It can be really hard to get seats together for flights during the holidays. Flights are full. More families are traveling together so more people are trying to sit together (compared to solo business travelers). And more and more airlines are holding back the number of seats they assign for ‘free’. For most passengers, your ticket doesn’t come with a ‘seat’. Obviously that isn’t literally true, since safety rules require all passengers to be seated. But there’s a limited number of seats on the seat map that airlines will let passengers reserve in advance unless the passenger: is paying the exorbitant full fare is an ‘elite’ frequent flyer doing 25,000 miles or more a year (usually) on the airline pays a fee for a ‘premium’ seat which sometimes just means an aisle or being closer…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for November 2013.
Bits ‘n Pieces for November 30, 2013
News and notes from around the interweb: Marriott is running a 30% off Cyber Monday sale this coming Monday, and has given me (2) $500 Marriott gift cards to give away to readers. Enter here, all you need to do is leave a comment. The Economist has a video explaining fuel dumping. Ihis journalist did reach out to me to talk about the phenomenon of dropping fuel surcharges out of international airfares in order to get lower prices, but it wasn’t a subject I was especially open to discussing. Early in the year I did write a post, though, explaining the basics of fuel dumping. The Singapore Airlines Cabin Crew Employment Application The stress of the holidays brings out the extreme narcissism of some travelers. And the public-spirited exhibitionism of others. Add in inflight wifi…
Even Scarier than the IRS: What to Do If Your Frequent Flyer Account Gets Audited
Most airline and hotel programs will let you use your points to let someone else travel. Some programs are restrictive, letting you only redeem for family and making you even prove the familial relationship. But certainly US programs are less restrictive than that. Still, they don’t want you selling awards. Airlines want to be the sole brokers in their own miles. And selling awards might mean someone that would otherwise have purchased a ticket with cash gets an award ticket instead, costing them revenue. Plus award sales increase the total portion of points redeemed, it reduces the program’s ‘breakage’ and raises costs. And whether for airline or hotel programs there’s only a limited inventory to go around. More points redemptions means it’s harder for the program to satisfy the demands of members. So points selling…
6 Things You Can Do to Enjoy Your Vacations More
The best advice comes down to: spend time planning vacations, take more trips, work while you’re gone, and experience new and unusual things. Planning vacations contributes more to your happiness than actually taking them. You may need to go on vacation to justify all of the planning time. You get all of your relaxation benefits on the trip itself, but don’t expect to be relaxed when you get back. We quickly snap back into the stress of daily life, sans any benefit from the vacation. Go in knowing you’ll enjoy yourself while you’re gone, but don’t set the bar for “needing a vacation” that you expect to be reset, relaxed, and in a different place with work upon your return. Being on vacation can actually be stressful. We put pressure on ourselves to enjoy, quickly,…
Do Your Christmas Shopping at DFW Airport and the Shipping is Free!
I don’t know how y’all feel, but I really like the Dallas Fort Worth airport. It’s generally clean, the international D terminal is especially bright, and I like the remodeled A gates. It’s just an impressive place, the airport grounds are larger than all of Manhattan. The American Express Centurion lounge there is the best airport lounge in the United States. There’s complimentary spa services, a good bar, and nice buffet. Dickey’s barbecue near gate C6 is pretty good, as far as airport barbecue goes — it’s better than the Salt Lick in the airport, and even better than the Salt Lick at the Austin airport. The Grand Hyatt DFW to terminal D is certainly the best hotel attached to an airport in the U.S. I also find the airport management to be fairly innovative…
W Hotel Beds & Bedding 50% Off
It’s a Black Friday sale so the discount code BLKW3 is only guaranteed to work today. You can get a plush top Queen with box spring for $689.50 and free shipping. I recommend that bed and adding a feather bed to go on top (as opposed to the pillow top mattress, since the featherbed can be changed out). They ran a 50% off sale in October that was limited to beds and bedding. This sale is actually valid site-wide. I purchased a W Hotels bed in March 2007 using a 40% off code, so back before the May 2010 price increase on beds. My cost then was about what’s being offered with this sale. I don’t recall ever seeing lower pricing than this, though. W Hotel Store purchases post as double points earning when paying…
Enter Here to Win Marriott Gift Cards — I’m Giving Away $1000
Marriott is running a Cyber Monday sale, 30% off of bookings made this Monday at ~ 350 participating Marriott hotels in North America for travel between December 20 and March 31. The deal will be available here. I’m running a giveaway of (2) $500 Marriott gift cards. To be clear, while I am not receiving anything for running this giveaway, the gift cards are provided by Marriott because they want to draw attention to their one-day sale. Check out participating hotels. Leave a comment on his post answering the question, “Which of these hotels are you most interested in staying at?” Enter by Noon Eastern on Sunday, December 1. I will draw two winners at random. As always, all determinations and judgments I make are final, I try to run these giveaways with the least…
Marriott 30% Off Cyber Monday Sale and Announcing a $1000 Blog Giveaway
Marriott is running a Cyber Monday sale, 30% off of bookings made this Monday at ~ 350 participating Marriott hotels in North America for travel between December 20 and March 31. The deal will be available here using promo code 16C starting 12:01am Eastern and will run for 24 hours. These are advance purchase, non-refundable rates. Note that the offer link is live, showing which hotels are participating but the rates will not be bookable until Monday. I’m told that this promotion began out of New York and grew, and that participating hotels had to make meaningful inventory available in order to participate. So while the rate won’t be available on every date during the promotion period, it’s supposed to offer good availability. Of course, even if available it’s 30% off the then-prevailing rate so…
American AAdvantage Data Disruptions – Two Weeks Later and We’re Not Yet Fully Back
Two weeks ago the American Airlines AAdvantage program began a systems transition that’s about 5 years overdue – a project code named Ventana that’s a major database upgrade. Several pieces of the original project were implemented over the past few years, such as counting flight miles rather than total program miles for lifetime elite status and improved speed for posting of miles, even as the overall system upgrade was put on hold. Presumably the merger with US Airways and concomitant impending need for systems improvements led to the backend upgrade being prioritized. Traveling Better has some more historical context on this. The system was taken down over a weekend, with AAdvantage account information largely unavailable, and it took a bit longer than anticipated to come fully back online — as major IT projects usually do.…
$500 Per Person to Europe Plus Hotel Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals
Air Berlin is offering a deal on 2 travelers roundtrip to Europe from $999 total. (HT: Loyalty Traveler This deal applies to Air Berlin’s flights from New York, Chicago, Miami and Fort Myers to Berlin and Dusseldorf, purchase by December 1 for travel between January 1 and March 31. And you can add on Air Berlin flights quite reasonably to the rest of Europe. Be sure to purchase from Air Berlin using a credit card with no foreign currency transaction fees. While Air Berlin is a member of oneworld, American AAdvantage members will take note that their discount fares only earn 25% of flown mileage. And with this deal two passengers do have to traevl together. Hotel Discounts, Too Deals We Like covers the Hotel Tonight app $99 Black Friday sale with room discounts in…
