Yesterday afternoon I got a tip from reader Abdou that Etihad flights were now bookable as awards with American AAdvantage miles. I meant to blog it right away, but looks like both Online Travel Review and One Mile at a Time beat me to the punch. While first and business class upgrade space (R and X inventory, respectively) are published through Sabre, and thus also searchable using the KVS tool and Expertflyer, the only way to search for award seats that I’m aware of is signing up for an Etihad Guest account and then using their website to search space. All reports so far are that American AAdvantage has access to the same award inventory that Etihad Guest members do. And that award availability is, so far, quite excellent. Like four first class award seats…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for October 2011.
Reminder: Live Chat Tomorrow Night with the Head of Southwest Rapid Rewards
As noted last month, Jonathan Clarkson, Director of the Rapid Rewards program, will talk live online with frequent flyers at 9pm Eastern. Here’s the event page. You can also pre-submit a question if you’d like. Here’s an idea of some of the questions that folks are asking. Here’s the question I blogged last week. I have to give Clarkson a lot of credit coming out and speaking with members online. There’s been much handwringing about the program, and certainly most engaged frequent flyers think that recent changes are anything but positive. It’s not just the fact that drink coupon expirations are now enforced. Instead, it’s all about their new fare-based rather than segment-based frequent flyer program. Me, I think it all goes back to their change in 2007 deciding that they could change the terms…
American AAdvantage Complimentary Upgrade Promotion on Selected Regional Routes
AAdvantage Geek reports that American is now offering complimentary upgrades to all elites on certain regional carrier flights. American remains the only US carrier which charges its bottom and mid-tier elite members for upgrades. American’s 100,000-mile flyers get unlimited complimentary upgrades. Other elites earn 500 mile upgrade certificates based on their flying, receiving 2000 miles worth of upgrades for each 10,000 miles flown. That used to be the standard in the industry, all other carriers have switched to offering all elites upgrades without burning these certificates. American, though, continues to sell these upgrade certificates to its Gold and Platinum members who want to upgrade beyond the complimentary certificates that they earn. So it’s interesting news that they’re running a complimentary upgrade promotion on select routes. [F]rom October 18 through December 15, 2011, AAdvantage Platinum and…
American Airlines Promos on Japan Airlines: Double Mileage Earning and Reduced Award Redemption Prices
Via DestinationDavid and JALPak on Milepoint come several mileage offers related to American Airlines’ joint venture with Japan Airlines. 50% off mileage redemption, San Francisco – Tokyo Haneda, for travel between November 1, 2011 and February 29, 2012. That makes makes business class roundtrip 50,000 miles and coach roundtrip 30,000. The same offer on Vancouver – Tokyo Narita Double miles on American codeshare flights operated by Japan Airlines and booked into a high fare class (K fare or higher) for travel between November 1, 2011 and February 29, 2012. Registration required. All of these are of limited usefulness, yet still interesting for what they signify. Winter is very much off-season for travel between the US and Japan. And the reduced mileage offers, while great for folks in or near San Francisco or Vancouver are appealing,…
Changes to British Airways Elite Levels and Qualification
Next month British Airways is expected to announce some pretty brutal changes to its Executive Club program. They won’t tell us all yet what those changes will look like, but they’ve been dribbling out pieces of information. (They’ve told some people, for instance I’m told that the moderators of the British Airways forum on Flyertalk have been given the information but have signed non-disclosure agreements so they’re not telling publicly.) The latest bit of detail coming out is detailed by Miles from Blighty, related to elite levels. BA is introducing a new bottom-tier to the program, Bronze, which gets you seat assignments seven days in advance of travel, business class check-in, and a 25% mileage bonus on flights. They’re also no longer resetting tier points when you hit a new level, but European members residing…
Why The Tax Code Encourages American Airlines to Award Bonus Miles for Checking Bags in Boston
AAdvantage Geek points out that through November 22, American is offering its elite members 500 bonus miles for checking a bag in Boston. Of course, elites get free checked bags, so they’re encouraging customers to do something that’s free. So Wandering Aramean suggests, [T]here doesn’t really seem to be a need to care about what you’re checking. I figure just grab a FedEx box, put a bag tag on it and collect your 500 miles. No need to even collect the box at the other end I find this move by American interesting, though not at all surprising. They’re testing whether they can incentivize folks to check bags, not because it generates revenue but because it’ll simplify the boarding process. Airlines have been charging for checked bags, so no one wants to check bags. Not…
TripAlertz Got Slammed, Learned Their Lesson, and is Changing Their Rules
On Thursday I wrote about TripAlertz, a hotel package deal site that was paying way too much for e-mail addresses. Most referral deals require that the person being referred actually buy something before the website will reward the referrer. Not TripAlertz. They were paying for every email address that signed up, and the signup process was really easy, all it took was an email address and a password — not even a name. And they were paying the referrer $10 per email address. Surely that couldn’t last. And it didn’t. Already they’ve dropped their referral fee down to $1. What’s more they’ve changed the terms and conditions of the program and are applying the change retroactively — instead of having two years to redeem the referral cash, you now only have one year to redeem…
Free Points from Best Western
Via Milepoint, Best Western Gold Crown Rewards (which transfer to frequent flyer miles as well) will give you free points for liking them on Facebook and then spinning a wheel to determine your take. You’ll receive between 100 and 100,000 points, and then another 100 points if you send the deal to a friend on Facebook.
Was Hilton’s Lack of Award Availability for their Most Special Hotels Really Just an IT Glitch?
Last week it appeared that with the introduction of new ‘premium room awards’ (better rooms for more points), Hilton HHonors was discontinuing “standard” award rooms at properties which have only “special” room types like the Bora Bora Nui, Hilton Moorea, and Conrad Sanya. This mean spending as much as three times as many points for the same rooms, the very rooms at the very hotels which are the most aspirational — the things I save up points for. Hilton representatives even confirmed this in writing, then indicated that there might be as few as five standard award rooms at a given property, and are now dialing back and saying that there hasn’t been any change, that all hotels still have standard awards, and that the whole thing was an IT glitch tied to the rollout…
Why Flight Attendants Get Less Attractive Over Time
Prior to deregulation in 1978, the government told airlines what routes they could fly and what prices they could charge. They weren’t allowed to compete on the basis of price. In the two years leads up to deregulation, the Civil Aeronautics Board “experimented” with price competition. I vaguely recall Southwest becoming the largest liquor distributor in the state of Texas as a result — they were a purely intra-Texas airline and not subject to Federal regulation, their prices were not set by the Feds. But with these ‘experiments’ their prices could be matched and even undercut by competitors. So they began offering two tiers of pricing, discount fares and then full fares which were valid for the same seat but came with liquor. While the government could control pricing they couldn’t actually stop competition. That’s…
