News and Notes from Around the Interweb:
- TJ on Miles & Points details his strategy to get $80 cash back purchasing internet domains for $14.95. An interesting find, and while it may even seem to be scalable (doing lots of domains at a profit) I predict that the folks paying out here will find it not economical for them to do so.
Shades of the easyCGI shopping portal debacle? Nonetheless some will find it worth playing with, and certainly interesting to watch play out.
- JonNYC at TravelingBetter.com notes that American has increased the window — from 12 hours to 24 hours — for making $75 same-day confirmed flight changes. That’s a huge improvement that makes changing travel easier, though I still wish the fee was waived for elites.
- Thousands of View from the Wing readers get their content via RSS feed, and thousands more by daily e-mail (enter your email address on the left hand panel of the screen to sign up). Last week the systems were moved over from Feedburner to Feedblitz, and I’ve had a few reports of folks not getting their emails. So this would be a great time to check — if you aren’t seeing the daily email, I would appreciate it if you would re-subscribe. And if you haven’t subscribed before, please do start now!
- Priority Club is no longer a partner of TopGuest. Folks can still earn 50 Hilton points each day for social media checkins at Doubletree. Priority Club was the first TopGuest partner, others have fallen away since the site launched in 2010. I’ve never fully understood the value proposition for these programs to pay for social media checkins this way, and perhaps many are deciding that there isn’t a compelling one after all.
re AA same day changes, the link goes to aa.com page saying:
“We continue to offer the same-day stand by option for an earlier or later domestic flight for select customers at no charge.”
Select customers include elites, so at least they are afforded same day standby at no charge. I’m pretty satisfied with that.
@jfhscott – yes same day STANDBY is free, while confirmed changes come at a cost. Confirmed changes are valuable not just for getting on the flight but also getting onto the upgrade list (since you first need to be confirmed on a flight for that)
Another reason I love United! For Premier Gold and above, their same day flight changes are free. Their same-day flight change window has also been 24 hours all along.
But for non-elites, American and United now have the same thing. 24 hours and $75 fee.
Priority club seems to have blindly gone into social media with Topguest but it most likely wasn’t profitable. I would suggest they go over and join shop kick it would be more accurate for them and less costly. Not as good for us but at least it would work long term.
I am very satisfied that AA still lets elites stand by for free.
I agree that the Topguest business model just doesn’t seem to make any sense and it looks like yet another failed social media business. It was easy in the beginning to get companies to sign on for any social media presence since they didn’t have anything and didn’t understand it. Now they have it figured out and are no longer willing to pay for what they are already doing inhouse.
I was excited until I realized it still has to be the same calendar day. But if you can do it the night before ( to snag an upgrade), I’d happily pay the $75 ( and I’m explat)
I’ve never once managed to stand by or confirm a change over the years
I am always told that the last number of seats are for sale at full fare only or too few left to confirm or stand by