travel away from Delta, American and United.

Southwest’s most expensive tickets, called Business Select, are fully refundable and include early boarding, a free drink, and the most frequent-flyer points. Anytime tickets are also refundable, while Wanna Get Away ones are not. All three include up to two checked bags for free – something other U.S. airlines don’t offer – and free ticket changes.

A majority of Southwest customers buy Wanna Get Away fares.

Uber Now Makes It Uber Easy To Expense Business Trips

Business travelers, feel free to flip over the new addition to the Uber suite of innovations.

Announced March 3, the ride-hailing app is unveiling its auto-expense feature, which allows travelers to seamlessly pair their accounts with expensing companies.

Now reimbursements are not only easy, they are delivered near effortlessly as you barely remember expensing your trip.

It’s as if an expense fairy soars throughout your respective Prius or Honda Accord’s backseat and waves its wand to get you your reimbursement without so much as a photocopied receipt.

The future is here and it is a boon for the lazy.

The report explains, offering how many different providers you can utilize: “With Auto-Expense you can link your Business Profile to your expense provider, like preferred partner Concur as well as Expensify, Certify, and Chrome River. Next time you ride on your Business Profile a copy of your receipt will be automatically sent for reimbursement.”

As Uber reminds, it launched its Business Profiles initiative last November, which simplified the process of splitting your personal and business accounts.

It basically took the guesswork out of expensing what was a trip to the pub with friends and a corporate lunch.

Now things are so much simpler, because you are just a couple taps on the smartphone away from foregoing the usual pain of printing a receipt.

The report also signaled just how popular Uber has been for corporate road warrior. According to Uber, nearly a million riders have taken advantage of the Business Profiles innovations.

The popularity is widespread as “over 200,000 companies” have employees using the Business Profiles feature.

Extrapolating those numbers, we predict a wave of success for auto-expense, which takes an already peaceful ride and makes it all the more enjoyable.

Source: http://shawnatravel.co/news/

Delta To Pay Business Fliers If It's Later Than American, United

A Delta Airlines passenger reads the flight departure screens at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

 

Photographer: Erik S. Lesser/Bloomberg

Basking in an on-time rate that beats rivals, Delta Air Lines Inc. promises to pay up if it can’t get road warriors to their destinations more reliably than American and United.

Delta is pitching a new program to its corporate clients that would award travel credits to those accounts if the carrier falls behind its two biggest rivals in on-time arrival and flight completion rates.

The initiative is novel in an industry where airfare discounts and flight selection -- not reliability -- typically win corporate travel buyers. It’s also a move by the airline to capitalize on operational successes to woo customers by convincing them that Delta’s punctuality will save them time and money.

“We’ve been focused on relentless operational success, because any carrier could replicate anything we do, whether it be seats or food or Sky Clubs, but they can’t replicate our performance,” said Bob Somers, vice present of global sales, in an interview.

For a long time, no one wanted to. In 2010, two years after merging with Northwest Airlines, Delta was 15th in on-time arrivals among 18 U.S. airlines, according to U.S. Department of Transportation data.

Delta jumped 10 spots in 2011 and now is in third place -- ahead of American Airlines Group Inc., United Continental Holdings and Southwest Airlines Co. and behind only the non-global carriers Hawaiian, a unit of Hawaiian Holdings Inc., and Alaska. The government defines flights as on time if they’re within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival.

Delta’s mainline flights were on-schedule 83.7 percent of the time in the 12 months through December, the Transportation Department data show. They don’t include flights by carriers’ regional affiliates, such as SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines.

Direct Challenge

If American and United beat Delta’s on-time and completion rates for a year, Delta would award travel credits of $1,000 to $250,000 to businesses with a contract. Those who suffer the most delays and cancellations get the biggest payouts.

There are enough caveats, however, that it’s unlikely Delta will have to pony up, said Barry Rogers, a corporate travel adviser in Eugene, Oregon, with TCG Consulting.

