Ghana withdrew Lufthansa’s right to offer daily service from Accra to Frankfurt (via Lagos) because Lufthansa refused to pay royalties to the Ghana state airline. That meant that, by treaty, they retained the right to twice weekly service, which they have chosen not to offer — viewing it as a money loser (most of the fixed costs without many seats to amortize them over). And then Ghana goes ballistic over Lufthansa’s “bad faith” decision to pull out of Accra! Ultimately the government was unsuccessful at blackmailing Lufthansa for US$4 million, refused to back down from its threats, and now has lost Lufthansa’s international service. Clearly the people of Ghana are not better off for the actions of its government. Sad, really.
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for July 2007.
A Variation on the Usual Myth: Buy Your Airline Tickets on Saturdays?
Consumerist says you should shop for airfare on Saturdays. Like the traditional story about Wednesday at midnight, the idea of a specific day of the week that you’ll get the lowest price is a myth.They do, at least, helpfully point readers to ITA Software, a powerful search tool — but only marginally useful for novices. The real usefulness of ITA Software comes into play when narrowing searching with their advanced route language. Folks who don’t want to go crazy learning it might be best advised to start their airfare searches with Kayak.
Le Meridien Khao Lak’s Presidential Oceanfront Villa
I’m recently back from Khao Lak, Thailand among other destinations in Asia. The trip was prompted by the Ugandan Schillings rate at the Le Meridien. My wife had three nights booked in the Presidential Oceanfront Villa and I had three nights booked in the Royal Suite. That satisfied the requirement that they’d only honor one reservation per person, and together we had six consecutive nights at the resort. The Presidential Villa wasn’t showing up for all six nights when we booked, so we had to settle for the smaller Royal Suite for half the stay when making our booking. As I saw pictures from others who had stayed in both rooms, I was actually getting disappointed. While the Royal Suite looked fabulous, the Presidential Oceanfront Villa was just breathtaking — how I’d hate to move!…
Senator Chuck Schumer Resigns…
… from the Senate and applies for a job in revenue management and route planning for Delta. (Okay, not really.) Online Travel Review notes, though, the business advice that he’s been dispensing to Delta in response to their pulling out of the Binghamton-New York and Binghamton-Atlanta markets.“Delta’s move is premature and poorly thought out. The New York City service had a solid start, and Delta needs to give it time to take root and let it prosper, while the Atlanta route has consistently carried a high volume of passengers.” And since Chuck Schumer has extensive experience running profitable businesses in general, and airlines in particular, Delta should of course heed his advice and seek to lure him away from the Senate with a lucrative offer. Or not.
USAirways Offers Buyup to Trial Elite Status
Jul
18
2007
USAirways and most other airlines have offered status matches — a way to pilfer the best customers of other airlines. Elite status with an airline usually locks a customer into flying that airline. They get upgrades, bonus miles, and other perks. How can they give that up, even to change to another airline? Airlines make it easier for customers to switch by advancing status to customers who already have it with a competitor — if I were an American Platinum member I could get Continental to give me Gold status right away so I’d still have elite benefits when I switched. (The definitive discussion of the subject is a Flyertalk thread I started in October, 2003 that’s still going strong.) Most US domestic airlines offer status matches of one kind or another. American has long…
Bonus Miles for Paying By Paypal
Jul
18
2007
Northwest is offering 500 bonus miles for booking a roundtrip on their website and paying with Paypal by September 30 for travel through the end of the year. (Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.)I do suppose that more payment methods are better, and this in essence gives customers the ability to pay via direct debit from a bank account in addition to a credit card, and they won’t need a Visa-branded debit card in order to do it. my hundh, though, is that the universe for this is rather small. Paypal is a great way for small shops to begin accepting credit cards without much hassle, and to give customers confidence in paying by credit card when the vendor is a relatively unknown. But for larger institutions? I’m not really sure I follow the…
LanPass 5000 point signup bonus
Jul
18
2007
LanChile’s LanPass program is offering a signup bonus of 5000 kilometers plus additional bonus points for booking trips on their website. Offer is valid through December 31, 2007 and is restricted to residents of Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Germany. (Hat tip to Free Frequent Flyer Miles.) I took advantage of a similar signup bonus last year and the 5000 points posted instantly. While I haven’t much used the program since, there are some really nice options in it. LanPass is a member of oneworld (a partner of American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, etc.) and there are a few values in their distance-based award chart. Pointrs transfers from Starwood to LanPass can be especially lucrative.
Amtrak Trying to Build Credit Card Momentum
In April Amtrak announced that a new Guest Rewards Mastercard would be introduced in the fall, and that the card would come with a standard 2500 bonus points at signup — but that folks who registered using promo code 42507 would get 5000 points instead.According to a new piece of email marketing from Amtrak Guest Rewards, they’ve upped the ante to 8000 points. registration for the promo (using promo code 42507, you’ll be required to log into your account first) still appears to work.The Amtrak Guest Rewards card is a good no fee card, earning free train trips and points are transferrable to Continental (at 1:1, so in some cases a better option than the costlier Chase Mastercard), Midwest Airlines, and Hilton.
A Little Thai Cooking
A couple weeks ago I took a cooking class in Thailand, and decided to make a couple of the recipes from the class last night. Tom Yam Goong (Traditional Thai sour and spicy prawn soup) Ingredients: Medium to large prawns Straw mushrooms Cilantro Cherry tomatoes Small chilis Lemongrass Kaffir lime leaves Galangal Roasted chili paste Lemon juice Fish sauce Chicken stock Sugar Based on my own preferences I replaced lemon juice with a squeezed lime and used brown sugar as my choice of sugar. My local Asian grocer didn’t have any kaffir lime leaves so I left them out. Boil chicken stock Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, roasted chili paste, sugar, mushrooms, chilis, mushrooms (if they aren’t pre-cooked) Add mushrooms (if pre-cooked), shrimp, cherry tomatoes Add lime juice and fish sauce Garnish with cilantro…
Coffee, Tea, or Cocaine?
Jared Blank reports that 20% of Air Tahiti Nui flight attendants have been suspended for drug trafficking. Information is limited, but it appears that like most things in French Polynesia narcotics are expensive. So there’s tremendous arbitrage opportunities buying cocaine, ecstacy, etc. in Los Angeles and carrying them to Papeete.
