The Wandering Aramean put together a chart of the revenue, award, and upgrade fare buckets at the new United (i.e. post- Continental merger). Some of the changes are already in place, others are in progress, but his chart will be the new normal going forward. For the most part, it appears that the United fare buckets in economy stay the same, we get more business class fare buckets from Continental, and we migrate over to Continental’s fare buckets for upgrades and awards. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but seems right at first blush. Of course, along with the changes to elite qualifying and redeemable bonuses for higher-priced tickets which were announced recently. The change I’m most interested in is United publishing its domestic first class awards into the “I” fare bucket. This is important…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for October 2011.
American and Southwest Go to War With Award Wallet and Similar Mileage Tracking Websites
Scott McCartney ran a piece in today’s Wall Street Journal on moves by American Airlines and Southwest to shut down websites that help you manage your mileage balances. The two carriers have sent “cease and desist” letters in the past year to several websites that track travelers’ loyalty programs. Southwest argues the third-party sites threaten security of passenger information; American doesn’t want outsiders “scraping” data off its website. I use AwardWallet and would be very angry at American if the site were forced to no longer track my American miles. I’d genuinely be less interested in collecting American miles, since those points would be more cumbersome to track. A few points here, a few points there, I see my account balance update when I check all of my miles on one website at one time.…
Has Hilton HHonors Just Gutted Redemptions at their Best Properties?
Hilton has introduced several new features to the HHonors program recently, all at first blush sound great and some are even quite good. Cash and Points. Stretch your points farther, and you’re generally getting a higher value per point. Good on Hilton. I actually have an upcoming cash and points stay at two hotels in South Asia that represented remarkable value. I’m not all about the Cash and Points rather than traditional redemptions when available. As with Starwood, these awards represent real value. Premium Room Awards. One place where hotel chains can miss is with redemptions, you give them your room nights and earn your points and when it comes time to redeem you’re stuck in a base room. Intercontinental hotels won’t even officially honor elite upgrade benefits on award stays, which seems ludicrous and…
Free and Deeply Discounted Hotel Stays, TripAlertz Will Give You Way too Much Credit for Referring Your Friends
When I ran a contest last week to give away $200 in credit with SniqueAway, what happened was that they approached me and offered me a credit. But I thought it would work better to give it away to a reader. I’ve never been much for pursuing comps, which is probably rather silly, but there ya go. It’s fun to do the giveaways anyway. Sure, I put up my referral link because supposedly you need to be referred to SniqueAway to sign up, and somebody ought to get the referral credit if there is one, but though a couple hundred people signed up with the link I didn’t actually get anything from it (nor did I expect to) because referrers only get $25 per new member who actually buys something from the site. That makes…
SniqueAway $200 Credit Winner Announced!
This morning I drew the winner in the $200 giveaway contest for hotel discount site SniqueAway. Many giveaways that I’ve done have topped 1000 entries, this one was only in the 200s, presumably since you needed to actually register for SniqueAway. That just means those of you who did enter had a better chance to win, and the $200 goes to, thanks to Random.org… …Kristin. Thanks all for playing!
50% Off and Free Domestic Shipping on United Logo Items
The United Shop is running a 50% off sale on United-branded merchandise, since of course the old United logo is going away entirely. {Moment of Silence, then Cue Rhapsody in Blue} Now’s your chance to get that United-branded golf umbrella, 777 models, and of course apparel. Soon the tulip will be no more.
Exciting Details of the Oneworld Mega DO Launch!
Last night was the launch party for the Oneworld Mega DO, it was a pajama party at the Andaz West Hollywood. American Airlines is introducing pajamas and other upgraded amenities to their international first class to bring themselves a bit closer to par with their international competitors (I’m still betting that United has to match, but nothing yet….) and it was a great way to promote that with frequent flyers. Not to be outdone, Hyatt gave out robes… Details of the preliminary program were shared — the event begins with an optional European portion with a trip from New York to London January 23 – 25. Then the official launch is in Dallas on January 25, a Hyatt reception in the evening and then the day of the 26th an American Airlines program followed by…
Reader Question: Lufthansa’s First Class Terminal in Frankfurt as a Connecting Passenger
After sharing some of my e-mail back and forth with a reader about Citibank debit card mileage earning on Wednesday, something pretty obvious occurred to me. I get reader questions all the time, every day, and I’m sharing answers with individuals that others may find interesting or useful. And at the very least, even if they aren’t interesting or useful at the moment I publish them, The Google means that folks asking the very same question in the future will find the answers quite easily. If I blog them. So I might start sharing reader email questions and answers more regularly, towards that end here’s a question that came in and an answer I shot back from my blackberry while walking my dog today. R.F. asked: Hey, if I fly in First Class Newark-Frankfurt and…
Two Days Left to Win $200 SniqueAway Credit
Enter here. As of this writing fewer than 100 people have done so, which means your chances of winning are really good.
Free AAdvantage Gold Status After One Roundtrip
AAdvantage Geek points to an offer to sign up for American’s small business loyalty program, BusinessExtrAA. Promo code EARN10 gets you 2000 BusinessExtrAA points when registering your business with a New York or Illinois address and completing one roundtrip (with your BusinessExtrAA number included in the reservation) by January 31, 2012. BusinessExtrAA gives you small business program points in addition to miles, and anyone can input your BusinessExtrAA number into their reservation — they get the miles, you get the small business program points. And then once you’re signed up for the program, log in and register for promotion OCT11BONUS123 which I received by email yesterday — 200 points for registering, then 300 points for updating your contact information (also 500 more points for completing a roundtrip by November 15). Signing up for the program…