By measuring on-time or cancellation rates over a full year, it can’t be held accountable for short-term hiccups. The offer also excludes international flights, the regional affiliates, which have spottier reliability records, and industry leaders Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines. Delta also must trail both American and United - not one or the other - and United has been mostly stuck in the bottom half of U.S. carriers in recent years.

A few airlines have given a reliability guarantee “lip service,” Rogers said, but no one else has moved forward. Neither American nor United offer such a program, representatives for the companies said.

Big companies have many considerations to weigh when making corporate travel decisions, and discounts on airfare are huge motivators said Brad Seitz, a corporate travel consultant with Topaz International. Some businesses can command half off pricey last-minute fares. Still, Delta’s on-time guarantee is generating some buzz, he said.

“Now they’re saying, ’Does this mean anything or is it just a marketing ploy?’ ” Seitz said.

By Michael Sasso, www.bloomberg.com

Travelore News: Smithsonian To Open 1st Wing On Innovation, Business History

In this photo taken June 16, 2015, a photograph of Raoul Cortez, a community centered media pioneer, is displayed at the American Enterprise exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. A wide range of innovations from Eli Whitney’s cotton gin to the early Google servers will help tell the story of American business history for the first time at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History will open its new innovation wing on July 1. It will galleries featuring U.S. inventions, money and hands-on activities. A major exhibition about “American Enterprise” will trace the interaction of capitalism and democracy since the mid-1700s. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A wide range of innovations from Eli Whitney's cotton gin and Thomas Edison's light bulb to the early Google servers and Apple's iPhone have been brought together to tell a broad story of American business history for the first time at the Smithsonian Institution.

On July 1, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will open its new innovation wing, with galleries featuring U.S. inventions, money and hands-on activities and even food demonstrations. A major exhibition about "American Enterprise" will trace the interaction of capitalism and democracy since the mid-1700s, including conflicting views from some founding fathers. The centerpiece artifact in the new 45,000-square-foot (4,180-square-meter) space is the studio of home video game inventor Ralph Baer.

The newly renovated $63 million innovation wing is the first piece of a six-year overhaul of the museum's entire west wing. Construction began in late 2012 and is set to continue into 2018 on other floors.

The museum raised $43 million from the private sector and $20 million from Congress to fund the new innovation wing. Next, work will shift to a new section devoted to democracy and the peopling of America slated to open in 2017, followed by a section on American culture in 2018.

The overhaul is part of a reinvention of the Smithsonian's American history museum, said Museum Director John Gray. A 2002 blue-ribbon commission took a critical look at its less-than-inclusive presentation, questioning why the museum didn't explore capitalism or other under-represented subjects and the nation's diversity.

"History museums are not passive places but places that make it essential to understand and grow our country," Gray said during a preview of the new innovation wing. "Here visitors will learn how business has affected the nation's history as well as their own lives. ... 'American Enterprise' shows how the United States has moved from being a small, dependent nation to being one of the world's most vibrant and trend-setting economies."

It's rare in the museum's history to have such a broad range of objects together in one exhibit. In the past, the museum separated exhibits by topic and collection. Now agriculture, technology, manufacturing, retail and finance have been pulled into a more comprehensive story. In planning, curators argued the various economic sectors are interlocked and should be presented that way.

"It was definitely moving from that old way of doing exhibitions that are very narrow and deep to a much broader kind of inclusive approach," said curator Peter Liebhold, chairman of the division of work and industry. "It'll be interesting to see what people think."

With a chronological layout, the exhibit looks back at the nation's merchant era from the 1700s and early 1800s, followed by the corporate era and industrial revolution through the 1930s. Next came the consumer era and a production boom after World War II and most recently the global era since the 1980s.

Entrepreneurs from each period — banker J.P. Morgan, Barbie doll creator Ruth Handler, cosmetics maker Estee Lauder and Apple founder Steve Jobs, to name a few — are highlighted on a biography wall with some of their stories and creations. Another timeline traces the history of advertising.

