Nate Silver blogged yesterday at the New York Times about airfare, and he’s a smart guy who knows his regressions but he appears not to know very much about air travel. His post is titled, Which Airports Have the Most Unfair Airfares? but his methodology is seriously flawed. Almost as a throwaway he tosses out as fact that it’s best to shop for airfare on the weekends. He cites a paper that claims to show greater dispersion in airfares but “the same fare level on average.” And while it’s true that there’s less shopping for price insensitive business travel over the weekends, there are also fewer airfare sales, partly as a function of just having fewer scheduled uploads to the computer reservations. Prices change more quickly during the week, and more people are working during…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2011.
US Airways Announces More First Class Seats and Better Meals
@Cranky Flier has been live tweeting US Airways media day in Phoenix. The key takeaways, to me, are: They’re adding first class to regional aircraft with more than 70 seats. CRJ-700 and -900 and EMB-170 regional jets will have 9 first class seats and EMB-175s will have 8. Conversion starts Fall 2011 and they intend completion by January 2012. They’ll be improving snack baskets on 1.5 to 3.5 hour flights and meals on flights 3.5 hours or longer. They’re bringing back glassware. No more outsourced reservation call centers by the end 2011. They are working on real-time baggage reporting and online rebooking for passengers when there’s a weather waiver in place. In many cases this is “playing catchup” for sure but it’s also real improvements if they pull ’em off.
British Airways Visa 100,000 Mile Signup Bonus Link is Available and Confirmed
When the banner went up on the British Airways Executive Club website last night, I brought you the news of the return of the 100,000 mile signup bonus for a British Airways Visa from Chase. Now the offer is up on the British Airways Executive Club website with full details. Apply by May 6, 2011 and you’ll also receive our most generous enrollment offer of the year—up to 100,000 bonus BA Miles. You’ll earn 50,000 bonus BA Miles after your first purchase2 on the card and an additional 50,000 bonus BA Miles after spending $2,500 on your card within the first three months of activation. Since the offer is supposed to run through May 6, there’s not a hurry (though it could always be pulled early). Great deal, definitely look seriously at it and consider…
$259 US Airways Club Membership (With Waived Initiation Fee) May Last Only Until Thursday
Ben at One Mile at a Time blogged about US Airways reducing the price of their lounge membership to $259 for a year back on March 22. It was unclear at the time how long this offer would last, but was certainly a good price for a paid lounge membership since US Airways membership also gets you United and Continental lounge access, and they’re selling it less expensively than those other airlines are.. I’ve just gotten an email from US Airways advertising the price as a 3-day sale, April 5-7. So perhaps this price will go away after Thursday. Perhaps more importantly, the email says that the $50 initiation fee for new members is waived during this offer. Here’s the link from the email which just takes you to the enrollment page, but which does…
More Answers on the End of Capital One’s 100,000 “Match My Miles” Offer for the Venture Card
I’ve gotten a flurry of emails about my post this morning that the Capital One “Match My Miles” 110,000 point signup bonus is over. Let’s see if I can clarify. But I still see the offer on their home page. As of right now, the Capital One Venture Card website still shows Alec Baldwin talking about the offer. The site still says the offer is on. Word last night was that it would end at 8am Eastern. Webflyer broke the news this morning. Here is Capital One’s press release saying that it’s over. I suspect they just haven’t taken the offer down yet, and that if anyone applies while they’re still advertising the offer that they’ll manage to get in under the wire, or at least be able to push to get the deal honored.…
US Airways Buy and Share Miles Bonus Offers are Back
Through May 31, US Airways is offering a 75% bonus on sharing miles (transferring miles from one account to another). They’ll award the bonus on the first 50,000 miles transferred, so a maximum bonus of 37,500 miles, and they’re limiting this to one transaction per member. This allows you to combine miles in two different accounts belong to two different people, and effectively buy miles at about 1.4 cents apiece (for the bonus miles) in the process. The price is 1 cent per point transferred plus 7.5% tax and a $30 transaction fee. Meanwhile, Webflyer also says that through May 14 US Airways is offering a 50% discount on miles purchased by US Airways co-branded credit card holders, up to 50,000 miles. A 50% discount on purchase price equates to a 100% bonus on miles…
Capital One’s 100,000 Point Signup (“Match”) Offer is Over
I previously wrote about the Capital One 100,000 point matching bonus signup offer and then followed up with more information on eligibility for getting two cards. Capital One was willing to match points that you had in US airline frequent flyer accounts — up to 100,000 — as a signup bonus for getting a new Venture card (or small business Venture card), in addition to their usual 10,000 point signup offer. The catch was that they were ‘capping’ the offer at 1 billion miles. That sounds like a big number, but if each of the first ten thousand card applicants grabbed 100,000 miles apiece that would be it. And they were heavily promoting the card and offer with a television commercial featuring Alec Baldwin. They promised the offer would run through mid-May or when the…
Possible United/Continental Second Quarter Promotion? Each Roundtrip Earns Bonuses, up to 20,000 Bonus Miles for Three Roundtrips
Update: This does turn out to be targeted, I haven’t heard of any 1Ks that were able to register, perhaps some less-engaged Premier Executives have gotten an alternate offer as noted in the comments. I do like, at least, that folks are getting an error when they aren’t eligible — in the past United promotions would make it appear as though you had registered, you just don’t get the credit. And once you do register, of course, you can now check your pomotions page to see what you’re actually successfully registered for. A reader just forwarded me and email, which doesn’t mention this offer as targeted. The terms and conditions of the offer do say that it’s valid only for recipients of the mailing. But it’s a fairly detailed termss and conditions page, not just…
5000 Free Spirit Air Miles
Via Deals We Like, Spirit is giving away 5000 free miles to promote their bus tour (at which participants who show up will all get an additional 5000 miles). Though they want a zip code and a city which corresponds to one of their tour stops, the terms and conditions (.pdf) of the offer say it’s open to residents of the 50 U.S. states and Canada (oddly enough, who are 21 years of age or older.. presumably some legal requirements since there’s also a sweepstakes for more miles attached). The terms and conditions also say that you have to provide a valid home address, but they don’t ask for a home address, only a zip code. Most likely just an oversight in the terms and conditions but since this is Spirit I suppose I could…
Silent Award Devaluation at Priority Club?
Marty reports that several Priority Club hotels have gone up in redemption price over the past few weeks. I booked an award room at HI Rochester Airport, NY a few weeks ago and it was 10K points. Now it is 15K points. Also, I noticed that IC Monterey, CA is now 40K – use to be 30K Other changes that I’ve noticed: Huntsville, Ontario HIX 15K -> 25K Calgary (YYC) Airport HIX (45 HOPEWELL WAY ) 15K -> 25K Grove City, PA HIX 15K -> 25K Salt Lake City Airport East HIX 15K-25K I haven’t seen any communication from Priority Club about increasing the points cost of (some) hotels at all, and don’t have any sort of comprehensive list of changes. I’ve asked Priority Club for clarification, we’ll see if any is forthcoming.
