Nicholas Kralev’s Washington Times covers travel blogs this week. Public relations departments of airlines can’t catch a break. Not only is their industry under constant scrutiny by the public and the traditional media, now they have bloggers to worry about. … Gary Leff, whose blog is View From the Wing, said the best way to get him to write about something is to understand his interests. “But also be ready for questions. A PR flak who doesn’t know his product isn’t likely to get very far – or might get made fun of,” he said. “Sending me an e-mail about a new credit card is going to be a good thing to do if the credit card is meaningfully better in some way than other existing cards.” … “Of course, influencing the airline or hotel…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for December 2008.
One Free Weekend Day a Month From Hertz
Via Frugal Travel Guy, Hertz is offering one free weekend rental day a month through March 31, no minimum days required. New York City, Hawaii, and Florida are excluded, and expect a few dollars in taxes. The coupon code is PC#127595.
The “Do Not Disturb” Sign Means… “Do Not Disturb”
When housekeeping sees a sign (or electronic light, at the case may be) on my door which says “Do Not Disturb” they should… (A) Knock on the door (B) Call to ask whether I want my room serviced (C) Not disturb me Answer: C That is all.
Online Shopping Portals Go Mainstream (i.e. The New York Times Notices EV Reward)
The New York Times carried a piece earlier in the week about loyalty programs’ online shopping malls. You click through a link on their websites to get to the stores you are going to shop at, and earn miles and points (or cashback, depending on the site) for the purchases you make. It’s like the mortgage refinancing commercial tagline, “It’s the biggest no-brainer in the history of earth.” The one useful bit in the article, of course, is to check EV Reward before making any online purchase. That site will tell you what miles, points, or cashback you can get for the purchase you’re about to make it and puts the link you need to click in order to get the ‘rebate’ right in front of you. Plus it will often show you coupon codes…
The Nuts and Bolts of United’s Partner Award Filtering
The author of the Washington Times piece (which I wrote about this morning) on United blocking its members from redeeming flights on partners that are otherwise offering award seats for redemption has posted some additional details on Flyertalk about how the process works. UA has a separate budget for paying partners for award seats and is very careful not to exceed it, because then it has to take money from somewhere else. Let’s take LH as an example. If the same number of award seats are redeemed by MP members on LH as are redeemed by M&M members on UA, no money exchanges hands. But if more MP members get seats on LH, then UA has to pay LH the balance, which is usually what happens. So UA has to estimate how much of its…
United’s Blocking of Partner Award Availability Won’t End Next Year Even As Award Mileage Prices Increase
The Washington Times carries another piece on United’s blocking its Mileage Plus members from redeeming for award seats offered by its Star Alliance partner carriers. Despite significant increases in the mileage cost of many awards beginning in the New Year, United will not be ending the practice. According to the article, they’re the only Star Alliance carrier which blocks award seats offered by other Star airlines, and they plan to continue to do this. United just wants its customers to understand why — they have to pay for award seats and they’re expensive, darnit! Of course, as I’ve written about in the past, United’s frequent flyer program is already the most (and at times only) profitable part of the company. That was true even before they began engaging in blocking of awards. That’s not to…
You Know it’s December When…
One Mile at a Time notes that on my IAD-SEA flight, which was an A319 with only eight F seats, four of us were on mileage runs! End of year means runs for status requalification. There have been plenty of alternative methods of acquiring status enter frequent flyer programs the past few years, most prominent being co-branded credit card spend. Delta has offered double qualifying miles for specific routes, for Rewards Network dining, and for Hilton stays. But I’m surprised not to have seen a repeat (or dpread to other programs) of US Airways’ ‘everything counts’ promotion from two years ago. It seemed like an interesting way to generate partner revenue while not cramming up the front cabin with mileage runners.
Delta Waiving Admin Fee on Mileage Transfers in December
Frugal Travel Guy says that Delta is waiving the processing fee on mileage transfers in December. You pay just the 1 cent a point to transfer miles between accounts, without the extra charge. Discounts are great, transferring 30,000 miles usually costs $330 but would cost $300 with this offer instead. Those for whom Delta is honoring the up to 150% bonus on partner transactions (the original terms of which included transferring miles) may have an outstanding opportunity here. I still don’t trust Delta enough to believe I won’t have to fight for my 150% partner bonus, so I’ll probably take a pass on this. I may have to fight for the points I transferred into Delta from Diners Club as it is. But if you registered for the partner bonus in time, before the offer…
$150 in Free ZipCar Credits
This has been posted on FatWallet and on Flyertalk, I’ve just verified that it works. ZipCar has $25 driving credits with promotion codes linked to their specific markets. Codes are entered on the Zipcar website and are valid for only 15 days. The great thing is that the codes are stackable — you can enter codes from each region, not just the region you are in, and you can successfully enter them all. So (6) codes yields $150 in driving credits. The codes are: DriveNowPHL DriveNowDC DriveNowATL DriveNowSEA DriveNowBOS9842 DriveNowPDX Update: It seems that Zipcar has pulled the bonus dollars out of my account, though no word from them at this point.
Credit Card for Foreign Purchases
Reader Sam points me to the Schwab Bank Visa Card which, according to its FAQ, doesn’t hit you with foreign transaction fees. There are other cards with the same feature, it’s the only redeeming aspect of Capital One for instance, but this card also gives you 2% cash back into a Schwab One brokerage account.
