The New York Times carried a piece this weekend called Class Struggle in the Sky where the author argued that in airworld, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The film Jerry Maguire did a much better job framing the issue, when Renee Zellweger’s character looks forward from the coach cabin and up to where Tom Cruise is sitting and tells her son, First class, that’s what’s wrong. It used to be a better meal, now it’s a better life. There’s no doubt that the man walking past me yesterday in the back, muttering to his family how great it would be if he had one of the bigger seats up front, shared this view. And that he was asked to use the lavatory “in his ticketed cabin” felt to him…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for July 2013.
600 United Miles for Taking One (Arduous!) Survey
I woke up to an email this morning from United offering 600 miles for joining ‘Opinion Miles Club’ and completing one survey. You give your name, email address, mileage number and gender. Then you go to your email to confirm. Then they want your date of birth, home address, whether you rent or own your home, your occupation, your education level, income, and race. They also want to know who you’re employed by and how much you make. After completing registration they had another screening survey for me to take before they’d let me take a survey for miles. They wanted to know if I’m gay or wear glasses, and what purchasing decisions I make at work. You’ll need to decide if that’s too much information, too invasive, and for that matter how honest you…
Get 500 Free Southwest Rapid Rewards Points
Dish Network will give you 12,500 Southwest Rapid Rewards points for signup. But you don’t have to sign up for Dish Network service to get some points. They will give you 500 points for not signing up as well. Rapid Rewards Promotion: Limited-time offer. 500 Rapid Rewards Points will be applied approximately 8-10 weeks from submission. Offer available once per valid Rapid Rewards account. 12,500 Rapid Rewards Points will be applied approximately 8-10 weeks from activation. New customer offer only. Strictly speaking of course the points are for giving them your junk mail e-mail account so they can market to you. (HT: The Points Traveler) You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to…
How Will I Be Able to Talk Miles and Points in 20 Minutes… TODAY?
This will be short because I have nothing unique to add to the conversation. I’m about to give a talk at Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit on travel, and I don’t really want to. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great group of people, and it’s a talk that I love — but with the news of the Asiana crash in San Francisco it’s a little bit difficult to focus on my usual pedantic concerns of points, miles, first class cabins. And yet I won’t be posting much on the subject of the crash because I don’t have special knowledge from being on the scene, or special expertise other than as an observer of travel about crash investigations. I’ve just been following twitter for my updates. And I know to discount much of what’s reported…
Covert Operations: Do Travel Providers Keep Tabs on Us?
The first question I picked out of yesterday’s request or requests comes from Holly. Do airlines and hotels keep notes on us? And if they do, is that information available to whomever on a flight, with a CS rep or upon check-in? Not that I’m paranoid or have anything to hide, but I’m just wondering if miles/points whore – nice customer – complainer is ever in the equation. No. And yes. Hotels and much better than airlines at individualizing their customer service and getting to know specific guests. And individual hotel properties are much better at this than hotel chains tend to be. But even airlines try to use metrics based on customer behavior to guide the way they interact with customers. The blunt tool for all of this, of course, is elite status. In…
Delta Already Rolled Out Their Revenue-Based Redemption (in 2008.. and Lied About What it Meant)
The big theme this year in the frequent flyer universe — at least for US airline loyalty programs — is which ones will be trying to make themselves more “revenue-based” and when? Airline frequent flyer programs — the single most successful marketing innovation in history, and profitable multi-billion dollar businesses in their own right even as the airline business has struggled — have convinced themselves they’ve been doing it wrong all these years. So trying to figure out how to ‘reward’ only those who ‘contribute the most revenue’ is in vogue. Even though frequent flyer programs aren’t supposed to be about ‘rewarding’ people, they’re supposed to be engines with which to drive incremental business. Many in the airline industry have difficulty with marginal analysis, however. Delta is expected to be the first to alter their…
How Obi Wan Kenobi Inspired Airline Executives to Lie
The median customer doesn’t keep up with changes to frequent flyer programs. They only really pay attention when it’s time to redeem their miles. They either have a good experience or a bad experience. Having a good experience does matter — customers who successfully redeem their miles become more engaged in the program than they were prior to the redemption. That was a bit of a surprise to the programs — when they first started it was common to give customers a mileage bonus when they cashed out their account. The last thing an airline wanted was a customer, previously locked into the airline because of their mileage balance, to get down to zero and become a free agent. But the 5000 mile bonus for getting down below that much became a thing of the…
Request for Requests
Most of the time what I write on a given day is really just ‘whatever pops into my head’ although sometimes the very best pieces are those prompted by reader questions. You’re always welcome to email me of course, but what I’d love is for you to share what’s on your mind here in the comments. What’s important to you in the world of travel? What’s the biggest thing right now? What would you love to understand better? What do you want to know? What do you think I could do a better job of covering for you? What would you like to see me write about? What’s on your mind? I won’t promise up front to cover everything, though I’ll read and ponder everything that’s written here in the comments. It may take me…
Will American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts Bookings at MGM Hotels Earn Credit From Hyatt Gold Passport?
Reader Jack reminds me that I promised details on whether American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts bookings at MGM’s M Life properties in Las Vegas would earn points and stay credit in the Hyatt Gold Passport program. Traditionally when making bookings through the Amex program (or through similar programs which confer additional benefits like late checkout, an upgrade upon availability, and breakfast) at a Hyatt property, Gold Passport confers credits. It’s an exception to the general approach that points and stay credits only accrue when booking through a chain directly. And in Las Vegas I was specifically interested in the point, because while there will be elite status matching between Hyatt Gold Passport and M Life beginning next month, Hyatt Diamond members won’t be getting free breakfast at MGM properties as breakfast isn’t a benefit…
Bits ‘n Pieces for July 4, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Earlier in the week I wrote about a blogger declining a pilot’s offer to join the mile high club. Now one accidentally joins? Free $45 on-demand car service credit. That’s more than a free ride for most trips, and may be as much as three free rides depending on distance. Turns out the promotion does indeed run through July 7 (at least as long as the $25 Amazon Local component doesn’t get pulled first). On the subject of car service discounts, Online Travel Review says Groundlink will give you 15% off with promo code BLOG15. Garuda Indonesia is slated to join Skyteam and now will be adding a first class product with ‘chef on board’ service. Should be an interesting option for redeeming Chase points transferred to Korean…