"We show the stories here of people taking risks, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing," said guest curator Kathleen Franz, an associate professor at American University. "You can't separate American history from business history because business was there from the beginning, and it's what builds the nation."

An interactive gallery asks visitors to make choices in building successful businesses, including a simulation of a farmer's critical decisions.

Major donors included M&Ms maker Mars Inc., SC Johnson, Intel, Monsanto Co. and the History Channel. Many of them are represented in the exhibit. A weekly food program will feature the history of chocolate making. But corporate donors did not dictate the exhibit content or fund specific pieces, Liebhold said. Curators did consult with supporters, businesses, academics, nonprofits and labor groups for ideas.

"The Smithsonian has a pretty firm line in the sand about no donor influence," Liebhold said, "and nobody pressured us on this exhibition."

___

National Museum of American History: http://americanhistory.si.edu/

Travelore Tips: One Hidden Secret To Getting Cheaper Business Class Flights To Europe

With the U.S. dollar surging against the euro, international business class travel is now more affordable for Americans than it has been in years. This year, the euro fell below 1.10 against the dollar for the first time since 2003. Although a U.S. flight out might carry a hefty fee, there is a trick to making business class trips to Europe more affordable.

The secret is to base your trips out of Europe.

By deploying a strategy that travel professionals call “offshore originations”, savvy international travelers from the U.S. can take advantage of lower business class fares with relaxed penalties by starting a pattern of round-trip flights that originate in Europe, instead of in the United States. This tactic saves money in the long run because business class fares between, for example, Rome and Los Angeles are currently more than 50 percent less expensive compared to business class fares with the same airline originating in Los Angeles.

Here’s how it works: first, travelers arrange a one-way “positioning trip” using money or miles from their home city to Europe. Then, they purchase round trip business class travel from Europe to their home city. After the initial positioning trip, travelers will have a spare return flight to Europe that will be ready to use for their next trip overseas. This can take some advanced planning, but with a little research or the help of travel intelligence companies, the savings on your next international business class flight can be substantial.

For example, at the time of writing on 15th May, United Airlines showed business class fares originating from Los Angeles (LAX) and going to Rome (RCA) starting at $4,619 for round-trip business class travel between July 10 and July 24. Now look at the drastic price difference for the same trip, but originating out of Rome’s RCA to Los Angeles. Business class fares on United between Rome and Los Angeles start at just $2,067 for round trip travel on the exact same dates. That’s a savings of more than 50 percent!

As an added bonus, business class tickets starting in Europe also have more relaxed cancellation and change policies compared to flights originating in the U.S. For example, the higher $4,619 round trip fare from Los Angeles to Rome carries United Airlines’ most restrictive cancellation penalty. This particular round trip United flight – like many other international United Airlines flights originating from the U.S. – is non-refundable and carries a $450 penalty for any changes.

The lower $2,067 round trip business class fare originating in Rome, on the other hand, is refundable after a €400 ($447.62) penalty, and changes incur a €240 ($268.57) fee – which is just a slight inconvenience considering the tremendous cost savings found on the flight to begin with. So no matter when you decide to venture out on your next trip to Europe, you will have your ticket ready at a substantially lower price than what everyone else is paying for the same ticket.

As you can see, significant savings can be achieved by deftly positioning the originating country of your flight, but this tactic can be tricky. Several travel companies now offer research and insights into this offsite origination strategy to leverage these lower fares for their customers. If you decide to go the DIY route, it is important to test out several different airlines – perhaps even at different times – for the ultimate cost savings.

While it can take some flexibility and a little planning to achieve the maximum value on your next international trip for premium cabin ticket purchases, the cost savings that is possible is tremendous. It’s all about capitalizing on the right fare at the right time – and from the right city.

Images: Shutterstock

Contributed by Lars Condor,  Managing Director of Passport Premiere.  A Luxury Travel Blog

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