News and notes from around the interweb:
- United is running an award sale for coach redemptions between the US and Europe. Save 25% if you book by June 28 for travel August 23 through March 31, excluding December 15 – January 8.
- Yesterday I wrote about Starwood’s 30% discount on purchased points through July 1, and mentioned that since Points.com processes the transactions you wouldn’t earn bonus points for paying with a Starwood credit card. That turns out to be wrong. Reader Ryan reports that the purchase posts as “STARWOOD BY POINTS POINTS.COM” rather than “Points.com” and is coded for double Starpoints.
- In fact, stack the 30% discount on purchased Starwood points with a bonus for transferring hotel points to British Airways Avios and you’re buying BA points at 1.45 cents apiece.
- I’ve finally realized, Air France doesn’t have four day strikes. They just have three day work weeks.
- India will allow foreign ownership of airlines — 49% without government review and up to 100% with approval. The US could learn something here. If we want more competition in the airline industry, we should allow foreign ownership of airlines operating in the U.S. Let Ryanair and Singapore Airlines compete against United, Delta, and American.
- American AAdvantage Cuba awards require roundtrip travel, maximum stay of 90 days, and must be booked by phone
- Via Airline Weekly these are the 10 busiest airports in Asia by number of seats scheduled in the third quarter:
You should devote an entire post to that news out of India, Gary. If historically anti-competitive India can open up its airline market, so can the USA.
So why all the hoops to jump through in order to redeem miles for Cuba flights? Are they just trying to really discourage redemptions and push for cash fares instead?
I totally agree that we should open up air traffic to any safe airlines in the world but we still do not want to allow foreign ownership of airlines based in the USA. We need resources controlled by Americans in the event of war.
@DaninMCI let’s think about that for a moment.
1. The Civil Air Reserve Fleet program is corporate welfare, airlines take money from the program every year without war
2. The defense department doesn’t think they need the entire civilian fleet that’s in the country now as part of US defenses
3. Why would majority ownership of an airline outside the US affect this? Are you afraid we’ll be going to war against Singapore, and wouldn’t be able to access their commercial planes?