View From the Wing

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9,999 Bonus Miles with Budget
Budget car rental is offering 9,999 Continental Onepass miles on rentals of five consecutive days or more through January 31, 2008. Reservations must be made at Continental's website at least 24 hours in advance with discount code (BCD code) U072506.
Flyertalk discussion is here, and note that some folks are finding a higher price than otherwise best available when renting under this offer.

25,000 Bonus Miles for 6 Car Rentals
Northwest's Drive Your Way to 25K promo offers 25,000 bonus miles after registering and completing
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.

Discounted Business Class Awards to Spain
For travel between January 1 and March 12, American AAdvantage is offering discounted redemption on Iberia, the best deals being business class from either Boston or Washington, DC to Madrid for 60,000 miles instead of the usual 90,000.
If only my plans were taking me to Spain in March instead of April!

Details of Alitalia's "New" Program (And How You Lose All Your Already-Accumulated Miles)
Alitalia has come out with details of its 'new' frequent flyer program. Really, it's just a tweak of the old one, but by ending that one and starting fresh they get to completely flush out their existing mileage liability and hose their customers. Welcome to Alitalia!
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.

Amex Plat Free Virgin Silver Status
American Express Platinum has a new benefit, Silver status with Virgin Atlantic. (Centurion gets Gold status, and Virgin is an American Express Membership Rewards transfer partner, so this relationship isn't suprising.)
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.

On Lufthansa's Newly Acquired Stake in JetBlue
Joe Sharkey suggests a motivation for Lufthansa's purchase of a stake in JetBlue: slots at New York-JFK in advance of Open Skies.
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.")

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.

The Chase Churn is Over
For years frequent flyers got mileage-rich signing up for the United Visa fee-free the first year, scoring the signup bonus, cancelling, and then signing up again. Chase, which issues the card, finally closed that opportunity.
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.

Korean Air Skypass Introduces Expiring Miles
Miles earned on or after July 1, 2008 will expire after five years.
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.

Hyatt Elite Status Double Credit Promo
Hyatt is offering double credits towards elite qualification on stays during the first three months of 2008. Registration required.

The Final Word on Amtrak to Choice Points Transfers
Randy Petersen puts the smack down and gets the straight story on Amtrak transfers to Choice Hotels.
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.
Amtrak twice made changes with no notice, then retracted some already-transferred points, but is putting those points back in accounts. They've also made the transfer option available again but just for the next two weeks, and next year you'll need to get their co-branded credit card to be able to make Choice hotels transfers (at the new, lower rate).
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.

View From the Wing

Go to the new location of this website... Now!

New Address for View from the Wing

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/

New Site, New Look, Even Better Information!

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...

9,999 Bonus Miles with Budget

25,000 Bonus Miles for 6 Car Rentals

Discounted Business Class Awards to Spain

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

Amex Plat Free Virgin Silver Status

On Lufthansa's Newly Acquired Stake in JetBlue

Slaying the StarNet Dragon

The Chase Churn is Over

Korean Air Skypass Introduces Expiring Miles

Hyatt Elite Status Double Credit Promo

The Final Word on Amtrak to Choice Points Transfers

View from the Wing can now be found at http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/.
(Please update your RSS feeds.)
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