Posted by gleff at 2:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2007

New URL, Look and Feel

View from the Wing can now be found at http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/.

(Please update your RSS feeds.)

Redirecting in a matter of seconds...

Posted by gleff at 4:16 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2007

9,999 Bonus Miles with Budget

Flyertalk discussion is here, and note that some folks are finding a higher price than otherwise best available when renting under this offer.

Posted by gleff at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

25,000 Bonus Miles for 6 Car Rentals

six (6) car rentals, for three (3) days or more per rental, of a mid-size or larger vehicle between December 10, 2007 and March 10, 2008with National Car Rental.

Flyertalk discussion is here.

Posted by gleff at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

Discounted Business Class Awards to Spain

If only my plans were taking me to Spain in March instead of April!

Posted by gleff at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

Details of Alitalia's "New" Program (And How You Lose All Your Already-Accumulated Miles)

As previously reported, the current program 'ends' December 31 -- that's the end date for accumulating miles to add to existing ones, which must be redeemed by June 30th or else they disappear into the ether. Alitalia will match your existing miles in the new program, however, if you take two Alitalia flight segments in the first six months of 2008. Partner flights don't count, so if you earned Alitalia miles on an Italy trip and you're in North America you pretty much have to go back to Italy if you want to extend your miles.

The new program is called the '2008 - 2010 edition' so they seem to be putting folks on clearer notice that they're going to pull the same trick again in a couple of years. At least they're more upfront about it this time, instead of burying the possibility deep in their terms and conditions. Their FAQ says they may end the program in 2010, but that they also may not.

There are now 3 elite levels (at 20,000 - 50,000 - 80,000 miles)instead of just two, and midtier status is required for lounge access (both Alitalia and Skyteam partner lounges).

One way awards (but for more than half the cost of a roundtrip) are introduced.

And Mileage accrual is now based on fare class, so the cheapest fares earn less than flown miles and full fare coach or business class earn up to 300% of flown miles with generous minimums.

All in all, it isn't really a "new" program .. Just more revenue-based and with a new top tier.

Posted by gleff at 7:45 AM | Comments (0)

Amex Plat Free Virgin Silver Status

Since the signup offer is online, it's unclear to me what kind of verification takes place that the person signing up is an actual cardholder. I imagine there'll be a file sent by Virgin to Amex of those who have signed up, and some matching process will likely occur in the future, but all this remains to be seen.

Silver status comes with 2 free upgrades each for the Heathrow and Gatwick Express, a mileage bonus on Virgin Atlantic flights, and Premium Economy checkin privileges when flying Virgin in coach. Not a ton, but better than a hole in the head.

Posted by gleff at 7:35 AM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2007

On Lufthansa's Newly Acquired Stake in JetBlue

It's not clear to me how partial ownership gives Lufthansa access to these slots, though. Lufthansa may well get a board seat or two, but they still have to act in the best interests of JetBlue shareholders writ large. And it's non-obvious how that means Lufthansa will be able to transfer or buy slots that they couldn't otherwise have come up with an arrangement for.

But then I might just be naive in the ways of international airline finance. Me, I'd never put $300 million into an airline even if I was an airline. (The old joke rings true, "What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Start out with a billion dollars and invest in an airline.")

Posted by gleff at 6:33 AM | Comments (0)

Slaying the StarNet Dragon

Last week I described United's system for denying awards on its partners, StarNet. Airline partners offer award seats, United won't book them, and its representatives say the award "isn't available."

I didn't manage to get United to book first class award seats between Bangkok and Europe. But Lufthansa seats were easier to secure. I knew the flights I wanted, the ANA award search tool showed them as available. And when the United outsourced customer service rep said she couldn't "see" the flights I gave her the flight numbers and she entered the request -- they came back confirmed.

The best hint, it seems, that United is 'filtering' an award for a given flight is that the rep won't just say "there aren't any award seats on that flight" or "all I have is coach on that flight." They'll sometimes say "I don't see that flight in the system." I had that happen one time with ANA's flight 1 between Tokyo and Washington-Dulles. (Like "flight 1" doesn't exist, after ANA has been flying it for over twenty years.)

So one limited data point is that when United reps "can't see" a flight, a manual request for the flight may just come back confirmed. That usually happens in a minute or two tops.

In the end, after battling the StarNet dragon for awhile, I have my two North America to South Asia first class award tickets via the Atlantic -- with two visits to the Lufthansa First Class Terminal at Frankfurt and a visit to the Thai Airways First Class Spa in Bangkok.

Posted by gleff at 6:04 AM | Comments (0)

The Chase Churn is Over

However, lesser known to the frequent flyer universe, other Chase cards could continue to be 'churned' -- the Priority Club, Marriott, British Airways, and Southwest Visas, for instance.

That appears to be no more. There are confirmed reports with the British Airways and Priority Club Visas that Chase is sending repeat cardmembers a letter saying that they won't be getting the signup bonus miles. I assume this extends to all Chase products, or at least to all Chase mileage products.

