Mr. Pickles posted the letter he received from American Express about upcoming June 15 changes to Hilton AXON awards, the discounted four-night awards offered to co-branded Hilton American Express cardholders. Starting June 15: Category 5 hotels go up from 125,000 to 130,000 points (normally 120,000 to 160,000). Category 6 hotels go up from 125,000 to 160,000 points (normally 120,000 to 200,000). Category 7 hotels go up from 145,000 to 190,000 points (normally 120,000 to 240,000). Also beginning June 15 these awards will be bookable for the new category 8, 9, and 10 hotels. Category 8 will cost 220,000 vs. 160,000 to 280,000. Category 9 will cost 260,000 vs. 200,000 to 320,000. Category 10 will cost 300,000 vs. 280,000 to 380,000. You can book category 5, 6, and 7 hotels at current rates before June 15.…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for April 2013.
Which Loyalty Programs are the Best? 3 Million Frequent Flyers Speak their Minds, Here are the Results!
This evening the 25th annual Freddie Awards ceremony was held at USA Today headquarters in Northern Virginia, with several hundred frequent flyer loyalty program executives in attendance. The Freddies have been called the Oscars of the loyalty industry, and are certainly the most significant award for frequent flyer and frequent guest programs. I’ve had the honor of managing the nominations and voting process for the past several years, and I was thrilled this year to see nearly three million people participate in the voting — nearly double last year, an increase driven in part by the introduction of a mobile-friendly voting platform. The Freddies are voted on by the members of these programs, representing their selection of programs that provide them with the greatest value. That’s sometimes frustrating for me, because the choices of 3…
Bits ‘n Pieces for April 25, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: US Airways is partially matching United’s move by increasing domestic change fees to $200. This match makes it more likely that American and Delta do as well, but there’s no hurry in a decision for any carrier. If Delta and American do not, and United and US Airways see any booking away effect, they could pull back. But if they don’t pull back, either Delta or American may follow suit — and if one does, the other is unlikely to remain the last carrier at a standard $150 in my view. Back in December I flagged Southwest’s plan to charge a fee on tickets not flown and not cancelled prior to flight. This new no show policy has been announced for purchases May 10 onward and travel beginning…
The Best Hand Pulled Chinese Noodles in New York (or Anywhere)
About 10 months back I wrote about some of my favorite food spots in Lower Manhattan. One of those was Lam Zhou Homemade Noodle. The link above is to the restaurant’s Yelp page, they don’t have a website. They don’t have metal utensils. Or air conditioning. Or a credit card machine. Or an A rating from the health department, for that matter. What they do have is the absolute best hand pulled noodles and delicious soup, in expensively. They don’t speak much if any English, you order by number off of the big sign on the wall with pricing and you pay at the end by cash (it seems like they could care less if you tip or not, and the man taking my money recently looked at me funny when I overpaid by about…
Does Amtrak Actually Lose Money on Acela Express ‘Big Time’?
Last month I wrote about a Brookings Institution proposal to save Amtrak by shedding some of its most unprofitable routes while using the profits from the Acela Express along the Northeast Corridor to subsidize some of the routes that almost make sense. What Brookings found is not surprising. There are only two routes that do better than break even — New York – DC and New York – Boston — and even those only make money on an operating basis, they don’t cover their capital costs. Brookings finds that the operating profits (if the federal government subsidizes capital expenses) would cover the top 26 Amtrak routes (which carry 80% of passengers). They recommend having affected states cover the losses of other routes if they want those to survive. I repeated their numbers that the Acela…
Air France KLM Flying Blue Raising Award Prices, Reducing Fuel Surcharges
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue program is increasing mileage costs for premium cabin awards and reducing fuel surcharges. Fuel surcharges are a convenient way for airlines to raise and lower prices quickly across an entire market without re-filing every single fare in that market — they save time and effort since they apply equally to all fares. Those charges also help airlines raise price on a bunch of discounted tickets, since these fees are on top of the base fare so discounts usually don’t apply to the surcharges. But for frequent flyers they are a pain because some airlines — most notably European and Asian frequent flyer programs, but also a handful of North American programs (Aeroplan on about half of its Star Alliance partners, American predominantly on British Airways, and Delta on several partners)…
Hang Up, Call Back (The Four Most Important Words in Travel, and Maybe Even Life)
I don’t think there can possibly be any better advice in travel than ‘hang up and call back’. Any time you don’t get the answer you’re looking for, try another agent. Most airlines are big companies, agents have varying levels of competence, and also varying levels of helpfulness. Just because an agent tells you that an award ticket isn’t available doesn’t mean that it isn’t available. I’ve frequently had agents tell me that nothing was available when they clearly hadn’t had time to even search yet. I would ask about multiple dates and they’d just reply that nothing was available the whole month when I know they couldn’t possibly have searched for that. If you aren’t going to search for award space yourself using tools like partner websites (Qantas and British Airways for oneworld awards,…
American’s New 2013 Elite Rewards Offer Easier, More Generous Bonuses Than in Past Years
I haven’t gotten my email from American about this, but Pizza in Motion is already all over it. American has launched a huge new promotion for elite members, their 2013 Elite Rewards which look far more lucrative than past versions of the program that they’ve run. Fly 40,000 miles, earn 40,000 points, or fly 45 segments and you get to pick from the following extra rewards. 10,000 miles (3) 500-mile upgrades 2 Admiral’s Club one-day lounge passes Free BAGS VIP luggage delivery 10% AA.com discount Fly 75,000 miles, earn 75,000 points, or fly 80 segments and you get to pick from the following extra rewards. 20,000 miles (1) Systemwide (“eVIP”) upgrade (5) 500-mile upgrades (4) Admiral’s Club one-day lounge passes (5) Single-segment wifi passes Fly 125,000 miles, earn 125,000 points, or fly 130 segments and…
Simple Math: Who is to Blame for Flight Delays?
Let’s take the 2012 FAA budget of $15.9 billion. Now let’s reduce that by sequestration ($637 million) and you get $15.3 billion. Adjust it for inflation, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI inflation calculator, and you have $14.3 billion in 2008 dollars. Which is still higher in real terms than the FAA’s 2008 budget. Air traffic control handled planes in 2008 with less money than the FAA has now, post-sequestration. What’s more, there were one million more flights in 2008 than there were in 2012. They used to do a whole lot more than they have to do today, with less money. A 4% cut to budget, even normalized across an entire year, does not have to wreak havoc on the traveling public unless the FAA chooses to make those cuts in the most…
Bits ‘n Pieces for April 23, 2013
News and Notes from Around the Interweb: Alaska Airlines is installing Recaro slimline seats in and adding seat power to its 737 fleet, and plans to introduce inflight entertainment that can be streamed inflight to wireless devices. Wendy Perrin publishes the story of a reader who funded their recent trip to Europe on points from credit card signups. What humbles me is that they pass along the story of having contacted me to do their award booking and I told them they could probably get what they were looking for pretty easily on their own, without paying me. And they did. Rick adds that before booking any travel he had contacted Gary Leff,Condé Nast Traveler‘s frequent-flier mileage-award specialist, who often helps readers with mileage conundrums and the intricacies of travel rewards programs. “In view of my…
