The Wall Street Journal‘s Scott McCartney offers more coverage of the Boeing 787 which he experienced as a passenger on the recent Star MegaDO. Give a bunch of airplane geeks and frequent travelers a new, innovative airplane and watch the excitement build. When United Airlines flew 200 travel enthusiasts and top-tier frequent fliers on its newest jet, the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner,” it was love at first flight. Except for some of the folks sitting back in the narrow seats of the coach cabin. …For passengers, the Dreamliner offers slightly higher humidity in the cabin. Because it is mostly made of composite materials that won’t corrode, more moisture in the air is OK. The cabin is pressured to a lower altitude than other jets — 6,000 feet above sea level instead of 8,000 feet. That should…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for November 2012.
No, Really, You SHOULDN’T Collect Miles and Points
A couple of days ago I offered an old-school Fisking of a Christopher Elliott piece where he suggested that frequent flyer miles are worthless, you should walk away from the programs, and even that “[a]irline loyalty programs as they currently exist should be banned and the accomplices who pushed points on an unsuspecting public should be arrested and put on trial.” It was a silly, over-the-top piece and frankly almost too easy to mock. But Elliott, writing for a mass audience highly unlikely to be paying close enough attention to frequent flyer programs to benefit properly from them, could have taken his basic arguments and written a much better and more useful piece. And I think I probably owe him the courtesy of responding not just to the piece he wrote, which was easily mocked,…
Bits ‘n Pieces for November 21, 2012
News and notes from around the interweb: JetBlue is offering triple points on all flights booked at JetBlue.com and after promotion registration for travel through the end of the year. One Mile at a Time says that Marriott Rewards will be changing the rules to acquire lifetime elite status in their program, details to be announced in January. So far we know only that the requirement for years in the program will be going away. Doesn’t affect me personally, but I’m always nervous when changes are announced to lifetime status programs. They won’t take lifetime status away from anyone that has already earned it. But folks could be very close to earning the status after years of loyalty and see the football pulled away from them at the last moment. Tread lightly, Marriott… Wandering Aramean…
The TSA Kills. Why People Die Because of Airport Security.
Wandering Aramean passes along an idea that I’ve been suggesting for years, that cumbersome security theatre actually kills — wasting time on security that doesn’t make us more secure makes flying less attractive than driving for short-haul destinations. But flying is safer. When you have to arrive at the airport earlier due to the vagaries of airport security and uncertainty in how long it will take, you may choose to drive short distances because the cost of an airline ticket is no longer worthwhile for the time saved. More driving means more traffic fatalities, deaths that would not happened had airport security not been so inefficient. Those are real costs on the table. Alex Tabarrok covers this issue as well. Matthew Yglesias adds that the TSA should have to estimate how many planes it thinks…
New 50,000 Mile First Year Fee Waived American Airlines Visa Offer
Key Link: Citi® Platinum Select®/AAdvantage® Visa Signature® Card Limited time offer: Earn 40,000 American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles after $3000 in purchases within the first 3 months of cardmembership Earn an additional 10,000 AAdvantage bonus miles after you spend $10,000 in purchases within 12 months of cardmembership In my best credit card offers page I’ve been listing a 50,000 point signup bonus for the American Airlines credit card, 50,000 bonus points after $2500 spend within 4 months. The problem is that there’s no landing page for the offer, it’s just an application and it makes no mention at all of what you’ll get for applying. Which makes plenty of people nervous. It’s not my link, it’s been passed around quite a bit, and apparently it’s an offer that Citi hasn’t intended to still be ‘out…
Citibank Puts Price Drop Protection Online: Get Refunded When Prices Drop After Purchase
Citibank has introduced ‘price rewind’ where you can register a Citibank-issued credit card and they’ll search for price drops on the items you purchase. When a price drops $25 or more you can apply for a refund of the difference in price. This is especially interesting to me because about a month ago I purchased something on Amazon for $185. Three weeks after my purchase the price dropped to $140. I thought I could get the difference credited to me, but I was wrong. Amazon at least used to offer a 30 day pricing guarantee. But multiple calls to Amazon at first yielded clueless agents who knew about no such policy, and other agents who confirmed that the policy is actually seven days. So I was out of luck and made no headway. American Express…
Hawaiian Airlines Jacks Up Redemption Prices for Virgin Atlantic Flights
Hawaiian Airlines has had one of its best redemption values gutted, though the program remains the only way to book award tickets on Virgin Atlantic without paying egregious fuel surcharges. Business class between the U.S. and U.K. was 100,000 miles roundtrip. Period. No regions, no fuss. Business class beyond the U.K. — to anywhere else Virgin flies — was 140,000 miles roundtrip. Now, with no notice whatsoever, Hawaiian has broken things up into more regions and increased the price of awards. Here is the new business class award chart. All good values end, it has always been that way. That’s why you jump on the great deals while they’re around, rather than waiting to use them at some point in the future. Of course there will be more great deals that come along. But to…
American Airlines Bankruptcy Update: No More Flying, Focus to Shift to American Way Magazine
From the Onion: “Our first love is and always has been our travel and lifestyle magazine—in fact, distributing American Way is the reason we first got into air travel back in 1930,” said former American Airlines CEO and current American Way editor-in-chief Thomas Horton. “Sadly, the publishing industry is changing, and we can no longer afford to use the seat-back pockets of a major international airline to maintain our print circulation. It’s simply not a cost effective way to run our magazine.”
Wall Street Journal Coverage for the Star MegaDO Boeing 787 Charter
The Wall Street Journal‘s Scott McCartney writes about the recently-completed Star MegaDO. Sadly I wasn’t able to go on the trip. The scheduled dates for the event made sense because that’s when United would most likely be able to make the new Boeing 787 available for a group of frequent flyers to charter, mere days after its entry into commercial service. And the dates for the event also coincided with when we would be able to get on United CEO Jeff Smisek’s schedule. Securing the best plane and the head of the airline certainly trumped my availability. So while I helped to put the trip together, I couldn’t go on it. So I thoroughly am enjoying reading accounts of the event, including Scott’s. Question from frequent flier: Why can’t I use miles instead of cash…
There’s No Room Service? My First Ever Stay at a Hyatt Place
When I was early on in high school I watched the pilot episode of Beverly Hills: 90210. Back before it became just an evening teen soap drama, it started as a fish out of water story — Minnesota teens dropped into the fast-paced extravagant world of Beverly Hills (as portrayed through the lens of Hollywood). I expect this to begin as something of a reverse-90210, I’ve written about how I believe that a hotel should offer 24 hour room service, or at least access to a fresh pot of coffee (with fresh milk, not a package that requires no refrigeration) 24 hours a day. So take what Mommy Points calls “Mr. Fancy Pants” and drop him in Minnesota, or a limited-service hotel property. The truth is that I’m incredibly economical in my hotel stays, I’ve…