It's a sad day, indeed. Chase joins American Express at (quite reasonably) refusing to give out signup bonuses more than once, although the small quirk with Amex is that if you sign up for a more lucrative offer than in the past I've seen them give out the difference between the new and old offers as a signup bonus the second time.

Citibank's American Airlines credit card products can still be churned however. The personal and business Mastercards are quite churnable, and I assume that the American Express (issued by Citi and not Amex) and the Visa are as well. So that's several hundred thousand miles in potential bonuses a year, all with first year free offers.

The Bank of America products have always been churnable -- the USAirways Visa (soon to go away), the Alaska Visa, and the Hawaiian Visa are the ones that come to mind. Bank of America doesn't frequently offer fee-free years at signup, however.

I have seen reports that the USAirways Mastercard from Juniper Bank is churnable. Now that I'm past my first year (with the very lucrative first year bonuses) and well into my second fee-free year, I'll probably try it in the coming months myself -- if only to see if I can get another first year of 50% bonues on all spend, signup miles aside.

Posted by gleff at 5:23 AM | Comments (2)

December 15, 2007

Korean Air Skypass Introduces Expiring Miles

Previously, miles never expired.

The announcement claims that miles in the majority of international programs expire after 18 months or three years. What they don't say is that any activity in an account with most of those programs will extend the validity of those miles another 18 months or three years.

That doesn't seem to be the case with this new change to Skypass. Instead, they've gone the route of programs like Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles -- use 'em or lose 'em.

Posted by gleff at 8:08 PM | Comments (0)

Hyatt Elite Status Double Credit Promo

Posted by gleff at 5:55 AM | Comments (0)

The Final Word on Amtrak to Choice Points Transfers

I recently reported that Amtrak reduced the value of transfers to Choice Hotels with no notice and then removed the option altogether.

From NotiFlyer

[Members are] again be able to transfer points from Guest Rewards to their Choice Privileges account at a rate of 5,000 to 15,000 points, and transfers will be completed for members who were in the middle of a transfer when the closure occurred. According to Blakey, the exchange option will remain in effect through the end of 2007, at which time changes to the program will be instituted. As of Jan. 1, 2008, the Guest Rewards exchange program will only be available to elite members (Select and Select Plus) and members who hold an Amtrak co-branded MasterCard. Elite members will be able to transfer at a rate of 5,000 Guest Rewards points to 15,000 Choice Privileges points.

A few members have reported points being removed from their Choice Privileges accounts, points which had been transferred from Amtrak Guest Rewards. According to Blakey, the only members who have been impacted by these removals are those who opened more than one Amtrak Guest Rewards account, which violates the programs' terms and conditions. He told us that any points removed from Choice Privileges accounts will be returned back into the members' Guest Rewards account.

At least they're honoring redemptions already made, and coming clean on what they're planning.

It was too good a deal to last -- especially with a program that has such a bad reputation as Guest Rewards.

Posted by gleff at 5:43 AM | Comments (0)

Singapore's New First Class

Good luck getting an award seat, though. Singapore isn't an easy redemption in first class to begin with. Their premium product is near impossible. And it'll be awhile until there's a full A380 fleet as well.

Posted by gleff at 5:39 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2007

USAirways Adds Surcharge for USAirways.com Bookings

This seems inconsistent with USAirways' own policies

There is no booking fee for tickets purchased or redeemed on usairways.com.

[T]he $5 increase you’re seeing is essentially a fare increase to fares booked at usairways.com.”

Even booking through Expedia, Orbitz, or Travelocity is superior as you can access those sites via a cashback portal (eg FatWallet, but always check EvRewards for the best current offers) and receive a rebate that in many cases is larger than the booking fee those sites charge.

Posted by gleff at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2007

StarNet: United's Weapon of Mass Award Destruction

Its search capabilities are primitive (you often can find better availability searching segment-by-segment that you can telling the agent your origina and destination, simply because it doesn't search many possible connections).

But most vexxing for frequent flyers is that the system filters availability. That is, a partner airline may be offering a seat for award redemption -- but United's system will still tell you it's unavailable. The agent will usually blame the partner ("they aren't offering any seats") when that isn't true at all. Instead, United doesn't want to pay for the seat.

United is known to 'filter out' availability especially of Luftansa flights within Europe and Thai Airways premium class flights between Europe and Bangkok. But I never grasped just how extensive the filtering was on these routes until I started playing with an award from North American to Asia via the Atlantic (strange as it may seem, the distance is seven miles less for my destination and preferred routings than crossing the Atlantic.. availability supposedly better.. and offering a potentially better premium class experience).

Alas.

This morning I searched 53 dates in May and June using ANA's award booking tool and found 51 flights on which Thai Airways was offering not just one but two award seats in First Class from London-Heathrow to Bangkok.

When I called United, I was told that there were no flights available with two first class awards during this period of time.

