Michael C. emailed me about changes to the CSA Czech Airlines OK Plus program, which I verified on Milepoint. I normally don’t cover minor European frequent flyer programs much, although there are occasionally areas of strong value in them, I’ve long written about bmi and even made occasionally mention of the Turkish program for easy Star Alliance Gold qualification and some sweet spots in their award chart. But most of my readers don’t have a keen interest, judging from the comments and the feedback by email that I’ve gotten. This is important, though, because it illustrates the draconian changes that can happen with little notice, and there’s more than a little schadenfreude. Each mile expires 24 months after being earned. All miles expire if you don’t take a Czech flight every 24 months. Business class…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for March 2012.
Why Do Rich White Guys Get a Special Line for Airport Security?
Michael Lind has a silly screed in Salon about elite security lines, beginning with the claim that “[s]ecurity checks were one of America’s most democratic places — until rich passengers got their own speedy lines.” (HT: Arthur N.) Now, the argument isn’t quite as bad as David Post’s, since the author recognizes that the security lines he’s lambasting aren’t even run by the government. But I think among the histrionics and juxtaposing of rich versus poor, it’s worth remembering: “The Poor” on the whole aren’t buying airline tickets and suffering through airport security in large numbers. Airport security itself is largely the plight of middle and upper-middle classes. “The Rich” – at least the really rich that class warriors like to heap scorn on – don’t go through airport security either, they’re more likely to…
My Love of Coach and My Foiled Quest to Buy on Board
For the first time in a long time, I was excited to fly coach. Now, there are two times of the week that as a general proposition, across US domestic airlines and across routes, are especially difficult to upgrade: the first bank of flights Monday morning, and the evening bank of flights on Thursday. Hard core road warriors hop on a plane Monday first thing, off to their work assignment fo rhte week, and they head back home on Thursdays. These aren’t the only tough times to upgrade domestically, of course. Friday evening is hard too, not every road warrior gets to come home on Thursday. And generally speaking if you want to upgrade, avoid 6am – 9am on Mondays, Tuesdays even to be extra safe, and avoid 5pm – 7:30pm at the end of…
1000 Free Virgin America Points
Now that Virgin America points can be used to travel internationally on Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia, I guess I’m paying more attention. Via Miles to Go, Virgin America is offering 1000 Elevate points for liking the Elevate Rewards Yearbook. You then need to scroll down to “put a page in the yearbook earn 1,000 Elevate points,” fill out their form (be sure your email address matches the one on file with your Elevate account) and that should generate a confirmation page. The offer runs through April 6.
Priority Club 2nd Quarter “Stay X, Earn Y” Offers
On Monday I wrote up a ton of offers from Priority Club, which Priority Club Insider was all over as usual, it’s always worth signing up for all of those as you can often (though not always) double and triple dip on Priority Club bonuses. The quarterly bonuses which usually come around, though, you have to pick one and only one offer and stick with it. The more challenging offers that requiring more head in bed time are more lucrative, you need to think ahead about your stay patterns and decide which one you’ll safely hit — you want the most lucrative you’ll earn without getting so challenging that you’ll miss it. And as usual, Priority Club Insider has the rundown on earning opportunity from April 1 through June 30: Top Deals for Points –…
Chase 50,000 Point Signup Bonus Offer Really Does Appear to Be Going Away
Link: 50,000 Point Signup Bonus for Chase Sapphire Preferred That Still Works. Yesterday I wrote that Chase had reduced the standard signup bonus for a new Sapphire Preferred card from 50,000 points after spending $3000 within 3 months to 40,000 points. But that this link still generates a 50,000 point offer (it also earns me a referral credit). There’s been much handwringing in the blogosphere and on frequent flyer forums over whether the 50,000 point offer is ‘really’ going away or not. Which somewhat misses the point, because for the general public it already has. Is this your last chance to get the card with a 50,000 point signup bonus? Put another way, if you wait are you walking away from 10,000 free points? There’s no guarantee that Chase won’t bring back 50,000 points again…
The Delta Rumors, on Moving to a Revenue-Based Frequent Flyer Program
A rumor originated this past weekend on Airliners.net about potential major changes in Delta Skymiles: moving from a mileage-based program to a revenue-based program. The Southwests and JetBlues of the world offer fixed earning based on revenue, with points spent as money to redeem for flights. They’re less generous than the mileage programs, and aspirational awards to the extent they’re offered under these sorts of schemes — premium cabin international offerings — become exorbitantly expensive. (Of course in many cases Skymiles awards are indeed exorbitantly expensive, although there are strategies to successfully make Delta’s Skypesos work for you.) Not a single person seems to like the idea in the discussion over at Milepoint. Goodness knows such a change would make my upcoming debate with The Points Guy on the value of Delta’s miles a slam…
Virgin America Introduces Points Redemption on Virgin Partners
Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic announced a frequent flyer tie-in in August 2010. Which I viewed as a great thing because it meant if I ever flew Virgin America I wouldn’t be ‘throwing away the miles’ since I could credit them to Virgin Atlantic. Currently I rack up a decent chunk of Virgin miles via one-day Avis rentals which earn 1000 miles. I don’t love the program by any stretch, but that’s still a value. Virgin America Elevate points, though, can now be redeemed on Virgin Atlantic and on Virgin Australia. Brett Snyder explains that it took so long to introduce redemptions across partners because of the custom reservation systems involved, they just couldn’t talk to each other in order to make the bookings. It’s a long time coming, there are some pluses and minuses,…
US Airways Rolling Out Inflight Wireless for Much of Their Domestic Fleet
US Airways has a plan to equip all their Airbus single-aisle planes and their Embraer jets larger than 50 seats with inflight wireless internet from GoGo by the end of 2013. Currently they only offer inflight connectivity on their Airbus A321s, a limited subset of the fleet indeed. They’re not going internationally with the widebody aircraft, and not announcing plans to upgrade the aging 737s (which are sadly what I’m on most!). But it’s a big step forward. When I started flying American Airlines with some regularity back in December, inflight wireless changed my life. Now, they don’t offer it on every flight, but often enough that I can feel the difference in my productivity. No longer do I get off the plane after flying cross country to a barrage of unanswered emails and frantic…
Everything You Read in the Media About Upgrades is Wrong
In the summer of 2004 I reviewed Joel Widzer’s Penny Pincher’s Guide to Luxury Travel and enjoyed it but found some of the advice a bit off and some of the stories to be impossible, due to factual errors — Widzer claimed that Hawaiian Airlines offered no first class on intra-Island flights, that he was regularly upgraded from business class to first class on Delta, and that it was worth paying Avis for their Preferred service (they don’t charge for it). He was an occasional columnist and every so often I’d link to his pieces, agree or disagree. And then in 2007 a notice went up on his website that he had died. Then the notice was taken down. But I haven’t seen anything written by Joel since then. So imagine my surprise to see…
