Back in December I posted about American Express Platinum cardholders receiving Silver status with Virgin Atlantic. And that the online signup appeared to work successfully for anyone, Platinum cardholder or not. It was good both for opening a new account or for upgrading the status on an existing account. The offer appears valid through March 31. It seems there is also an offer of Silver status with Virgin Atlantic which is co-branded with American Express, but not clearly tied to any specific Amex card. What’s more, new members receive 2000 miles to start plus an additional 2500 miles if you credit a Virgin flight to your new account by August 31 and pay for the ticket with an American Express. I’m not a Virgin Atlantic regular, but their program is great for crediting Avis rentals.…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for February 2008.
Is SeatGuru on the Decline?
For years I’ve recommended checking SeatGuru when making airline reservations. There really are better and worse seats on most aircraft, and SeatGuru always seemed to be ‘in the know’ and their advice was generally spot on. But more and more I’m noticing that their recommendations are flawed. Either the information is outdated, or I just disagree with it. And when it’s outdated, submitting feedback doesn’t seem to get it corrected. Take, for example, Asiana’s 747s. There’s no indication on the website that Asiana offers both an old-style first and business class, and a refitted version. (The refitted 747 is handling most of the New York-JFK – Seoul flying these days.) All they show is the passenger and combi old-style. My personal pet peeve, though, is that SeatGuru says there are power ports onboard the old…
Free Goldpoints
Feb
09
2008
Goldpoints can no longer be earned after March 31. And if you signed up for your Goldpoints account through Radisson Hotels, your account was transferred to their separate (and continuing) Goldpoints Plus program. But it’s still possible to earn points in the old program for about two months (which won’t transfer to Goldpoints Plus, but can be redeemed for various things like food at TGI Friday’s). You can bring your Goldpoints account number with you to TGI Friday’s and get 2008 free Goldpoints by printing out a coupon. Copy the following URL into your web browser and replace the bolded text with your information: http://tgif.rsys1.net/servlet/campaignrespondent?_ID_=tgif.111&name=YOUR_FIRST_NAME%20YOUR_LAST_NAME& e mail=YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS Meanwhile, once the program ends, you still have plenty of time to redeem the points you’ve accumulated. Meanwhile, NotiFlyer has details on a Goldpoints Plus (the Radisson program)…
Time for a Nakation?
I get several pitches a day from various PR hacks looking to place a story for a cleint. Most of the time I ingore them. Occasionally I ridicule them. But once in a while I simply reproduce a portion of their email verbatim. The latest travel buzzword to appear in our lexicon comes from the 50,000 members of the American Association for Nude Recreation (www.aanr.com) and the word is: Nakation. AANR defines a Nakation (pronounced like vacation) as: v. to take a clothing optional vacation, esp. away from home for pleasure and recreation. n. the part of your vacation you’ll brag to friends about. Heck, with airlines charging for extra checked luggage, it makes good fiscal sense to take a Nakation. This type of pleasure trip also eliminates the potential hassle of lost luggage! This…
Personalizing Loyalty Program Membership Cards
Randy Petersen has the details on a new trend (after all, one is a data point but two is a trend…) in personalized loyalty program membership cards. Priority Club is offering to let members put the account numbers of their other programs on the back of their membership card (link requires account login). This is brilliant. Some members will like to be able to just carry a single card with all their info. And Priority Club gets their card a position of priority in members’ wallets. Great for branding identity. Marketer’s dream to have a member whip out their Priority Club card whenever they need to enter their Hilton or Marriott membership number! Of course, if they’re smart they’ll also build a database of which members belong to which other programs, and cross-market appropriately. Starwood…
Choosing Frequent Flyer Programs to Belong To
Tim Winship offers his advice on how to choose which frequent flyer programs to belong to. On the whole it boils down to: choose the program of the airline with the most service at your home airport. Not terrible, but there are much better answers. Winship thinks you should pick a program and stick with it: Since it doesn’t cost anything to enroll in a frequent flyer program, the temptation is to sign up for them all, in the interest of being ever-ready to earn miles for any and all flights. The problem with that approach is that you will find yourself spread too thin. The most-requested frequent flyer award is the free round-trip ticket within the continental U.S., offered in most programs for 25,000 miles. That’s 25,000 miles in one program. Banking hundreds of…
Sports Book Pays Off
I thought this was just free publicity at no cost to Silverjet. But the Giants won! Of course, standard practice for sports promotions is to buy insurance against the outcome which forces a payout. I don’t know whether Silverjet did this (should have asked their PR-flak). But it may not cost them anything, and whoever purchased Silverjet tickets within the promo period may have a free trip to look forward to!
The Fastest Way to Become a Millionaire…
… is still to ‘start off with a billion dollars and invest in an airline.’ From the annals of really stupid startup airline ideas, PlaneBuzz shakes its head at the application to the Department of Transportation for the launch of Family Airlines (website down as I write this). A Las Vegas-based carrier a la defunct-National Airlines, operating 747s domestically. And they’re touting a theoretically-impossible 539 coach seats on the main deck while maintaining 31-inch pitch. Oh, and 42 business class seats on the upper deck (United’s 747s have 26 business class seats on the upper deck, admittedly this is meant for long-haul international flights, but 42 seats won’t be comfy; the ancient Thai Airways 747s used to have 40 seats up there in business). The CEO of the airline tried to start it up about…
1000 Free Alitalia Miles
Feb
03
2008
Alitalia is offering 1000 free miles for taking a quiz. The questions aren’t hard, but they’re all in Italian. Flyertalk discussion is here.
International Cell Phones
I’m not the most technologically savvy guy in the world. Sure, I figured out how to tether my blackberry to my laptop for free wireless internet wherever I go. But that’s only because Google is my friend and I have the patience for trial and error until I get things right. But it takes me awhile to catch onto the simplest of things, sometimes. But I have figured out that reasonably-priced cell phone service requires pretty much three things: An unlocked phone. I’m with AT&T and since I’ve been with them for awhile (I’ve heard they require six months, but I’ve had their service for 18) I just sent them a customer service email and asked them for a ‘subsidy unlock code’ which they were happy to provide. An international sim card. There are several…