Then I asked United to check Franfurt-Bangkok. This is a tougher route, with only 9 flights showing two first class award seats available during this time. So unsurprisingly, United won't book a single one.

Let's be perfectly clear about what is going on here. United's partners are offering award seats. United just won't book them.

When pressed, United might say 'different award inventory is made available to different partners' but even that is a slight of hand -- they're really saying 'different partners (ie, us - United) make different award inventory available to our members than other airlines make available to theirs.'

Lufthansa or Thai may well have inventory open in the "O" bucket (award first class). StarNet pretends it's not there.

Shame on United -- for refusing the offer seats your partners make available, and for claiming it's your partners' faults.

Posted by gleff at 7:22 AM | Comments (1)

December 8, 2007

Continental Inflight Currency Accepted on Northwest

It's confirmed by Northwest on a Flyertalk thread that the Northwest flight attendant manual is clear on this fact under amenity coupons (section 365.1.4 if feeling particularly confrontational about the subject).

A very minor issue, to be sure, but something I never knew for sure. Drink up!

Posted by gleff at 6:14 PM | Comments (1)

Airline Route Map Tool

It's interesting in its own right, to be sure. But for me it's a useful tool in coming up with award itineraries. Say, for instance, that I'm trying to book a premium class award with United miles and I'd like to include a transpacific segment on Signapore airlines. I may already know that Singapore flies from LAX to Tokyo, Tapei, and Singapore. And from San Francisco to Seoul and Hong Kong. But I could easily have forgotten the option of flying Vancouver to Seoul.

Here's the download link for the zipped file, a screen shot of the program, and the Flyertalk thread discussing it.

Admittedly for the true airline geeks among us.

Posted by gleff at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

Amtrak Transfers to Choice Hotels Over

This just piles on the history of customer unfriendly business practices for this program (limiting the number of points transferred out of the program in a year with no notice, dropping their partnership with United with no notice). The Carlson folks run the program like a true clown operation.

Posted by gleff at 12:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 4, 2007

Presidential Primary Loyalty Points

They haven't published a redemption chart, and BaltimoreSun.com cites the campaign's online organizer as saying the points system is primarily a way for supporters to measure they impact they are having on the campaign.

But really, this just formalizes a process that all campaigns have -- what you give is a primary determinant of what you get. They could easily partner with the custom rewards engines at American Express or Diners Club, where enough points could be redeemed for a dream experience... Like Secretary of Commerce in an Obama Administration.

Posted by gleff at 8:03 AM | Comments (0)

Priority Club Redemption Sale

However, through December 15th, Priority Club is offering these 'Any Hotel, Anywhere' redemptions at half off. You can get better than 4/5th of a cent per point (double the value). This actually makes for a pretty good deal.

First, because you're paying for your room instead of redeeming points. And that means whatever hotel you're staying at should be earning you points.

Second, because Priority Club is iffy at best at offering elite benefits on award stays. So if you are spending 'any hotel anywhere' cards at a Priority Club property, you may experience better elite treatment than if you had booked an award.

Finally, since the reduction in value of Priority Club points (for instance, an Intercontinental property redemption went from 30,000 to 40,000 points per night), Priority Club points aren't frequently worth more than 4/5ths of a cent anyway. In fact, the breakeven point between the top-level hotel gift card redemption and an Intercontinental room night redemption is a room rate of $332 -- leaving points earning and flexibility aside.

For this reason I'm going to be snagging a bunch of these gift cards!

Posted by gleff at 7:47 AM | Comments (1)

December 3, 2007

Spirit Air Figures Out Marketing

(Hat tip to Rick Seaney.)

Posted by gleff at 7:01 PM | Comments (0)

Reader Wants to Know Whether to Use the British Airways Transfer Promos

One of your latest posts, about the Starwood to BA bonus, made me wonder whether you think it would be worth moving the miles from Starwood to BA even if I have no current plans to use an award. I generally park miles in Starwood, but a 30% bonus seems tempting, so I was thinking about moving over enough for a business class ticket. I'm not sure how I'd use them, but I live in Chicago, so I wouldn't think redemption options for BA would be that hard.

From Chicago to most of Europe a business class award will run you 120,000 British Airways miles. Normally you'd need 100,000 Starwood points to get there (transferred over the course of two days you'd get 125,000 British Airways miles.). With this promo it takes 80,000 transferred over two days, and you wind up with 130,000 BA miles.

Without any promo you can transfer 65,000 Starwood points to Cathay Pacific and get enough AsiaMiles for a business class ticket to most of Europe on Cathay's partner... British Airways. (And that's after the October devaluation of AsiaMiles -- it used to take only 50,000 Starwood points for a British Airways transatlantic business class ticket departing the U.S. East Coast.)

So, no, I wouldn't speculatively transfer Starwood points out to BA and park them there.

There are times this promo would be very useful, but BA's award chart is generally pricey enough for premiunm

Posted by gleff at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)