Via Wandering Aramean, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin America have announced a frequent flyer tie-in. You can now earn miles in Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club when flying Virgin America, or in Virgin America’s Elevate when flying Virgin Atlantic. But the earn rates are really bad. Virgin’s Flying Club earning is as follows: Main Cabin* – 50% of miles flown Main Cabin Refundable* – 100% of miles flown Main Cabin Select Instant Upgrade* – 100% of miles flown Main Cabin Select* – 100% of miles flown First Class* – 150% of miles flown Only main cabin refundable and main cabin select offer 100% mileage earning. Lower fares earn 50% of mileage flown. Not that you’d want to, but crediting Virgin Atlantic flights to Virgin America’s Elevate program offers pathetic earn rates. The cheapest fares only earn at…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for August 2010.
Free Night Every 3 Stays at Aloft and Element
Registration is required. Every three stays through September 30 earns a free night valid December 19. On the one hand, Starwood’s limiting the offer to two brands annoys somewhat, but presumably there will be a separate offer coming chain-wide shortly. And the earning period for these is fairly short. But it’s nice to see Starwood giving away free nights, and not just free weekend nights. Maybe they’ll learn from Hyatt yet! (Hat tip TM Travel World.)
20% Bonus on American Express Points Transferred to Delta
Delta Skymiles is offering a 20% bonus on points transferred from American Express Membership Rewards through September 30. (Registration required.) The bonus, though, isn’t expected right away: Bonus miles will be posted 4 to 6 weeks following the end of the promotion. The offer is not a good reason to transfer American Express points into Delta Skymiles. But if you’re going to make such a transfer anyway (eg to top off towards an award you know is available) then you might as well get the bonus…
United “TWARE” Deal: 40% off to Sydney and Melbourne Between October 1 and November 30
United just announced a Twitter deal to Australia, 40% off (for real) to Australia in October and November. These deals usually don’t last long, just a couple of hours, although at times continuing to enter the promotion code will continue to work (at times even for a couple of days!) long after the deal ‘ends’ on the landing page for the offer. In this case, the promo code is TWRAU. These fares do earn miles, but are not ugpradable with United 1K Systemwide vouchers. Fares aren’t as low as a month ago when United made a similar 40% off offer, but that’s a function of the calendar — October and November are more expensive months to fly to Sydney than August/September.
All Nippon and Asiana Long Haul First Class Award Availability
I’m stuck flying nothing but domestically for the next couple of months, I have an India trip coming up (my first time in India!) but I’ve been still itching to at least book something internationally. So I did some research and put together a first class award to Asia, something I do at least once a year. It’s still about six months off, but I booked it anyway just to satisfy my wanderlust. Remember that planning a vacation is what brings the most happiness. And I’m pretty happy with what I came up with, flying All Nippon, Singapore, and Thai. I thought I’d share some of the comprehensive availability searching that I did yesterday, in case it’s useful to any of y’all in planning your own first class awards. In all cases I searched beginning…
Hyatt Credit Card Still Coming Soon
In February, Chase announced that they’d be bringing a new Hyatt co-branded card to market. And since then we’ve heard… nothing. Chase execs that I’ve pressed have clammed up, ‘we’re not allowed to talk about it.’ I surmised tha there might be trouble in paradise on the way to making the card a reality. But Hyatt now says that the card is on track to launch “in a month or two.” No word yet on benefits.
Announcing the Frequent Traveler Awards — the Answer to Which Program is the Best, as Voted on By Real Frequent Travelers
After 21 years, the Freddie Awards were retired. And that was sad news for those of us who follow loyalty programs closely. They were real awards voted on by large numbers of real travelers, focusing on what’s being done right by frequent flyer and frequent guest programs. These were awards programs wanted to win, and really did influence the thinking of program executives towards how to better deliver value for their members. Moreover, there really does have to be a way — beyond just reading this blog — of answering the question, which program is the best? Fortunately there’s going to be a new award stepping precisely into this space, the press release has gone out, so this is now public, the new Frequent Traveler Awards are coming. Voting will begin next month and the…
Why Your Choice of Frequent Flyer Program Needs to Match Your Award Goals
Continental’s generous routing rules are one reason why I’m not all that happy about the pending Continental-United merger. Wandering Aramean writes about his booking from the US via Europe and Asia to Australia. US Airways permits this, Aeroplan often won’t (though booking via Asia is perfectly doable). United on the other hand requires US-to-Australia awards take a much more direct routing, eg San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Vancouver to Sydney or to Auckland and on to Australia. (There are a couple of other permissable routings, such as via Hawaii and New Zealand, but those aren’t generlaly useful.) Continental offers one stopover and an open jaw, whereas both US Airways and United will allow only one or the other. But more importantly Continental doesn’t really have much in the way of routing rules. Like US Airways…
Avoiding Delta Telephone Booking Fees When Ticketing Partner Awards
TM Travel World explains how to avoid telephone ticketing fees with Delta when booking partner awards. Most partners cannot be booked online, and if you ticket over the phone they charge a fee. But Troy points out that on the web (and only on the web, not by phone) Delta will permit you to hold an award. So hold whatever segments of your trip are avsilable online. That creates a reservation. Then have an agent update the reservation over the phone with the additional flight segments you need. You can refresh your screen and the reservation right in front of you will show up with the new segments. Once they’re there, instead of having the agent book the ticket, just purchase the ticket online.. no telephone booking fee. Sneaky, eh?
Everything I Thought I Knew About Complaining Was Wrong
I’ve always thought that the best way to complain to a travel provider was to be concise, stick to the facts, leave out extraneous details and minor annoyances. And if possible, ask clearly for what respoinse you believe is warranted. Often on Flyertalk, on Tripadvisor, and elsewhere you’ll see long rants about the taxi ride to the airport as part of a complaint to the airline. Those are just beside the point, they make it harder to get through the letter andundersand the point. And usually the complaints are being read by customer service center agents who aren’t equipped to decipher complex arguments. You want to make it as simple as possible for the person reading your complaint to digest it, put it into the appropriate category, and act. And yet… I read this complaint…
